Don't agree with the criticism, to be honest. Gran Turismo is a game that built itself on the long-term career aspect - you have to win races to acquire credits to buy new cars.

My big gripe with GT5 was that it forced you to spend actual cash to buy DLC packs to get new cars - and they were shown and listed in the game even if you hadn't bought the DLC, which was incredibly frustrating when you went to buy it thinking it was available. With this new system, it's no different to MMORPGs and the like - if you want to, play properly and work hard to earn your way through the game, or if you can't be bothered, pay for in-game credit and just buy your way to the top.

The main thing is, for those of us who want to play it properly, it shouldn't get in the way - so that's an improvement in my book. The only problem would be if it was impossible to get that many credits, reasonably, in-game. But assuming they haven't changed the reward scale from the old games, that doesn't look like it's the case.

jim
The main thing is, for those of us who want to play it properly, it shouldn't get in the way - so that's an improvement in my book. The only problem would be if it was impossible to get that many credits, reasonably, in-game. But assuming they haven't changed the reward scale from the old games, that doesn't look like it's the case.

I wouldnt bank on it. Forza 5 has come under critisism for similar changes. They reduced credits per race, increased car cost, and removed car rewards from the levelling system. Its designed to make you get cars slower so you feel more inclined to buy them with money.

If GT5 does the same, it pretty much marks the end of gaming as we know it. Hopefully they will change the economy to be more reasonable, much like Forza is now after launch.

You don't HAVE to buy these, but the alternative is to grind and grind and grind to work for it in-game (you can bet they make this task more onerous than in earlier GT games). Fun.

cheesyboy
You don't HAVE to buy these, but the alternative is to grind and grind and grind to work for it in-game (you can bet they make this task more onerous than in earlier GT games). Fun.

If it's onerous to play the game as it is out of the box then I won't buy it, simple. There are plenty of other games out there waiting for my hard earned dollar so I'll pick based on what's the most fun for me :)

Pay2Win comes to non-Free2Play games - joy! :censored:

I have come to accept the (potential) necessity of at least some DLC in modern titles but paid-for “leg ups” in online competitive games is just taking the :censored: IMO.

When did £120 for a digital car become a ‘micro’-transaction? Its anything but! :)

I'm really not fond of this model at all. If you are paying for the game then these added payable extras should be limited in scope and price. They certainly shouldn't cost twice as much as the bloody game. Totally idiotic.

EDIT - sorry THREE times as much as the game? Dear oh dear….

george1979
When did £120 for a digital car become a ‘micro’-transaction? Its anything but! :)

I'm really not fond of this model at all. If you are paying for the game then these added payable extras should be limited in scope and price. They certainly shouldn't cost twice as much as the bloody game. Totally idiotic.

EDIT - sorry THREE times as much as the game? Dear oh dear….

It's called milking people for all they're worth, gaming industry has been spiralling the toilet for years now. It's the same with all the crowdfunded games charging full-whack to have your money 12 - 18 months upfront.

What is your definition of Pay 2 win? You can still get said items in game through earning in game cash, it isn't an item you cannot obtain in game without real money, nor is it a super powered car noone can get unless they pay for it.

Pay To Cheat - fine.

Make the game a horrendous grinding experience so that you are forced to pay to get anywhere - bad, evil wrong. Why isn't the game cheap to compensate?

Making those fees really high - are you kidding me? Why isn't the game free?

meh these prices are nothing new in the world of ‘micro transactions’… seriously just look at the rip off prices on ea's need for speed world.

In some cases nfs:w has no ‘in game cash’ alternatives to purchase an item, at least with this game you don't HAVE to pay real money, it will just take you longer to get it. Having said that you don't need to pay for the game first.

This is the future of gaming, hardcore game players are going to get screwed over and parents are going to have more ‘issues’ with children wanting money for the next ‘virtual item’

The act of putting microtransactions in a game on top of a initial £40 price tag is just horrific however you spin it.

For the “as long as it doesn't get in the way” crowd just remember.

As long as they exist in a game publishers will be incentivised to revise the core mechanics of the game to make the grind harder and hence nudge people towards spending real money on in-game credits. The publishers behind Forza 5 may have “adjusted the economy” for now to quell the outrage, but you can bet they'll try to pull the same shenanigans next year. Once people accept micro-transactions the publishers will start to turn the screw and before you know it the practices that have provoked widespread outrage this year will be mildly disputed next year, perhaps even welcomed the year after that.

If I ever sit down to play a game with micro-transactions I will be playing it with the full knowledge that the game has been engineered to test my ability to resist spending my money on credits, which I think is absolutely disgusting. Even more disgusting when I have already shelled out £40 for the goddamn privilege of subjecting myself to mental torture.

So in a nutshell, the only winning move is not to play and sod the gaming industry.

Hate any form of microtransactions as it's is just a money grabbing way to suck every penny they can out of fans of that particular franchise, i would definitely be less inclined to buy the game. At the end of the day just a game, one product that i want to buy once, definitely not something that should leech away at my bank account.

So, I pay for a game, and then I have to pay more for things to be unlocked ?

The issue of micro-transactions is obviously a contentious one.
My particular disagreement is that while the income model for gaming originated in the arcades; pay to play, it had to strike a balance of cost against playability. No one would pay their quarter/20p for a game they wouldn't last 2 minutes with.
Now we've headed to a dark world where PC games are £40+ for basic editions, and the same experience on a console is pushing SIXTY POUNDS, a heavy price at the outset, bonus features are £10-15 for the special edition, and now they want more money to give you parts of the game that used to be standard?!?
Compare that to any other form of media entertainment.
DVDs/BluRays- I don't mind paying the £5-10 for the special editions with the deleted scenes and director's cut, I feel that wanting to experience the extras is a testament to the quality of the general release. Not hearing the producers and casts commentary doesn't detract from the main experience, so why do I feel like I'm missing out on a large chunk of game if I don't get the special editions with those missions/weapon packs. Then there's micro-transactions, how frustrated would you be if you had to pay extra every time you watched series 1 GoT on Blu-Ray to stop adverts appearing mid-episode. There'd be outrage, and yet we put up with that in our games?
Theatre- Dunno how many people go regularly, but the same applies. You pay more to sit in the best seats closer to the stage, you don't pay more to not have to wear a blindfold or ear defenders. Your experience isn't specifically limited because you didn't throw cash at it. Again, to extend the M.T. mataphor, an actor on stage wouldn't perform the key monologue to only the people on the front row, nor would they drop a slow scene in place of an improvised extra because “shut-up-take-my-money”
Someone somewhere high up in the games industry needs to take a good hard look at what this unsustainable, mogul-like, insidious, parasite of a revenue stream model is doing, not only to the fans, not only to the games they produce, but also to themselves and the industry as a whole

OilSheikh
So, I pay for a game, and then I have to pay more for things to be unlocked ?

No you don't have to do anything.

Im still playing GT5 Prologue on PS3 (£1 charity shop) and I'm no where near good enough to win the medals … no amount of new car would help ;)

I cant' help think that £40 is a great price to start with and for literally millions of players.. will be enough to fry their brains

Clever old Sony if they get loads of extra cash outta people…..

Silly old Sony if they fail to get enough and lose their punters….

it's a free market and the punters will choose.

Dont pay, it's a simple as that - I never paid a penny within Forza over what the game cost and have no intention of doing so with GT either.

kalniel
If it's onerous to play the game as it is out of the box then I won't buy it, simple. There are plenty of other games out there waiting for my hard earned dollar so I'll pick based on what's the most fun for me :)

Exactly. These mindless grinds are taking all the fun out of a game.

The Eve online monocle says hi.

I like what TotalBiscuit had to say about “micro-transactions” on XBox One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpx4R9SY98o The same argument can be applied to this case.

This sort of thing impacts the game regardless of whether a person uses the payment options or not. Your sense of achievement is reduced when you know that the hard work you've put in can be matched by someone else's bank account. Its not fair for two people to have the same awards in a game where one person spent X hours to achieve that and the other spent Y money + X/5 hours to do the same. Why are there very few free to play games, none that I know of, that have micro-transactions that can give you an advantage in the game? Because people choose not to play those games, they simply fail. The ones that are successful, and I would be happy to play, are the ones where the purchased items are purely cosmetic.

Free-to-play games have a better system in place because if a player plays and then leaves because he feels the game is unfair the developer gets nothing but if the same happens in a title that you had to pay for to begin with you end up rewarding the developer for making a rubbish game. The fail safe of consumer feedback that allows free-to-play to have micro-transactions that are appropriate is removed when you pay for the title in the first place.

This is terrible news and I hope it isn't allowed to become popular. I would rather stop playing games than accept that people can pay to get ahead in a game.

I got an e-mail yesterday to say that I'd got a million credits and 3 DLC packs because I pre-ordered, I thought ‘wow’. Now I realise a million credits will probably get me a 1980 Nissan Cherry…

Smudger
I got an e-mail yesterday to say that I'd got a million credits and 3 DLC packs because I pre-ordered, I thought ‘wow’. Now I realise a million credits will probably get me a 1980 Nissan Cherry…

Now all you need is another 10 mil credits to buy a taxi driver to drive it successfully! :p

I'm in two minds about this. If you've achieved these advanced cars via the grind method then surely you'd also have the “l33t” skillz to be able to use them properly. So in the case of the XJ13 would you only be able to get this free if you really were very, very good? If so, then the high price is surely there as a deliberate penalty for folks who don't want to grind through - which seems reasonable.

And I've got no problem with grinding through a game IF, and only if, that's not a totally soul destroying exercise.

What I have a big problem with is with “superior” cars/weapons/etc ONLY being available via expensive DLC. This is fine on free-to-pay, but if they're asking me to do that on something that costs £40+ then they can surely take that idea and shove it where only a proctologist could find it. Oh and GT6's credit costs strike me as a little on the high side.

Then again, I even have to think long and hard about buying DLC for music games like Rocksmith, so maybe I'm just being mean?

What's the fuss? Real gamers can still play it properly and earn it, which IMHO is the only way worth doing it to gain the satisfaction. I'd like to see it noted on player profiles if you acquire milestones in games through grind rather than hard cash.

A fool and his money are easily parted, if you're mug enough to pay real money for using a different arrangement of pixels to play a game then that's your problem not mine! And if you've done it to flash your cash then you'll look a knob like buying real cars just to show off.

kingpotnoodle
What's the fuss? Real gamers can still play it properly and earn it, which IMHO is the only way worth doing it to gain the satisfaction. I'd like to see it noted on player profiles if you acquire milestones in games through grind rather than hard cash.

A fool and his money are easily parted, if you're mug enough to pay real money for using a different arrangement of pixels to play a game then that's your problem not mine! And if you've done it to flash your cash then you'll look a knob like buying real cars just to show off.

The fuss is that they adjust the structure of the game to make earning the cars “properly” a significantly bigger grind than it should be. Y'know - to make those “micro” transactions more appealing.

Maybe it's just me, but GT to my mind has always partly been about the grind.

GT5 was just far, far too easy. I bought a couple of cheap cars, and then almost straight away had a massive garage of high-spec vehicles that were given out as prizes. So if they've made this a lot harder, then I'm quite pleased.

cheesyboy
The fuss is that they adjust the structure of the game to make earning the cars “properly” a significantly bigger grind than it should be.

Well that's up for debate until we see the reviews. How fun the progression is is a key factor of how good the game is. Get it wrong, and you risk turning off anyone who isn't a ‘must buy it anyway’.

Then it's a just question of numbers - will they make more money from DLC over the long term than they would lose from lost sales?

The pricing model seems to be like Asphalt 8 or other F2P games.

Every upgrade requires in-game points earned. The points required are set high on purpose so that you are forced to grind and grind and grind or you can give up and buy the upgrades with real cash. But, that's not all. The AI cars have rubber-band like WARP drives and the developers have made sure that you can't win against AI unless you buy upgrades.

Smudger
I got an e-mail yesterday to say that I'd got a million credits and 3 DLC packs because I pre-ordered, I thought ‘wow’. Now I realise a million credits will probably get me a 1980 Nissan Cherry…

From the article…



I'm going to side with Sony here; nothing is locked off or excluded to people who don't want to pay extra. It seems like the only thing you can buy is in game currency, not extra or special cars. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest. The XJ13, for those who don't know one of the rarest cars and therefore most valuable cars on Earth and consequently in the game, “how rare?” I hear you cry…

The Jaguar XJ13 was a prototype racing car developed by Jaguar to challenge at Le Mans in the mid-1960s.

It never raced, and only one was ever produced. The car has not been officially valued, but a £7 million bid for it was declined by the owners in 1996

..from wikipedia

It's a show piece and I'm guessing now, but probably the single most expensive car in the game. Despite everyone talking like it's some kind of benchmark for or average of cars in the game. I doubt it will actually be much use in progressing the game either. Making it IMO a very disingenuous example of the system as a whole, doubly so if you talk about it like it's just another Jag.

I've got no time for pay to win and golden bullets et al, but pay to have a massive garage full of your favourite cars, that everyone else can go get the old fashioned way, I can live with.

Quick Edit: Calling the micro transactions expensive when you can buy full race spec supercars for £4 and have change left for a top of the line road car, I'm also going to have to throw in the disingenuous pile.

OilSheikh
Every upgrade requires in-game points earned. The points required are set high on purpose so that you are forced to grind and grind and grind or you can give up and buy the upgrades with real cash. But, that's not all. The AI cars have rubber-band like WARP drives and the developers have made sure that you can't win against AI unless you buy upgrades.

Er, the game's not out yet is it?

kalniel
Er, the game's not out yet is it?

I think he's referring to asphalt 8 and the other F2P games mentioned in the first para. If you're pointing out that it's a bit of a leap of logic/pessimistic assumption, then I agree.

I would sincerely hope that the Gran Turismo team have got more sense than to wreck the game for the sake of microtransactions - they've been in the business for far too long, and have too proud a heritage to go that way.

Yes, I mean, if GT has something like warp drive AI then it won't be fun for about 90% of the potential player base, so will just collapse. I can't see them being that's silly.

I don't mind that people can pay to get things earlier. I remember the first 2 GTs I quite enjoyed buying a cheap car, improving it and learning it, new cars were bought when I needed them. If I were to get the best and rarest cars early, I think I'd be missing out on a lot of the game anyway.

But I think they do need to be careful about putting too much grind in for the people who don't want to ‘cheat’.

kalniel
Yes, I mean, if GT has something like warp drive AI then it won't be fun for about 90% of the potential player base, so will just collapse. I can't see them being that's silly.

Well that basically put me off GT5. I think I gave it a good enough go, but I found that in a straight drag race the Esprit V8 I was supposedly controlling was having a real hard time keeping up with a Clio Sport until I bought “sports upgrades” for the Lotus and that isn't right. Perhaps a steering wheel would make the game more fun, as I found controlling with the standard PS3 controller was pretty awful.

Must get the Dreamcast out this Christmas. That does have a steering wheel, and Metropolis Street Racer is still the best balanced console race game I have played. I know Gotham was supposed to be basically the same, but the physics just didn't feel right to me. Not touched an Xbox racing game since that one.

DanceswithUnix
Well that basically put me off GT5. I think I gave it a good enough go, but I found that in a straight drag race the Esprit V8 I was supposedly controlling was having a real hard time keeping up with a Clio Sport until I bought “sports upgrades” for the Lotus and that isn't right. Perhaps a steering wheel would make the game more fun, …

Hmm, been in a Clio Sport and that rollerskate was flippin' quick, so maybe this is not as ridiculous as it would seem. But I'll agree with your general point - nothing turns me off quicker than being “gifted” some apparently serious racer and see it get blown into the middle of next week by some breathed on hot hatch back. Conversely one thing I really liked about the last Forza was that you could take that Fiesta etc and level it up into something special.

DanceswithUnix
… as I found controlling with the standard PS3 controller was pretty awful.

Yes, it's dire. :p

DanceswithUnix
Must get the Dreamcast out this Christmas. That does have a steering wheel, and Metropolis Street Racer is still the best balanced console race game I have played. I know Gotham was supposed to be basically the same, but the physics just didn't feel right to me. Not touched an Xbox racing game since that one.

I'm going to agree with you on that one - Forza definitely is more “real” than PGR, but everyone I know who've played both agree that PGR is definitely more “fun” and the one they'd chose if the mates came round for a couple o' laps and beers.

And don't get me started on Dirt3… :censored:

Well, I had a quick blast on it this weekend, and it seems a lot more structured than GT5. You start off and they tell you to buy a Honda something (would be a Jazz in this country) and they guide you through your first race, beefing up the car, your first series etc. I have a garage full of cars from the DLC, but I like the introductory pace. What I didn't like about GT5 was that in order to complete one level of trophies, you have to get a car that's available by winning trophies in a level or 2 above.