Sony’s received a slap on the wrists from Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority. The reprimand is due to a “misleading” Gran Turismo Sport ad that aired around the game’s launch late last year.
The complaint focuses on the online connectivity requirements of Polyphony’s sim racer. As players are no doubt familiar, GT Sport relies heavily on a steady internet connection. While more of the game is now available offline — courtesy of a post-launch update — players hoping to save any progress will need to connect to Sony’s servers. In addition, Sport Mode requires a PS Plus subscription (a common aspect of modern multiplayer, to be fair).
The ad in question showed various cars and tracks that are only available thanks to an internet connection. In its defence, Sony argued that most players would understand a modern game required some level of web access. It also pointed out that over 75% of UK PS4 owners had connected to Sony servers during October 2017.
According to the ASA ruling, the game modes and one of the cars shown in the ad are not available in pure offline play, but “similar” ones are. The company also provided the straight numbers:
[Sony] explained that if only the disk was used to play the game the player would have access to three tracks, five layouts and 30 cars. This represented a small minority of the respective total content of the game.
For reference, here’s the current car list (205) and track list (18/54), though both have expanded since launch thanks to (free) updates.
Sony is no longer able to air the ad without an amendment, making it more clear that the majority of the game’s content requires an internet connection.
GT Sport isn’t the first game to place a heavy focus on a ‘net connection. It’s not even the first in the genre, with recent titles like The Crew and Need for Speed stopping players at the title screen while offline. Those games both have disclaimers on their cases about it, and that sounds like the ASA’s sticking point here.
Featured image courtesy of mazda787.
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