Kazunori Yamauchi Responds to Gran Turismo 7 Fan Outrage

[Silverfox1984]

At no point did I say that fans weren't disappointed, that you putting words in my mouth. What I did say is that players have unrealistically high expectations from games/Devs to the point where they'll complain about anything if it's not what they wanted. Is the economy in GT7 perfect, no. But it does mean that you have to think about what cars you want which in my book is better than GTSport where cars were thrown at you. Well informed articles/videos will be thousands times more effective at getting Devs to do something than review bombing something. If Devs also did everything that players wanted them to these games would be nowhere near as good as they are.

Aren't you also putting words in other players mouths with this line? You keep trotting out that the fans shouldn't be complaining about the game in its current state and that if they don't like it they should stop playing it. How is that helpful to anyone?

People had issues with GT Sport as well, which is why were were all hoping GT7 was a return to form. How hard can it be to satisfy the majority of players to say that the next installment of GT has cars you can unlock via in-game progression, not locked off via 'invitations' or rotation availability. GT has always been a simple premise; you buys cars, use them to win races, earn more credits and complete licence tests to give you access to the 'better'/ rarer cars/competitions.

There's none of that here. The cars you might want are unavailable until the game says so, compatible credit amounts or not. GT has never been like that. I'm still waiting even for a 90's era Subaru Impreza to become available.

 

[MaxAttack]

Prove that this is what people want out of the game. Put up or shut up. Because from where I'm sitting? It's pretty clear that people have a lot of misgivings on how the rewards are divvied out and the fact that actually 'racing' (for however good that is considering how garbage the AI is) often times gives out the worst rewards credits wise compared to grinding Fisherman's like there is no tomorrow, and that the credits re-adjustment more or less made the latter the only way to reasonably get money.

Don't make me quote the letter again, it's been twice today already

Better payouts are coming, I feel quite assured of that, and I'd be more than prepared for the delicious irony if I prove to be wrong a few months down the line and get dragged over the coals all over again.

The game doesn't particularly reward, in terms of fun, all out grinding for as much money as possible. Payouts as they are I've pivoted to trying to get a bit quicker in the race cars and driving some of my favourite road cars in the pretty new lighting and letting the replays roll while I get on with other stuff.

Obviously that's me personally finding my way to enjoy it but I do think there's a pertinent point there about attitude and intent. If you're the kind of completionist who really sees a GT game as something to conquer and 100% the garage as quickly as possible then clearly GT7 as is isn't catering directly to you - this doesn't mean it's a burning trashpile that isn't catering to anyone, there are plenty of people content with a weirdly jazz infused celebration of buttery graphics which put as much effort into its VW beetle as the race cars that will actually be used in competition.

I draw the line at such absolutism that since the game has X particular foibles or doing Y particular activity isn't easy that it's a 1/10 beyond saving that we should get up in arms in the streets about, I think it represents the fanbase very poorly. The meat and bones of this game are fantastic and it's absolutely beautiful. There's no other game I own that I will just leave on replay for the visuals alone. That's worth 2 points in a 10 point review even if it had literally nothing else going for it, imo.

 

[Johnnn]

And even in other casual games with high car count you have auction house where you can buy much cheaper cars and even rare ones if you missed them. GT7 is just greed simulator.

 

[Scaff]

Aren't you also putting words in other players mouths with this line? You keep trotting out that the fans shouldn't be complaining about the game in its current state and that if they don't like it they should stop playing it. How is that helpful to anyone?

People had issues with GT Sport as well, which is why were were all hoping GT7 was a return to form. How hard can it be to satisfy the majority of players to say that the next installment of GT has cars you can unlock via in-game progression, not locked off via 'invitations' or rotation availability. GT has always been a simple premise; you buys cars, use them to win races, earn more credits and complete licence tests to give you access to the 'better'/ rarer cars/competitions.

There's none of that here. The cars you might want are unavailable until the game says so, compatible credit amounts or not. GT has never been like that. I'm still waiting even for a 90's era Subaru Impreza to become available.

That's not actually true, GT7 has just made it worse, but cycling Used Car Dealerships have existed in past titles.

 

[Silverfox1984]

That's not actually true, GT7 has just made it worse, but cycling Used Car Dealerships have existed in past titles.

Couldn't you also buy the models in the Main Dealer as well though in previous titles? Memory may be fuzzy but I never remember a GT where I felt I was waiting for a certain model used or new. Maybe a used car variant of the same model, but not the car I wanted itself.

 

[TheAdmiester]

Couldn't you also buy the models in the Main Dealer as well though in previous titles? Memory may be fuzzy but I never remember a GT where I felt I was waiting for a certain model used or new. Maybe a used car variant of the same model, but not the car I wanted itself.

Only beyond a certain arbitrary "newness threshold". In GT4 for example, you could buy the blobeye Impreza just fine, GC Imprezas were extremely common in the UCD, but for something like a 22B you'd have to wait.

 

[Adam Barber]

Aren't you also putting words in other players mouths with this line? You keep trotting out that the fans shouldn't be complaining about the game in its current state and that if they don't like it they should stop playing it. How is that helpful to anyone?

People had issues with GT Sport as well, which is why were were all hoping GT7 was a return to form. How hard can it be to satisfy the majority of players to say that the next installment of GT has cars you can unlock via in-game progression, not locked off via 'invitations' or rotation availability. GT has always been a simple premise; you buys cars, use them to win races, earn more credits and complete licence tests to give you access to the 'better'/ rarer cars/competitions.

There's none of that here. The cars you might want are unavailable until the game says so, compatible credit amounts or not. GT has never been like that. I'm still waiting even for a 90's era Subaru Impreza to become available.

At the end of the day it's a game and ment to be fun, if your not having fun with it stop. Simple as that. PD have also confirmed better payouts are coming. It's like when a child does something and hurts themselves and keep doing the same thing and each time are surprised that it hurts. Nobody is forcing anyone to play GT7 or any game they don't like. Don't like it? Play or do something else.

 

[Silverfox1984]

At the end of the day it's a game and ment to be fun, if your not having fun with it stop. Simple as that. PD have also confirmed better payouts are coming. It's like when a child does something and hurts themselves and keep doing the same thing and each time are surprised that it hurts. Nobody is forcing anyone to play GT7 or any game they don't like. Don't like it? Play or do something else.

It's also a £60-70 investment that many feel we've been duped into purchasing. It's also a franchise and series many have dedicated a portion of their lives supporting and enjoying only to see it deteriorate into something no longer worth our time. We are going to be critical when that happens. To use your child analogy, would you observe said child continue to hurt themselves or intervene and try and get them some help, maybe ask why they keep hurting themselves so pointlessly?

Perhaps you should also accept that these criticisms are going to continue and that nobody is forcing you to read these threads?

 

[Silver Arrows]

At the end of the day it's a game and ment to be fun, if your not having fun with it stop.

I have, and so have a fair few amount of people. But too bad that doesn't exactly stop the fact that the game was designed with micro-transactions in mind, and that so many of the problems with the game's economy eventually loop back around to that fact. And that's what people want gone - the micro-transactions, the in game economy that demands that you either pay up for said MTX's, or grind to an untenable amount just to get anywhere.

The review bombing certainly helped get the ball rolling now that Youtubers outside of the racing game sphere of influence, and actual gaming sites, are starting to pick up Polyphony's **** ups. Now it's up to them to turn it around, which as it stands now, they have had no desire to do.

 

[Imari]

All of this is about instant gratification and Kaz has been quite plain that instant gratification regarding collecting cars was never ever going to be the point of GT7.

Why do you keep trotting out this strawman? You know it's not true.

But it does mean that you have to think about what cars you want which in my book is better than GTSport where cars were thrown at you.

How did you ever get into Gran Turismo? Was GTS your first GT game?

Don't like it? Play or do something else.

Just don't let that something else be criticise the game?

 

[Scaff]

Couldn't you also buy the models in the Main Dealer as well though in previous titles? Memory may be fuzzy but I never remember a GT where I felt I was waiting for a certain model used or new. Maybe a used car variant of the same model, but not the car I wanted itself.

Some were in both, but certain models could only be bought from the UCD.

Don't like it? Play or do something else.

This is the last time I'm going to ask you to stop with this kind of posting.

 

[Adam Barber]

I have, and so have a fair few amount of people. But too bad that doesn't exactly stop the fact that the game was designed with micro-transactions in mind, and that so many of the problems with the game's economy eventually loop back around to that fact. And that's what people want gone - the micro-transactions, the in game economy that demands that you either pay up for said MTX's, or grind to an untenable amount just to get anywhere.

The review bombing certainly helped get the ball rolling now that Youtubers outside of the racing game sphere of influence, and actual gaming sites, are starting to pick up Polyphony's **** ups. Now it's up to them to turn it around, which as it stands now, they have had no desire to do.

Why do you keep trotting out this strawman? You know it's not true.

How did you ever get into Gran Turismo? Was GTS your first GT game?

Just don't let that something else be criticise the game?

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There's other issues with GT7 that I'd much rather see addressed than the economy. Every GT game has had issues and they've always been ironed out. Kazs statement said that they'd be fixing those issues. I've also been playing the GT games for a long old time although that's got nothing o do with this argument as I know you're about to wheel out the "I've been playing since X date" elitist card

 

[GBO Possum]

The GT6 track creator didn't allow anything close enough to the required level of fidelity...

OT Quite. I tried to reproduce Warwick Farm, which is basically flat, but the building blocks of the Track Creator made it impossible to do it really well. Close enough for me, I guess, but a good way off reality.

 

[hardvibes]

PD have also confirmed better payouts are coming.

Where in this sentence, or in the rest of the message, does he imply that he will raise the payouts?

"We will in time let you know the update plans for additional content, additional race events and additional features that will constructively resolve this."

 

[Scaff]

There's other issues with GT7 that I'd much rather see addressed than the economy. Every GT game has had issues and they've always been ironed out. Kazs statement said that they'd be fixing those issues. I've also been playing the GT games for a long old time although that's got nothing o do with this argument as I know you're about to wheel out the "I've been playing since X date" elitist card

The point is that you keep claiming that GTS threw cars at players, more so than other title sin the series, and players were just spoilt by that. While that may be true in terms of mainly low-value cars that you ended up with dupes of filling up your garage, it's also utterly incorrect in regard to earnings in relation to the most expensive cars, where it's one of the worst offenders in the series, alongside GT7.

As has been shown in the article we published, and has been referenced countless times.

Why Gran Turismo 7’s Latest Update Has Outraged Fans

Gran Turismo 7 players will be waking up today to some rather unwelcome news. In the brief period during which the latest update was available it was revealed that, for many of the best-earning races in the game, credit payouts have now been slashed -- by more than half in some cases -- dramatically

www.gtplanet.net

 

[Adam Barber]

Where in this sentence, or in the rest of the message, does he imply that he will raise the payouts?

"We will in time let you know the update plans for additional content, additional race events and additional features that will constructively resolve this."

You've just quoted the statement where this is said

 

[Silver Arrows]

There's other issues with GT7 that I'd much rather see addressed than the economy.

The economy is the worst problem though, considering many of the worst aspects of the game eventually loop back around to it or micro-transactions.

Kazs statement said that they'd be fixing those issues.

We don't know when those issues will be fixed, and considering the last update they pushed out exacerbated the problem, why do you have any hope that the problems with the in-game economy will actually be fixed?

 

[hardvibes]

You've just quoted the statement where this is said

It is said
-additional content
-additional events
-additional features

Not higher payouts.

We don't know when those issues will be fixed, and considering the last update they pushed out exacerbated the problem, why do you have any hope that the problems with the in-game economy will actually be fixed?

Exactly. He says "in time".

 

[Silverfox1984]

Where in this sentence, or in the rest of the message, does he imply that he will raise the payouts?

"We will in time let you know the update plans for additional content, additional race events and additional features that will constructively resolve this."

"I will raise the payouts" (It's a hidden message, to fly past the Sony CEO's...)

 

[Adam Barber]

The economy is the worst problem though, considering many of the worst aspects of the game eventually loop back around to it or micro-transactions.


We don't know when those issues will be fixed, and considering the last update they pushed out exacerbated the problem, why do you have any hope that the problems with the in-game economy will actually be fixed?

So not the wonky BoP or the various issues with lobbies which is having a larger impact on peoples ability to play the game?

It is said
-additional content
-additional events
-additional features

Not higher payouts.

Exactly. He says "in time".

If you read what's being said properly this is exactly what's being said.

 

[hardvibes]

If you read what's being said properly this is exactly what's being said.

Yeah sure I believe you.

"I will raise the payouts" (It's a hidden message, to fly past the Sony CEO's...)

/dead

 

[Silver Arrows]

Not higher payouts.

And hell, even if you're willing to extend that distinction, charitably, to Seasonals returning (which we know those are coming back in some capacity at some point), that doesn't even help the 'higher payouts' line either considering it might be very likely that the time of 6 digit payouts for completing Seasonals ala GT5 and 6 is over and Polyphony are intent on making a 'course correction' in paying out people for playing that way.

 

[Scaff]

If you read what's being said properly this is exactly what's being said.

No, no it's not.

That's what you are reading into it, that's not what he said.

If you read it properly it makes no mention, at all, of higher payouts.

If you add in the confirmation bias of what you want/hope he means, then you read more into it that it says.

 

[hardvibes]

And hell, even if you're willing to extend that distinction, charitably, to Seasonals returning (which we know those are coming back in some capacity at some point), that doesn't even help the 'higher payouts' line either considering it might be very likely that the time of 6 digit payouts for completing Seasonals ala GT5 and 6 is over and Polyphony are intent on making a 'course correction' in paying out people for playing that way.

According to Kaz (or Sony...I tend to think this is maybe Sony's fault to push MTX right now) you must LIVE INSIDE GT7 27/4, matrix style.

 

[KilzoneStrife]

I see it, and I hear you, my point stepping into this thread has only ever been to express a hearty disdain for reviewbombing as a practice and try to point out some reasons I don't think it's an apportioned response to the game in its current state.

It doesn't in the slightest annoy me that people don't like the game I like; I have hundreds and hundreds of hours in dirt 4, the very mention of which is enough to make the skin crawl to many rally inclined gamers.

What annoys me is the instant vitriol and readiness to throw GT7 in the bin over what in context are largely a bunch of unfortunate coincidences beyond the developer's control.

I feel that, already feeling the sting of some wonky rear axle behaviour, the limited campaign and the very thin initial multiplayer (lobbies are the biggest issue in the game and it's insane how little this is mentioned particularly here), a lot of the playerbase took the 1.07/1.08 issues as their final straw, but when we really look at these issues I think that's quite unfortunate; because of the Kaz quote I've picked out of the letter, I really do think the current payout imbalance is temporary, and the other big issue was the server outage which really was unrelated to everything.

On top of this we have Kaz directly appealing to the playerbase with pretty fulfilling info as to what went wrong, an outline of his vision for the game and an assurance that they see what's wrong (with the economy) and better things are on the way.

How at the end of all of this anyone is left with justification to drop a 1/10 review is absolutely beyond me. They, in my opinion, clearly do not care to pay attention to the real situation, and should be returned the same level of attention from PD, Sony and everyone else.

Review bombing is bad, I agree.

But I've always given Kaz the benefit of the doubt.. but here's some issues with his statement.

1) He does not want us to grind...
-He illustrates this having actively nerfed race payout in races he knew we were grinding.

2)But he wants us to drive diverse cars?
-So we have to use MTX, because if he doesn't want you to grind, what does he expect?

3)He says "wait for a future date I can't tell you, when I will alleviate this issue of needing to grind to make credits"
-Do we really trust him after he literally used our player data to nerf races based on what we were doing in the game? (grinding)

Unless he plans in bringing events that pay out 10Million credits a race, grinding will ALWAYS be a thing, regardless of anything he can do or say. He priced the exotic cars like garbage.

Also, if it's all intended to be some sort of classist experiment to see how the rich can stomp all over us with MTX and own "exclusive" expensive cars+to reflect real life ownership (where the rich drive these cars) as Kaz has been touting "exclusivity" for quite some time now,then why should we ever trust him to make the situation better down the line?

Isn't that his plan? (that the game reflects real life ownership)

His entire statement is a contradiction onto itself.

Parden me for not drinking the Kaz Kool-Aid, but the guy comes across as being quite an elitist D-Bag in his statement.

 

[JoaoSilva]

If you read what's being said properly this is exactly what's being said.

If you're enough of a blind fan maybe it says that, but for everybody else it doesn’t.

 

[Dave A]

What I did say is that players have unrealistically high expectations from games/Devs to the point where they'll complain about anything if it's not what they wanted.

Two things wrong here, how is it unrealistic to expect things that have been done better/right in previous games in the same series?

Secondly, is there a reason people shouldn't, or shouldn't be free to express discontent with features, mechanics or content that they don't want/feel is missing or broken?

In other words, why should people shut up and take it when they feel that they have been shafted by a developer of a game series that they ultimately do like (hence the reason for being here)?

 

[Adam Barber]

Two things wrong here, how is it unrealistic to expect things that have been done right in previous games in the same series?

Secondly, is there a reason people shouldn't, or shouldn't be free to express discontent with features, mechanics or content that they don't want/feel is missing or broken?

In other words, why should people shut up and take it when they feel that they have been shafted by a developer of a game series that they ultimately do like (hence the reason for being here)?

The developer has already stated that they're working on things to address these issues, what's so hard about that for people to understand?

 

[Imari]

I've also been playing the GT games for a long old time although that's got nothing o do with this argument as I know you're about to wheel out the "I've been playing since X date" elitist card

Not really, but if you thought GTS was too generous then the old GT games are way worse. So much worse. Like they're basically shooting a firehose of cars and credits at you, you can barely do a championship without being given some sort of car. For free! Login bonuses for doing nothing! Seasonals that paid out hundreds of thousands of credits for a single short race!

Madness. Total insanity.

And that's kind of the fundamentals of Gran Turismo. That is it's history, and the game we all loved. So I wonder how it is that you managed to bypass it and come to the idea that GTS was too generous and GT7 is just right. The person who thinks that never starts playing a GT game at all. It's not about being elitist, the old games had their issues, but I just don't see how you ever liked GT at all if GT7s economy is so chef's kiss.

According to Kaz (or Sony...I tend to think this is maybe Sony's fault to push MTX right now) you must LIVE INSIDE GT7 27/4, matrix style.

It's his intention for everyone to use the PC Remote Play script to grind credits. It's the electricity consumption of crypto mining without the needless overhead of the blockchain. Everyone wins!

The developer has already stated that they're working on things to address these issues, what's so hard about that for people to understand?

We understand. We just don't believe him. Again, this makes me think you're new here.

 

[JoaoSilva]

The developer has already stated that they're working on things to address these issues, what's so hard about that for people to understand?

Almost nobody believes them anymore. This isn't the first or second or third time PD lied.