How You Play Gran Turismo 7 Depends on Your Age, says Kazunori Yamauchi

[ScottPuss20]

I might be 22 but I haven't done a lot of online racing in GT7. There are a few reasons for this: I'm not that interested, the payouts are poor, the racing can be boring and I compete in an Assetto Corsa Competizione league anyway. However I have done many of the online time trails because the payout is very handsome for not a lot of effort (relatively speaking). I guess I'm more like the old crowd when it comes to playing this game because I've spent most of my time offline.

 

[TomBrady]

I’m 30 and I play exclusively offline because I’m an introvert. I only play online when it’s required for trophies.

Well with GT Sport and GT7 you can continue being 100% introverted. There's no voice chat even in lobbies, and you can easily never use the text chat either. But I get what you're saying as far as multiplayer in general. I can be that way as well in other games but just because random people are so often weird

 

[ShiftingGears]

If GT7 was a better game it would change how I play it and how much I play it

Can't have the boss admitting that the game quality factors into how people play though

 

[B80]

I was enjoying online, my first foray into racing online a couple of months after gt7 was released. When they seemed to tinker znd near enough removed the penalties it spoilt it for me and haven't returned to online for a good 5 months or so. Just became insufferable for me.

 

[DaneTX]

Glad to see from the comments, I'm not the only old fart playing.

 

[Grimm6Jack]

No brainer for the majority really. As you grow older, you lose not only the free time you have to play (due to work or/and family) but as you grow past 30, you also start to lose that "competitive fire" in you to play a game just to get good at it against other people. Your focus simply isn't the same.
Oh, and one more thing that should be noted and quite strangely I haven't found anyone mentioning here... Money. Maybe back in the teen/kid days you had your relatives buy you the games, but as an adult, it comes out of your pocket, so you really have to choose wisely which games you are going to dedicate your free time to.

But I personally (I'm 28) never liked online in any game ever. The only exception to this was Counter-Strike (from 1.6 to GO), which I've played between 2002 and 2020, and mostly because I've made a lot of good friendships from it, and the game was really addictive for some reason. Dropped it already because of three reasons, time constrains, the game no longer being fun and the people I hanged out with leaving.

Sports games? Those are done for me, since a long time ago. Same goes for yearly shooters like COD, Battlefield and arcade car games like Need for Speed. Unless it's a remake of Need For Speed: Most Wanted 2005. I'd play that **** again for sure.

Since about 2016 or so, my main focus has been single player games, and mostly games with an actual narrative to them. movie-esque games, like God of War, Horizon, The Witcher, Last of Us, etc.
Gran Turismo has been the only exception so far because I am a guy who loves car culture and I don't think any other game displays it better than GT. Not to mention the Campaign, which is the closest thing you can get to a story-telling car game while having actual decent physics and not the arcadey kid physics.
Only times I play online is to get achievements (trophies) and nothing else. I'm a bit of a completionist.

 

[Imari]

As you grow older, you lose not only the free time you have to play (due to work or/and family) but as you grow past 30, you also start to lose that "competitive fire" in you to play a game just to get good at it against other people. Your focus simply isn't the same.

I'm not sure about that. I still enjoy competition. I just find that my willingness to put up with ******** in order to compete is highly reduced when I could be doing any number of other things that don't require me to grit my teeth in order to enjoy them.

I'll happily compete and practice for expertise in games with decent communities, but if people are gonna be toxic arseholes then I'll just go play something single player and have fun without compromises. With hundreds of free games sitting around unplayed in my Steam and Epic libraries there's really no reason to be forcing myself to endure a toxic community in order to play.

Oh, and one more thing that should be noted and quite strangely I haven't found anyone mentioning here... Money. Maybe back in the teen/kid days you had your relatives buy you the games, but as an adult, it comes out of your pocket, so you really have to choose wisely which games you are going to dedicate your free time to.

I've found this to be the opposite. As a kid I think I had four games on the PS1, and a pile of demo discs. As an adult, not only are there endless games being given away for free, but dropping $20 on a game isn't the massive investment that it was as a child or even as a teenager.

Yeah, as an adult I have to choose where my time is going but I do get to choose. I can dedicate myself to a few games, or I can do ten hours on a bunch of different games, or I can change my mind from week to week as I see fit. The level of freedom as an adult is much higher, where as a kid it was focus on a few games or don't play at all.

 

[brockie]

Gen X here and total opposite, always online - never offline. My wife always tells me to grow up so maybe the stats are right ha

 

[mynameis66]

@Grimm6Jack
`Back when I was a kid`this was the bad boy that was available to us.

My parents didnt have masses of disposable income,we weren`t poor but money was always tight so no console for me,we used to crowb round a friends house and play on his,apart from that we spent most of our time out on our push bikes or playing footie.
I did manage to buy a C64 when I started work,then onto the Mega Drive and finally the Playstation.My Playstation purchase was accidental,a second choice if you like.I really wanted a Sega Saturn and after trawling around the shops in my town they were all out of stock,so I was determined not to go home empty handed and bought myself a Playstation,despite knowing nothing about it.And the rest,as they say,is history.
I agree what you say about Gran Turismo and car culture,I chop between GT7 and Forza 7 so I like to think I have the best of both worlds,with a sprinkling of Ride 4,Motogp 22 and MGS5.👍

 

[DaneTX]

@Grimm6Jack
`Back when I was a kid`this was the bad boy that was available to us.
View attachment 1216036
My parents didnt have masses of disposable income,we weren`t poor but money was always tight so no console for me,we used to crowb round a friends house and play on his,apart from that we spent most of our time out on our push bikes or playing footie.
I did manage to buy a C64 when I started work,then onto the Mega Drive and finally the Playstation.My Playstation purchase was accidental,a second choice if you like.I really wanted a Sega Saturn and after trawling around the shops in my town they were all out of stock,so I was determined not to go home empty handed and bought myself a Playstation,despite knowing nothing about it.And the rest,as they say,is history.
I agree what you say about Gran Turismo and car culture,I chop between GT7 and Forza 7 so I like to think I have the best of both worlds,with a sprinkling of Ride 4,Motogp 22 and MGS5.👍

@Grimm6Jack
`Back when I was a kid`this was the bad boy that was available to us.
View attachment 1216036
My parents didnt have masses of disposable income,we weren`t poor but money was always tight so no console for me,we used to crowb round a friends house and play on his,apart from that we spent most of our time out on our push bikes or playing footie.
I did manage to buy a C64 when I started work,then onto the Mega Drive and finally the Playstation.My Playstation purchase was accidental,a second choice if you like.I really wanted a Sega Saturn and after trawling around the shops in my town they were all out of stock,so I was determined not to go home empty handed and bought myself a Playstation,despite knowing nothing about it.And the rest,as they say,is history.
I agree what you say about Gran Turismo and car culture,I chop between GT7 and Forza 7 so I like to think I have the best of both worlds,with a sprinkling of Ride 4,Motogp 22 and MGS5.👍

Wanted a Nintendo, parents got me this Atari. Wasn't too bad, arcades were still mostly Atari, so I got to play for free.

 

[JauntsB]

34 here and I think Kaz hit the nail on the head. Having played GT1 - GT5 I can see that the younger generation will just jump in and race as that is what I would have done...now I find myself getting lost in the customisation, tuning and photo modes to even go online, I even spent a good few hours reading the timeline..(now that is a cool feature). GT has always oozed car and music sophistication geeks right down to the core and its interface has always been so stylish and a cut above the rest in my opinion and that's what keeps on pulling me back as a older gamer as I have a newfound appreciation for it.

I did a few sport races and got rammed off the road..plus the smoothness of driving offline doesn't even come close to online....so left it at that.

 

[AngryKowski]

so Kaz gave for every group a little bit of content, according to the approach: a good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied 💩

 

[mynameis66]

Wanted a Nintendo, parents got me this Atari. Wasn't too bad, arcades were still mostly Atari, so I got to play for free.

Im 56 here.Asteroids and Defender were the popular ones in our arcades,to get your name on the high score table we used to flick it off at the electric socket and restart. Sega Hang On was pretty poor but it had the novelty of sitting on a motorcycle that you leaned in the corners.It didnt work for me.

 

[EceliN]

im 33 and played gt since the first one and im still dissapointed that this game isnt complete and lacks so much content older games have more

 

[OldandSlow]

These were my Call of Duty when I was younger:

 

[MasterGT]

Well, ask the Geezer Club in the Multiplayer thread. I’m 51 and can’t join the main play(I think it’s open to my age group on a certain day?). The 7 & 77 ages have more in Common or rather, can relate to one another. I want my time to be my time.

Come and enjoy the racing when you can.

 

[DaneTX]

Im 56 here.Asteroids and Defender were the popular ones in our arcades,to get your name on the high score table we used to flick it off at the electric socket and restart. Sega Hang On was pretty poor but it had the novelty of sitting on a motorcycle that you leaned in the corners.It didnt work for me.

That sounds about right. Defender was actually the first Atari game I bought a few years ago. Then wifey got me one of those newer pre-loaded Ataris, so didnt purchase too many more. I liked Frogger and Donkey Kong too.

 

[Tomdement1]

Have to assume a lot of data was collected that went into his comment so I must be an outlier. I'm 62 probably average 10 - 15 hours a week and I would guess 85% of that is on line. Usually the only time I'm offline is racing to collect quick $$$. I enjoy the weekly races and participate in a weekly league of over 60 (age) players who race 3 times a week in a well organized community.

 

[Dave A]

Im 56 here.Asteroids and Defender were the popular ones in our arcades,to get your name on the high score table we used to flick it off at the electric socket and restart. Sega Hang On was pretty poor but it had the novelty of sitting on a motorcycle that you leaned in the corners.It didnt work for me.

Now you're talking, I was never any good at Hang On either. Always liked the idea then felt like I'd wasted my spending money .

We had the original Megadrive when it came out, but the first computer I recall having was the Amstrad CPC 464 where you loaded games from a tape cassette. It had such gems as Fast Food and the original RType was on it IIRC.

I was in High School by the time games like Daytona USA hit the arcades.

 

[05XR8]

Yes, young people. Some of us are this old:

I can still hear the sound of that switch.

 

[mynameis66]

Now you're talking, I was never any good at Hang On either. Always liked the idea then felt like I'd wasted my spending money .

We had the original Megadrive when it came out, but the first computer I recall having was the Amstrad CPC 464 where you loaded games from a tape cassette. It had such gems as Fast Food and the original RType was on it IIRC.

I was in High School by the time games like Daytona USA hit the arcades.

The C64 was cassette loaded too,waiting for the game to load only to be greeted by a load error and having to start again.I remember games such as Dizzy,which absolutely did my head in with his endless bouncing,Turrican and Geoff Crammonds`Revs.This was an interesting game which,if I remember correctly,had 2 tracks,very basic but at the time was pretty good. 👍

 

[GT_Alex74]

A human thinking their anecdotal experience invalidates an entire statistical data set. I am shocked I tell you, shocked.

I'm going to shock you even more: there's much more to data analysis than just sniffing and reading raw figures. Even people who race almost exclusively online will have technically spent more time "offline" for the most part, yet most won't see that time as actual gameplay. It's absolutely critical to separate the technicality and the player's perception. People have massively farmed the same single player event on repeat just so they could access the content they needed for what's actually important to them, the online races. They don't enjoy that single player experience, but are forced into it if they want to enjoy the part they actually like because of bad game design. A track day car will spend 90+% of its running time below speed limits or idling, yet its owner still bought / built it with pushing it hard being the main goal. You can't just look at the stats and go like "oh, it's mostly driven below 100 kph, so this guy wants very soft suspension and a low power engine with great fuel economy".

People who actually buy the game for the offline experience either do the campaign in a burst of condensed time and then never touch it again, or they pick it up once in a blue moon and spend an hour on it tops. Kaz's comments proves they didn't separate the racing time VS other things / idle time, or actively analyzed player behaviours.

There'd be a lot more to write about that and also more in depth data to put into perspective but I don't have time to do the whole essay. In any case, the funniest part of this is PD's actions don't match their own analysis, because according to that, they should heavily reduce dev time and just throw out a title every two years max instead of doing the "game as a service" approach, and not have a half baked super linear solo campaign.

 

[Ande3200]

35 and at this point I play almost exclusively online (and exclusively Gr. 4.

I will say that for online mode, it's about progression, so changing up the tracks daily would be annoying because just as you're getting good at a track, you have to relearn another. I'd still like more options though, including a permanent Gr. 4 one.

Also, for extra data, what views does everyone use? I use helmet cam and I really hate that turning game info off means I don't have access to the radar =(

I have not played online a single time in gt7,
But i can see the appeal with it, just not for me i prefer play offline and just tune and upgrade cars and drive around in them, i would like a more in depth career mode like gt4 again, i do like challange sometime, but i don’t want to deal with other people, i just want the option to jump in from time to time, i still think gt7 is not yet a game i can play full time for lack career and some lack of cars and tracks but maybe we get there soon, its at least much better now than it was in march

 

[RouWa]

Only 14.2 % of the players have played a single race in Sport Mode and only 2.2 % have played 50 races. On forums it's usually 35 to 40 %, but even that is less than 50 %.

As an offline player I am really annoyed the game features seven online throphies (Sport Mode Debut, In-Depth Mastery + 5 x Going The Distance).

Did anyone of you played Sport Mode just to get the online trophies?

 

[Neris__]

Only 14.2 % of the players have played a single race in Sport Mode and only 2.2 % have played 50 races. On forums it's usually 35 to 40 %, but even that is less than 50 %.

As an offline player I am really annoyed the game features seven online throphies (Sport Mode Debut, In-Depth Mastery + 5 x Going The Distance).

Did anyone of you played Sport Mode just to get the online trophies?

View attachment 1216377

Nope, achievements and trophies don't matter for me, I would be happy to hide them and forget about them in every single game. It reminds me about line from "whose line is it anyway?" "welcome to whose line is it anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter, just like ... (put anything that doesn't matter) the achievements in video games".

0 online races to this day. Still no incentive from PD to encourage players to race in sport mode.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

Nope, achievements and trophies don't matter for me, I would be happy to hide them and forget about them in every single game. It reminds me about line from "whose line is it anyway?" "welcome to whose line is it anyway, where everything is made up and the points don't matter, just like ... (put anything that doesn't matter) the achievements in video games".

0 online races to this day. Still no incentive from PD to encourage players to race in sport mode.

I have abso6no idea what trophies I have. Couldn't care less. I want to race online only but are forced to race offline to get credits/cars/tuning parts and the super expensive tyres.
In GTS I ran maybe 50 sport mode races per lobby race but here it's more like 50/50. Because Sport mode as it is now is a joke.

 

[DaneTX]

I'm going to shock you even more: there's much more to data analysis than just sniffing and reading raw figures. Even people who race almost exclusively online will have technically spent more time "offline" for the most part, yet most won't see that time as actual gameplay. It's absolutely critical to separate the technicality and the player's perception. People have massively farmed the same single player event on repeat just so they could access the content they needed for what's actually important to them, the online races. They don't enjoy that single player experience, but are forced into it if they want to enjoy the part they actually like because of bad game design. A track day car will spend 90+% of its running time below speed limits or idling, yet its owner still bought / built it with pushing it hard being the main goal. You can't just look at the stats and go like "oh, it's mostly driven below 100 kph, so this guy wants very soft suspension and a low power engine with great fuel economy".

People who actually buy the game for the offline experience either do the campaign in a burst of condensed time and then never touch it again, or they pick it up once in a blue moon and spend an hour on it tops. Kaz's comments proves they didn't separate the racing time VS other things / idle time, or actively analyzed player behaviours.

There'd be a lot more to write about that and also more in depth data to put into perspective but I don't have time to do the whole essay. In any case, the funniest part of this is PD's actions don't match their own analysis, because according to that, they should heavily reduce dev time and just throw out a title every two years max instead of doing the "game as a service" approach, and not have a half baked super linear solo campaign.

I was going to disagree about the offline campaign burst until I got thinking about it. I put in crazy hours at first. Completing licenses, collecting cars, racing, etc. Maxing out car completion with so many cars left to collect sucked. Then came the lack of races to compete in. Creating events for endurance setup doesn't hardly pay. I basically turned to creating liveries. Aside from that, the incentive or enjoyment isn't what I remember from GT1-3. I occasionally hop on to do the 30 minutes endurance or Watkins.

 

[Dave A]

I was going to disagree about the offline campaign burst until I got thinking about it. I put in crazy hours at first. Completing licenses, collecting cars, racing, etc. Maxing out car completion with so many cars left to collect sucked. Then came the lack of races to compete in. Creating events for endurance setup doesn't hardly pay. I basically turned to creating liveries. Aside from that, the incentive or enjoyment isn't what I remember from GT1-3. I occasionally hop on to do the 30 minutes endurance or Watkins.

That's pretty much what happened with me too. Really enjoyed the game for the first few days and then hit the "what now?" phase. Now GT7 can go completely unplayed for a month at a time. There's nothing pulling me back to play GT7 on a regular basis, I get pulled back to GT4 easier and that's a nearly 20 year old game.

 

[Nathan88]

Looking at PSN yearly stats it's clear many players are putting hundreds of hours into GT7. I've logged over 500hrs according to PSN data, some 150hrs+ driving time according to the game itself. Actual events, other than money raising, plays such a small part in my game time. I've probably lapped Tsukuba more times testing builds than race time. I've still most Missions and Circuit Experiences to complete, along with a dozen regular events. Recently I've started online to get the Trophy. Enjoyable, but it needs to be the right combination. Racing online for fun is much less stressful than needing race wins (which was required in GTS).

Like everyone else, I want more cars, tracks, events and features. It's clear all those are coming and so I am very much looking forward to the next few years with GT7.

 

[GTvsForza]

I'm nearly in my 30s and see myself playing offline more. I only go online for the Trophy (halfway done... 🙄)