Polyphony Digital, the developer of Gran Turismo 7, has apologized for the recent changes to the game’s economy and promised improvements, as well as a million free credits. These changes come on the heels of a big outage last week, which was caused by an upgrade that altered how users could earn credits through gameplay rather than microtransactions.
Polyphony president Kazunori Yamauchi apologized in a post on the PlayStation Blog for “the frustration and confusion caused last week by our patch updates, which resulted in not only a server outage but also changes to the in-game economy that was made without providing a clear explanation to our community.” As a “goodwill gesture,” the corporation promises to provide gamers with a “1 million unpaid credit pack.”
According to the article, users should see the credits in their accounts “shortly” and that they will be distributed solely to those who acquired the game prior to the post’s publication.
The post describes a patch that’s coming out at the beginning of April, meant to “reestablish the reward system with greater balance throughout the game to benefit all players.” After the update, players should notice:
- Approximately doubled rewards for “the events in the latter half of the world circuit”
- “High rewards” for getting all gold and all bronze in the circuit experience
- Increased rewards for online races
- Eight new one-hour endurance race events in missions, which will have “higher reward settings
- A higher cap on how many non-paid credits users could have, up to 100 million from 20 million
- More used and legend cars being sold at a time
The post also outlines that will be coming in the “near-term” — though it doesn’t specify a date for these changes or more details. Those changes are:
- Increased payout value of limited-time rewards
- More additions to world circuit events
- Endurance races are being added to missions, including 24-hour races
- Online time trials are being added, with rewards being given “according to the player’s difference with the top-ranked time”
- Players will be able to sell their cars
Given that Friday’s post refers to GT7 as a “live service,” it doesn’t appear as though we should be holding our breath for any changes that would make the game more offline-centric. Nonetheless, the improvements we’ve been promised are intriguing, both in terms of improving the game’s enjoyment and introducing new (though demanding) experiences.
