Kazunori Yamauchi Responds to Gran Turismo 7 Fan Outrage

[dabz343]

So what about people who ARE vulnerable and suffer from compulsive spending addiction due to a lack of impulse control? Is that their problem?

To be fair, you can't expect a console game developer to have the sophistication to alleviate social problems...that do need to be addressed mind you...

 

[Phaceless_Ph]

So what about people who ARE vulnerable and suffer from compulsive spending addiction due to a lack of impulse control? Is that their problem?

I second this, as someone who used to work in the gambling industry a decade ago and saw the problems that are caused by predatory industry practices, and is seeing those same predatory practices becoming prevalent in gaming, I find ScottPye20's comment to be absolutely disgusting.

 

[dabz343]

I second this, as someone who used to work in the gambling industry a decade ago and saw the problems that are caused by predatory industry practices, I find ScottPye20's comment to be absolutely disgusting.

Yea but, is PD being predatory? Or are they just kind of mindlessly following a growing trend? I don't see anything malicious here...but it is getting tone deaf.

Edit -- I'm trying to be impartial.

 

[Samus]

To be fair, you can't expect a console game developer to have the sophistication to alleviate social problems...that do need to be addressed mind you...

Sure you can, you simply don't include these mechanics. It's not hard, they managed it for all the past games.

In fact you could even leave them in if you want and just remove the MTs to remove that temptation to spend to alleviate it. FOMO will still be annoying, but people will just have no choice but go without. They won't be tempted to spend money to get around it.

 

[Fusion]

The very structure of the in-game economy has been purposely designed to psychologically manipulate people to buying MTX. Already poor payouts for races were literally made even poorer. Content is in the legendary dealership is time gated to a certain extent and praying on the fear of missing out.

How you can't see these red flags that ARE forcing people to grind for the cars they want is beyond me.

Exactly. It's the combination of all the changes that make the final result concerning.

Lowering payouts, more timed exclusive purchases, higher tuning costs, upping microtransaction costs drastically.

At least half of these things need to be adjusted going forward. Eg, I'm fine with the tuning costs if the payouts are better. I'm fine with certain cars being an exclusive offer if there is some consolation on missing out... like assuring you it will be back within x days because you flagged it on your wish list.

On top of all that I want the age old grind events to not be necessary. They have the ability to improve on the old process we all did for credits in past GT games. The payouts for custom races need to be upped 10x or more! It's ridiculous what they assign as a payout for them! That and the ability to save custom event templates and even apply the settings to other tracks. Currently with the 'random' opponent cars being a stupidly random selection and the only other option being GR 1, 2, 3, 4, B (a LOT of cars cant compete against these) or garage (takes forever to assign all the cars let alone have enough variety of cars tuned to match) or same make (boring!).

 

[Samus]

Yea but, is PD being predatory? Or are they just kind of mindlessly following a growing trend? I don't see anything malicious here...but it is getting tone deaf.

Edit -- I'm trying to be impartial.

Yes, they are. Whether they came up with the ideas on their own or copied someone else isn't really relevant. They still made that choice, knowing the outcome. That isn't mindless.

 

[Lukanyon]

Maybe not that, but you know how the 1.07 patch introduced huge bugs that stopped UCD displaying cars or even displaying the world map?

I have a strong feeling that if they just let that run for a few days before patching it you'd have people rightly complaining that they can't access most of the game or buy cars and you'd have others defending it.

"You don't have to buy any new cars, just play with the ones you already have for now"
"So what if you can't access world map, you can still play music rally. Just be patient"
"There is a war going on in Ukraine, this isn't as bad as that"

That's what makes me so angry about those so-called "fans" that find an excuse for every single bs Polyphony has been throwing at us since the PS3 era, trying to invalidate our complaints and suggestions for better games. Kaz and his team have been taking so many bad decisions since GT5, yet these "fans" always find a way to defend it.

 

[dabz343]

Sure you can, you simply don't include these mechanics. It's not hard, they managed it for all the past games.

In fact you could even leave them in if you want and just remove the MTs to remove that temptation to spend to alleviate it. FOMO will still be annoying, but people will just have no choice but go without. They won't be tempted to spend money to get around it.

Yea I hear ya, but what about personal responsibility? Are you just a sheep? What about free will?

 

[pokemonfan58]

This thread needs jesus.

 

[KilzoneStrife]

I appreciate he took time to acknowledge how we feel about GT7's economy, but he has to realise he lost ALOT of goodwill with fans (some of which have have been with GT since Day 1)


I literally saw people break GT7 discs and buy Forza 7 etc today over what's transpired in the last 2 days.

His statement really should have included "Here's 2 million credits" as a sorry+Thankyou for sticking with us.

 

[dabz343]

Yes, they are. Whether they came up with the ideas on their own or copied someone else isn't really relevant. They still made that choice, knowing the outcome. That isn't mindless.

Ur right, they did choose. But to say they are predatory...seems like a position that is just going to get tuned out. You know what I mean?

 

[Samus]

Yea I hear ya, but what about personal responsibility? Are you just a sheep? What about free will?

Me personally? No I will never buy a MT no matter what. Even if I had a billion dollars in the bank, I wouldn't do it. I'll just miss out and play something else that values my time and effort better.

But we're all wired differently and PD shouldn't be taking advantage of those who are wired to feel FOMO so bad that they'll do anything to get something. They can't help it, that's just how their brain is wired, they MUST have that thing and if there is a way to do that, they'll use it. Even if they can't really afford it.

 

[Silverfox1984]

B.S....

GTS was a grind fest. Could anyone really like the daily spinning wheel with very slim chance of getting any cars of $5 mil or more value. Along with not being able to sell any of the prize cars for any value at all.

I have quite the vast collection of Peugeot RCZ's thanks to that little wheel.

 

[dabz343]

But we're all wired differently and PD shouldn't be taking advantage of those who are wired to feel FOMO so bad that they'll do anything to get something

Yea I'm with you, but is it fair to ask a console dev to tackle this complicated issue head on? Step back, these guys don't operate with a masters in social sciences...

 

[Phaceless_Ph]

Yea but, is PD being predatory? Or are they just kind of mindlessly following a growing trend? I don't see anything malicious here...but it is getting tone deaf.

Edit -- I'm trying to be impartial.

It's been explained multiple times in this thread but users, contributing writers and moderators, it IS predatory, because it puts players in a position where they either go for a long excruciating grind (e.g. 40 x 5 lap races to earn 1million), or, spend 15.99 in exchange for 2,000,000. It's a predatory practice which has been brought up in several houses of government/parliament around the world due to it's predatory nature and the fact they've been placed in games that are rated "E" which will be played by children, and there have been multiple documented incidents of children using their parents payment details on microtransactions because of similar tactics to those present in Gran Turismo 7.

Here's one example.

Another example.

Another for good measure.

And you will find a lot of stories like this via any search engine.

The people in here who are either victim-blaming or defending the practice clearly have no moral compass.

 

[Samus]

Yea I'm with you, but is it fair to ask a console dev to tackle this complicated issue head on? Step back, these guys don't operate with a masters in social sciences...

Deal with the issue as a whole? No, obviously not. But tackling it in their game is incredibly easy, don't purposely include elements that induce it.

 

[Fusion]

Yea I hear ya, but what about personal responsibility? Are you just a sheep? What about free will?

There needs to be the ability to turn off any notifications about microtransactions IMO. On a console level would be ideal. For kids and people with addiction issues. Why exclude these people from yet another fun past time?

The game then needs to be designed so the vast majority of the content can be unlocked in a low hundreds of hours figure playing normally, not 1000+ hours, or 400+ hours grinding the best paying single event over and over to the point of insanity.

If it takes 1000+ hours to unlock everything then it's basically a free to play game with pay to win - except you also pay to play.

 

[Silverfox1984]

The time exclusive nature of the Hagerty dealer and invitation only cars in the brand central fly in the face of this mentality. You don't know when these cars will be available again, so you are pushed into grinding to make sure you don't end up waiting weeks or months or more to get the chance to buy them again. In combination with microtransactions this game mechanic seems even worse than it would if grinding were the only option...

The used car dealership is the same, but I have less issue with it there. My only gripe is that the UCD isn't larger. I'd like 3 UCDs to be honest, switch between them with R1/L1 like the parts store. One specialising in different kinds of cars. Japanese, Euro, US, or different classes, eras.... anything, there just isn't enough available at the one time.

Made all the more irritating with the 20,000,000 cr cap, so you can't even just continue to grind whilst waiting for them to become available again and have the funds in reserve.

 

[dabz343]

It's been explained multiple times in this thread but users, contributing writers and moderators, it IS predatory, because it puts players in a position where they either go for a long excruciating grind (e.g. 40 x 5 lap races to earn 1million), or, spend 15.99 in exchange for 2,000,000. It's a predatory practice which has been brought up in several houses of government/parliament around the world due to it's predatory nature and the fact they've been placed in games that are rated "E" which will be played by children, and there have been multiple documented incidents of children using their parents payment details on microtransactions because of similar tactics to those present in Gran Turismo 7.

Here's one example.

Another example.

Another for good measure.

And you will find a lot of stories like this via any search engine.

The people in here who are either victim-blaming or defending the practice clearly have no moral compass.

Yea, I can see how the optics can be seen that way...but others like me will not go so far as to say they are predatory.

 

[JoaoSilva]

Made all the more irritating with the 20,000,000 cr cap, so you can't even just continue to grind whilst waiting for them to become available again and have the funds in reserve.

Well you can... if you buy microtransactions, they bypass the credit cap.

 

[Silverfox1984]

Well you can... if you buy microtransactions, they bypass the credit cap.

Please tell me you're joking...

 

[dabz343]

Deal with the issue as a whole? No, obviously not. But tackling it in their game is incredibly easy, don't purposely include elements that induce it.

Yea, it was their choice, now they have their feet to the fire...PD should know who their audience is.

 

[JoaoSilva]

Please tell me you're joking...

Oh, i'm dead serious.

 

[Silverfox1984]

Oh, i'm dead serious.

I have no words, genuinely.

 

[dabz343]

There needs to be the ability to turn off any notifications about microtransactions IMO. On a console level would be ideal. For kids and people with addiction issues. Why exclude these people from yet another fun past time?

The game then needs to be designed so the vast majority of the content can be unlocked in a low hundreds of hours figure playing normally, not 1000+ hours, or 400+ hours grinding the best paying single event over and over to the point of insanity.

If it takes 1000+ hours to unlock everything then it's basically a free to play game with pay to win - except you also pay to play.

100% agree -- particularly when it comes to kids -- PD should do more to address this issue...but that's why I say, the lack of refinement here suggests to me that these guys are unaware of what decisions they are making...I don't think they are intentionally out to lose their player base.

 

[Fusion]

Well you can... if you buy microtransactions, they bypass the credit cap.

Wow, of course they do... I didn't even think about that but it makes perfect sense!

The credit cap is another spoke in the wheel. All these things add up for a painful experience.

I get that some like the timed exclusive purchases, invitations etc are like real life and add something, even then they could be handled far better than they are. But the old credit cap; I'm sure in real life a bank would tell you to please stop depositing money, they can't hold any more!

 

[Samus]

Yes, that's another very intentional mechanic. If you want to save up credits to buy future cars next week or whatever, you can only save a maximum of 20 million "Free" credits at any one time. So it doesn't matter what you do, how long you've been playing for, if 30M worth of cars come around next week, you haven't saved up enough. You'll have to earn some more to get them all, or...

You can save up as many "paid" credits as you want to buy them. Stock up 100M in paid credits, absolutely no problem. We'd not want you to miss out if you do that.

Literally no other reason to do this than to try and make sure even people saving up credits for days/weeks can still experience FOMO and spend real credits.

 

[AudiMan2011]

Yea I'm with you, but is it fair to ask a console dev to tackle this complicated issue head on? Step back, these guys don't operate with a masters in social sciences...

Maybe not the console dev team themselves. These monetisation decisions come from the board at the publisher, which is Sony. They're the ones that need to take responsibility in regards to targeting vulnerable people with monetisation. And guess who is part of that Sony board? It's Kaz.

 

[ScottPuss20]

Victim blaming again.

Nobody would get sucked into that if it didn't exist, would they?

So what about people who ARE vulnerable and suffer from compulsive spending addiction due to a lack of impulse control? Is that their problem?

I am not a psychologist so I am not able to help those people. I say it's their problem in that it's something that they need to get help dealing with. I am not equipped to do it. It is not victim blaming, it's the truth.

 

[Samus]

I am not a psychologist so I am not able to help those people. I say it's their problem in that it's something that they need to get help dealing with, not mine. I am not equipped to do it. It is not victim blaming, it's the truth.

PD are equipped to deal with it in their game, they chose not to.