Gran Turismo 7is now available on PlayStation 5, the long-awaited follow-up in what could be considered the best sim racing experience in the industry. As a PS5 exclusive,Gran Turismo 7comes with a pricey $70 price tag, a price racing game fans are more than willing to accept. However, in addition toGran Turismo 7’s retail price, it also features substantial monetization. The revampedGran Turismo 7monetization system is already drawing a lot of criticism for its expensive microtransactions.
The heart of the problem withGran Turismo 7’s monetizationcomes down to two key issues. First,Gran Turismo 7no longer allows direct purchases of vehicles. That means that instead of a specific dollar amount for vehicles, they now have ambiguous costs in “Credits.” Credits are only available in lump sums, costing $2.49, $4.99, $9.99, and $19.99. That meansGran Turismo 7players will have to overspend on Credits to acquire vehicles with price tags that don’t align to real money pricing on Credits.
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The second issue, and the far greater one, is thatPolyphony Digitalappears to have raised the prices on microtransactions dramatically, even compared to the heavily criticizedGran Turismo Sport. For example, a Porsche 919 Hybrid 16 inGran Turismo Sportis said to cost $2.99. InGran Turismo 7, it costs 3,000,000 credits. If all credits were treated equally, that would cost around $30, a price increase of 10x. Worse yet, players will have to instead purchase Credit packs of at least $35-$40 to actually get the correct total credits for the card.
Why Gran Turismo 7’s Pricey Microtransactions Are Concerning
As reported by VideoGamesChronicle, this pricing increase is near-universal inGran Turismo 7. TheAston Martin Vulcan'16, $4.99 in GT Sport, costs 3,300,000 Credits inGran Turismo 7. A McLaren P1 GTR ‘16, $4.99 in GT Sport, costs 3,600,000 Credits inGran Turismo 7.
The one defense ofGran Turismo 7’s pricing system is that Credits can be earned in-game. It isn’t strictly a real-money currency. Unsurprisingly, though, Credits aren’t particularly easy to earn, outside some specific events that seem likely to be nerfed ASAP. Earning Credits in-game is certainly more accessible for unlocking cars than paying $40 permicrotransaction, though.
This style of outrageously priced in-game currencies that developers and publishers excuse as justified based on the currency being earnable in-game is becoming more and more common.Halo Infinitewas similarly criticized for its very expensive microtransactions, as one example.Gran Turismo 7, as a $70 title that’s not even necessarily seen as a live-service release, is unfortunately just the latest game to join this club offrustratingly monetized AAA releases.
Gran Turismo 7is available now on PS5.
MORE:5 Things We Love About Gran Turismo 7 (& 5 Things We Don’t)
