Patch 1.10 - new single player mode "GT League"

[baldgye]

My numbers are crap - I left out GT5 Prologue, which did over 5 milliion!! So add another $100,000,000 to the PS3 revenue!!

PD has grown and wages have risen, both of which count against any reduced development time. And has it been substantially less? Certainly not as much as 4 times less man-years.

Your model requires a fairly large (over 100,000) solid user base to each spend $2,000 on DLC to make it work, at all. Realistically, it doesn't work unless there's enough of a base to buy the DLC, in the millions.

GT7 as a launch title for PS5?! Well, if so, it'll be late for sure We won't find out until then whether these assets actually are still good to use on PS5.

PD is owned by Sony, true, but they don't care whether the revenue comes from product sales or PS+ sales. PS+ is doing just fine anyway. GT isn't.

But how are prior sales numbers relevant to anything?

GT Sport is out already

 

[Foxis]

But how are prior sales numbers relevant to anything?

GT Sport is out already

They are highly relevant as any future business decisions will be based partly on the success of the last product compared to product success history.
If GTS is not performing well and the direction they set for the title failed, we are unlikely to see a similar attempt again.

Which puts them in a difficult spot as I explained in an earlier post: GTS was an attempt to reinvigorate the series and interest for cars in general, both of which are trending negatively in developed markets.

 

[baldgye]

They are highly relevant as any future business decisions will be based partly on the success of the last product compared to product success history.
If GTS is not performing well and the direction they set for the title failed, we are unlikely to see a similar attempt again.

Which puts them in a difficult spot as I explained in an earlier post: GTS was an attempt to reinvigorate the series and interest for cars in general, both of which are trending negatively in developed markets.

The decisions where made year(s) ago for GT Sport, and it’s direction was seemingly changed prior to launch and before it ‘failed’.

Also, GT had to deal with very little competition on the PS3, on the PS4, it has to compete with two Project Cars games, Assetto Corsa and then the vastly improved selection of Codeies games.

I’m not saying either of you are wrong, it’s just a shame to me that given the games smaller scope, it wasn’t given room and chance to be something different, instead of just a worse GT6.

 

[Foxis]

The decisions where made year(s) ago for GT Sport, and it’s direction was seemingly changed prior to launch and before it ‘failed’.

Also, GT had to deal with very little competition on the PS3, on the PS4, it has to compete with two Project Cars games, Assetto Corsa and then the vastly improved selection of Codeies games.

I’m not saying either of you are wrong, it’s just a shame to me that given the games smaller scope, it wasn’t given room and chance to be something different, instead of just a worse GT6.

From what I can see we pretty much agree. My point is rather that the direction change will not help them at this point.
If there is something I know from personal experience in game development it is that having a product attempting to appeal to a too wide an audience can be extremely dangerous from a financial point of view.
They should have either continued with the standard GT format (and possibly made it a bit easier to further increase casual appeal), OR gone full on eSport/realism, supporting the model with a (cheap) subscription and/or DLC.

Doing both half-heartedly will not work out well in the long run.

 

[Outspacer]

But how are prior sales numbers relevant to anything?

GT Sport is out already

It matters because that is (very roughly) how PD is expected to perform. What other reference point do we have? To compare with only GT6 wouldn't be fair, since that had an even shorter development time, was very much an iterative step from GT5, and released after PS4.

Yes, and sales are poor, interest in the online is even poorer. That's where we started this discussion!

I think it's a shame too, and as I said, would've been better as a kind of prologue. One with some support and DLC, eventually being incorporated into GT7, with both coming out on PS4. That really would've been the best way to develop and refine the Sport idea... and still make money in the end.

Personally I'd be much happier if they'd added full Driveclub style time trial leaderboards, rather than GT League. But that doesn't mean it's what they should do, business-wise.

I don't know what a full GT7 might be expected to sell. Clearly the competition has changed a bit, but none of it has the mass-market appeal that GT managed in the past. And we agree that GTS + GT League isn't any substitute for GT7. I would guess at better than GT6 though.

 

[Epic B]

The Fittipaldi is literally going into limited production. The Bugatti is drivable, and has been sold. The majority of the vision cars have real world models as concept cars.

And I think Zagato wants to sell a few of theirs too. And I believe there's a running GTI Roadster too.

 

[FPV MIC]

But you can in every Forza. More proof how superior that franchise is over all the others, being fair all these are quite mediocre. But not GT is mediocre like them.

So Forza is ''every other racing game''.......okay, whatever.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The problem with 'Sport' mode, which was supposed to be the main focus of the game, is that it's held back and reduced to only 5 daily races with a needless choke-hold on variety of both class of vehicle and freedom to tune.

All we get is the same Gr.3, Gr.4 and random class 'One Make' races to choose from. There are no dedicated 'Sport' races for the wide range of N Class cars, Gr.1, or Rally among others. Added with the lack of freedom to tune, leaves Sport mode itself as counter intuitive and counter immersive to the progression and experience of real racing. I never feel like I'm driving 'my' car.

The whole 'gift car' giveaway format has also irreparably damaged any real sense of personal choice or progression, further taking away from the incentive to race for the default standard goal of acquiring reward credits to purchase upgrades or new vehicles. Everything is handed out like candy to the point of nullifying the games entire economy.

There is simply no sense of reward or purpose in progression outside of the unique moments of personal achievement in each individual race.

Sport mode is going to fail because PD fails to utilize or incorporate all the games wide variety of features into the game mode itself and the games horribly implemented giftcar/reward/mileagepoint/economy.


I'm going to sum up exactly what's wrong with this entire, all but failed experiment of an experience...

While playing GT Sport, a reoccurring nightmare keeps entering my mind. Imagine you own a classic pristine, all original muscle car, you love everything about it. Now imagine you wake up in the middle of the night to all kinds of crazy racket going on in your garage. You run down, open the door only to find Kazunori Yamauchi standing there with a big detached grin on his face, over your car, which he has chopped up into a streamlined, neon laden, over dubbed, electrically powered 'Vision GT' edition of what your car once was.

"What? You don't like it?"

Take your recurring nightmare one step further. You wake up the next day and there is another copy of the exact same car in your garage. It's absolutely free which is great, but you can't sell it and it takes up space in your garage.

 

[baldgye]

From what I can see we pretty much agree. My point is rather that the direction change will not help them at this point.
If there is something I know from personal experience in game development it is that having a product attempting to appeal to a too wide an audience can be extremely dangerous from a financial point of view.
They should have either continued with the standard GT format (and possibly made it a bit easier to further increase casual appeal), OR gone full on eSport/realism, supporting the model with a (cheap) subscription and/or DLC.

Doing both half-heartedly will not work out well in the long run.

We totally agree hahaha

 

[JayRS200]

I remember about 5 months ago at this time of night, around 8pm, feeling tired but still wanting to play GT6 nearly every night.

Now I play GTS about twice a week and it's more of a feeling of "well I better get my monies worth".

I'm choosing an early night rather racing now. That says to me that I'm either getting old (36) or that PD have failed with GTS.

I think they needed another year to work on it. So far I feel like a guinea pig testing a cartoon game.

Driving simulator my hairy Scottish arm.

 

[BrunusCL82]

I'm just saying one thing:

Get ready!

GTLeague will be very frustrating!

Campaign mode with this limited and reduced cast of circuits, we are already saturated to play?

Do not go ahead to bring the Campaign Mode with several tournaments if the number of circuits remain only 8.

I say eight because they are actually the functional ones. The rest, like ovals and rally, are disposable.

PD changing his feet by his hands. It started off with GTS, and it keeps going wrong.

GTLeague should be released with a support of six or eight circuits, added. Five original and three real, for example.

I'm sure this would put a boom on the GTS game.

 

[iGeaux_Psycho]

I find it annoying personally that they’ve gone silent since the announcement of GT League, and here we are in the middle of December with no update whatsoever...

 

[CeeJay]

I remember about 5 months ago at this time of night, around 8pm, feeling tired but still wanting to play GT6 nearly every night.

Now I play GTS about twice a week and it's more of a feeling of "well I better get my monies worth".

I'm choosing an early night rather racing now. That says to me that I'm either getting old (36) or that PD have failed with GTS.

I think they needed another year to work on it. So far I feel like a guinea pig testing a cartoon game.

Driving simulator my hairy Scottish arm.

I really wish PD hadn't sold GTS as gutted of content as they did. I'm so glad this GT League is coming but like others have said, without a massive increase in circuits the game will still feel pretty empty. I'm just floored PD can't think far enough ahead to at least have all of their previous fantasy tracks (I know people want the real world tracks but I'm just thinking of PD being free of having to aquire licenses here) rolling off the line and into the game one at a time on a somewhat regular basis. It would help keep my interest in the game so much.

 

[FPV MIC]

I find it annoying personally that they’ve gone silent since the announcement of GT League, and here we are in the middle of December with no update whatsoever...

It's not even half way through December and we've already had two updates, albeit for fixes, so I don't think PD have been sitting on their hands and there's still plenty of December left for GT League to be released.

 

[iGeaux_Psycho]

It's not even half way through December and we've already had two updates, albeit for fixes, so I don't think PD have been sitting on their hands and there's still plenty of December left for GT League to be released.

Still not the greatest marketing tactic to keep potential new sales out in the cold less than two weeks before Christmas...

 

[FPV MIC]

Still not the greatest marketing tactic to keep potential new sales out in the cold less than two weeks before Christmas...

So you've gone from you being personally annoyed to it now being poor marketing for potential new buyers, not to mention the fact that there's a release window and plenty of information about the upcoming update (http://www.gran-turismo.com/au/gtsport/news/00_4451949.html). What more should they do?

 

[iGeaux_Psycho]

So you've gone from you being personally annoyed to it now being poor marketing for potential new buyers, not to mention the fact that there's a release window and plenty of information about the upcoming update (http://www.gran-turismo.com/au/gtsport/news/00_4451949.html). What more should they do?

Nope no release window... just “planned” for December which is typical vague PD fashion. These are all my opinions, so not sure what your problem is.

 

[Marly]

Any news if the 91 wins trophy, 65 poles will be obtainable through the GT-league single player update?

 

[Famine]

Any news if the 91 wins trophy, 65 poles will be obtainable through the GT-league single player update?

Sport mode only.

 

[BrunusCL82]

The 1.09 update will come in the last week of December. Same as last. I'm not excited. I wish there were new tracks, but ...

 

[Marly]

Sport mode only.

Thank you for the response. As an average driver, this is going to take years >.<

 

[iGeaux_Psycho]

Thank you for the response. As an average driver, this is going to take years >.<

Same :/ I’ve gotten one win and two poles on Sport Mode so far. Needless to say I’ll probably never get these goals accomplished

 

[Famine]

Thank you for the response. As an average driver, this is going to take years >.<

Same :/ I’ve gotten one win and two poles on Sport Mode so far. Needless to say I’ll probably never get these goals accomplished

As with most things, there is an easier way...

 

[Marly]

Same :/ I’ve gotten one win and two poles on Sport Mode so far. Needless to say I’ll probably never get these goals accomplished

Don't feel to bad about it. Seeing not many got these trophies, we're certainly not in this alone

 

[FPV MIC]

Nope no release window... just “planned” for December which is typical vague PD fashion. These are all my opinions, so not sure what your problem is.

Yeah you're right, planned is a bit different than release window.... and I don't have a problem, I just don't know what more you expect from PD.

 

[ScottPuss20]

I think they've taken a look at the numbers, especially the broad participation numbers in Sport Mode, and concluded that the audience isn't going to flock to it like Nintendo fans did to Pokemon Go or whatever the appropriate analogy is. From what I've seen in Milouse's numbers, the participation rates are shockingly low for Sport Mode. Kaz knows that, if you don't give the people something else to do they will abandon the game and move on and he'll miss out on DLC sales and there'll be little revenue for ongoing support. The best thing for Sport Mode and the game in general, is to sell as many copies as possible and to do that, they need to include an offline campaign mode and continue to update it as new cars and tracks are released.

Wait, the participation rates are "shockingly" low? Funny you say that because I always get into races with a decent number of participants. Then again, this is just in my experience and does not represent the bigger picture you speak of here. Look, we've known for ages than DLC cars are coming, because it says "DLC Car" in the garage key (next to Manufacturer Car, Gift Car and Owned Car). Now PD has to deliver the new cars and tracks because, like you said, people will abandon the game. I'm confident that they will make the game even bigger than what it already is, but a cloud looms over the speed at which they release content. It is critical in ensuring that the game has a long shelf life, kinda like DriveClub.

I think Everyone is looking at it all wrong. They wanted to teach players how to race with the launch of their game. Did you notice the focus of the driving school challenges and circuit challenges. They made everyone watch a video on driving techniques and driving etiquette. They understood that backlash is inevitable. They also understand that there are many different GT players out there form Standard car to Race care players, or drifting, highway pulls or circuit racers that understand that sport comes in many different options. Now when GT league starts everyone should have a full understanding of proper driving and the experience should be better. Regarding the cars and Tracks I believe that they kept the list small in the beginning so players can get use to these track before the list is expanded.

That definitely seems likely, but why though? Why hold back content which is ready to go?

But you can in every Forza. More proof how superior that franchise is over all the others, being fair all these are quite mediocre. But not GT is mediocre like them.

No. We are not doing this again.

Gran Turismo Sport is the strangest game I've ever seen, at least from the fan base side. Half the fanbase loves the online approach but laments the matchmaking and balancing, while the other half hates online and wants nothing to do with this new direction. If PD does anything to try and appease either crowd, they get burned either way.

They're stuck akwardly somewhere in the middle of "they release single player content instead of making a focused online experience" and "PD has forgotten why the series was popular in the first place".

I suppose I'm alone on this one but I'll just take the free stuff and let it be.

The game has been polarizing from the start, no doubt. But clearly PD didn't create GT League after the backlash, I think they had planned it for a while. At least I hope that's what happened anyway.

 

[happycorey]

The game has been polarizing from the start, no doubt. But clearly PD didn't create GT League after the backlash, I think they had planned it for a while. At least I hope that's what happened anyway.

I said something when it was announced, but it seems to me like it was an after thought. Either it was intended and the game really wasn't ready, or this portion of the game (GT League) was intended for the next GT. This game is primarily for online play and is definitely more geared as a prologue.

 

[Famine]

But clearly PD didn't create GT League after the backlash, I think they had planned it for a while. At least I hope that's what happened anyway.

I said something when it was announced, but it seems to me like it was an after thought.

PD had some expansion of the offline mode planned before the game launched:

https://www.gtplanet.net/gt-sport-updates-will-bring-offline-events/

I doubt we'll ever know how much expansion or of what kind, or if GT League was a response or always on the table. But we know that PD planned to add more events to the offline mode before any of us got our hands on the final game.

 

[happycorey]

PD had some expansion of the offline mode planned before the game launched:

https://www.gtplanet.net/gt-sport-updates-will-bring-offline-events/

I doubt we'll ever know how much expansion or of what kind, or if GT League was a response or always on the table. But we know that PD planned to add more events to the offline mode before any of us got our hands on the final game.

Seems logical. Which points more toward how early the game was launched.

 

[ScottPuss20]

PD had some expansion of the offline mode planned before the game launched:

https://www.gtplanet.net/gt-sport-updates-will-bring-offline-events/

I doubt we'll ever know how much expansion or of what kind, or if GT League was a response or always on the table. But we know that PD planned to add more events to the offline mode before any of us got our hands on the final game.

So technically there was something in the pipeline...?