Gran Turismo 7 has become the lowest-rated Sony game on Metacritic, following a recent update that made it harder for players to unlock cars without paying real money.
On Metacritic the user score for Gran Turismo 7 has dropped to just 2.0. As Eurogamer notes, it’s the lowest user score that any game from PlayStation Studios or Sony Interactive Entertainment has ever been given.
The plummeting user score reflects the community’s sentiment on several issues that have plagued the game in recent weeks.
Negative reviews started arriving in earnest when extended maintenance caused Gran Turismo 7 to be unplayable for over a day. The game returned after 30 hours offline, prompting an apology from the series’ creator.
However, the bulk of these negative reviews have been flooding in after that, with the addition of Gran Turismo 7‘s 1.07 update. That’s because the update reduced the rewards for in-game events, making it harder to unlock cars using currency earned for free.
Many feel that this is a push from developer Polyphony Digital to get players to pay real money for microtransactions in the game that can unlock cars without the same effort. Earlier in the month, fans had already criticised Gran Turismo 7 microtransactions for being overbearing and expensive.
“Say hello to another game that ruined its economy just after the launch/review window for the sake of microtransactions,” reads one user’s Gran Turismo 7 review, with the author adding that they “badly regret” buying the game.
“Absolutely appalling, disgusting behaviour by Polyphony and Sony. I never write reviews, but I felt compelled to warn people of the disgusting attempts to squeeze as much money as possible out of a loyal fanbase,” reads another.
Several of the reviews specifically raise issue with the changes to rewards included in the 1.07 update.
“I have been a GT fan since I was a toddler and I could not be more disappointed. It’s unfinished, barely improved on GT Sport and they’ve just added a patch making race rewards so low that it’s impossible to get rare cars without either grinding 12+ hours a day or spending hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of pounds to get the rare cars,” complains another player, who calls for other fans to boycott the game.
Another review by user ErnestFisy calls the microtransactions “infuriating”, and described the latest patch as a “horrible update [that reinforces] the pay-to-win aspect of the game”.
Over on the Gran Turismo 7 Reddit, one thread calling for a boycott of microtransactions has reached over 1,600 upvotes and hundreds of comments.
On the topic of microtransactions, series creator Kazunori Yamauchi said that “In GT7 I would like to have users enjoy lots of cars and races even without microtransactions. At the same time the pricing of cars is an important element that conveys their value and rarity, so I do think it’s important for it to be linked with the real world prices.”
“I want to make GT7 a game in which you can enjoy a variety of cars lots of different ways, and if possible would like to try to avoid a situation where a player must mechanically keep replaying certain events over and over again,” added Yamauchi, who then shared that Polyphony Digital is looking to “constructively resolve” these issues.
In other news, Unity has shared a lifelike cinematic that shows how developers can use its game engine in 2022.
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