Credit and Power Pack Confusion.

[eran0004]

But you are smart enough to understand that people can be led to mistakes, and therefore the responsibility isn't 100%/0%, right?

If you mislead someone you certainly share the blame. I don't think having two different items for sale at the same time qualifies as misleading though, especially not when it's clearly stated that one item is the Power Pack and the other item is 5 million credits.

It's not about the money to me, you can add a few zeros to the price and I'd never miss it in my bank account. It was the obvious attempt to take advantage of some people who didn't access the Power Pack the correct way or didn't read super closely.

That's not obvious at all. What store item is highlighted seems to be determined automatically based on date and alphabetical order. So the fact that the 5 million credits pack was highlighted is not evidence of an intention to take advantage of people who don't read.

The name of the content was not in fine print, so it's not that you'd have to read super closely in order to catch it. Just reading the name of the product would be enough.

I've personally never made an in-game external purchase, and didn't even know it was possible.

Put another way, had the $5M credits been a different amount, or a different price, or wasn't on the home screen, or didn't have the word "pack" in it (not sure how money is a "pack"), then this would be a very different conversation.

So you read that it was an add-on pack, but you didn't read the name of the product?

I'll go so far as to say that anyone who thinks this was an innocent marketing mistake are just plain stupid.

That's a stupid comment.

As if there are Gran Turismo players out there that would pay $29.99 for $5M credits and choose to NOT get 50 extra races with it. No such person exists.

The power pack is PS5 exclusive, so for PS4 players it's not an option to get the Power Pack. And then there's the case where someone might want to buy another 5 million credits after the Power Pack, should they buy the power pack twice? Is that even possible?

This latest stunt is just one more nail in the GT7 inequities coffin. It is what it is.

No, what happened is that you expected to see the Power Pack dlc on the home page and bought the highlighted product without checking what it was. Sony did not trick you into buying it, it was clearly stated that it was in-game credits and there was no mention of anything else. This is called expectation bias – your mind tricks you into seeing what you expect to see rather than what's actually there.

 

[UltimateLurker]

If you mislead someone you certainly share the blame. I don't think having two different items for sale at the same time qualifies as misleading though, especially not when it's clearly stated that one item is the Power Pack and the other item is 5 million credits.

That's not obvious at all. What store item is highlighted seems to be determined automatically based on date and alphabetical order. So the fact that the 5 million credits pack was highlighted is not evidence of an intention to take advantage of people who don't read.

The name of the content was not in fine print, so it's not that you'd have to read super closely in order to catch it. Just reading the name of the product would be enough.

So you read that it was an add-on pack, but you didn't read the name of the product?

That's a stupid comment.

The power pack is PS5 exclusive, so for PS4 players it's not an option to get the Power Pack. And then there's the case where someone might want to buy another 5 million credits after the Power Pack, should they buy the power pack twice? Is that even possible?

No, what happened is that you expected to see the Power Pack dlc on the home page and bought the highlighted product without checking what it was. Sony did not trick you into buying it, it was clearly stated that it was in-game credits and there was no mention of anything else. This is called expectation bias – your mind tricks you into seeing what you expect to see rather than what's actually there.

I mean, I'd retort if your responses were worth reading. Unfortunately, they aren't.

 

[eran0004]

I mean, I'd retort if your responses were worth reading. Unfortunately, they aren't.

I'm curious to hear how you arrived at that conclusion.

 

[Famine]

I'll go so far as to say that anyone who thinks this was an innocent marketing mistake are just plain stupid.

It's exactly none of those three things.

GT7's Featured Add-On (having actually gone to the trouble of looking into this) is entirely consistent with the Featured Add-On of every single other game that supports the Featured Add-On function, at least since the change in mid-2024.

People are determined to take that fact personally, which is fine. But for some it's to the point of abusing and insulting those who don’t, which is not.

 

[Thorson1987]

If you mislead someone you certainly share the blame. I don't think having two different items for sale at the same time qualifies as misleading though, especially not when it's clearly stated that one item is the Power Pack and the other item is 5 million credits.

That's not obvious at all. What store item is highlighted seems to be determined automatically based on date and alphabetical order. So the fact that the 5 million credits pack was highlighted is not evidence of an intention to take advantage of people who don't read.

The name of the content was not in fine print, so it's not that you'd have to read super closely in order to catch it. Just reading the name of the product would be enough.

So you read that it was an add-on pack, but you didn't read the name of the product?

That's a stupid comment.

The power pack is PS5 exclusive, so for PS4 players it's not an option to get the Power Pack. And then there's the case where someone might want to buy another 5 million credits after the Power Pack, should they buy the power pack twice? Is that even possible?

No, what happened is that you expected to see the Power Pack dlc on the home page and bought the highlighted product without checking what it was. Sony did not trick you into buying it, it was clearly stated that it was in-game credits and there was no mention of anything else. This is called expectation bias – your mind tricks you into seeing what you expect to see rather than what's actually there.

No, it's everyone else's fault that people can't read.

 

[Islaygaz]

How I imagine @Famine when he sees a notification from this thread!!

 

[JDMKING13]

No, it's everyone else's fault that people can't read.

Plain and simple… and you had to do multiple clicks to actually purchase it… Not one of them thought wait.. there nothing in here that say's power pack… It even had its own imagine which was clearly different from the 5M imagine.. SMH.. the blame game is crazy!

 

[Mafio]

My question is, if no one made this mistake, would you anyone feel the same way?

 

[ShiftingGears]

Very slippery from Sony, they should be paying out refunds. Advertising the power pack with 5M credits then adding 5m credit DLC for the same price in parallel and not advertising it, then short-listing the 5m credit DLC and not the power pack, is dodgy. It does not pass the sniff test.

If it cost Sony money I guarantee this "oversight" wouldn't happen.

 

[UltimateLurker]

My question is, if no one made this mistake, would you anyone feel the same way?

With how it was presented, it's impossible that no one would make this mistake.

It was a blatant attempt to deceive IMO, and deserves a class action suit.

 

[Thorson1987]

With how it was presented, it's impossible that no one would make this mistake.

It was a blatant attempt to deceive IMO, and deserves a class action suit.

One says add on, the other says power pack.

Both look completely different.

Good luck trying to get a class action going because you are unable to read.

 

[jrbabbitt]

 

[UltimateLurker]

One says add on, the other says power pack.

Both look completely different.

Good luck trying to get a class action going because you are unable to read.

"Hi Andrew,

We regret that you have not enjoyed your purchase of 5,000,000 Paid Credits. However, we have confirmed that the content as sold matches the description and related advertising and is not faulty.

However, as a one-time gesture of goodwill, we have refunded the purchase price of this content back to the original method of payment.

The funds should return to your payment method within the next 1-2 billing cycles (about 1-2 months). The exact timeframe will depend on how quickly your financial institution is able to process the refund on their side.

The PlayStation Consumer Services Team"

This comes AFTER they assured me that there would not be a refund because it's strictly against their policy.

Enjoy.

 

[Mafio]

You posted that like it proves something. Thats office speak for, “We understand some people are complete idiots so FOR THIS ONE TIME, we’ll give you a refund so you’ll calm tf down.”

 

[Thorson1987]

You posted that like it proves something. Thats office speak for, “We understand some people are complete idiots so FOR THIS ONE TIME, we’ll give you a refund so you’ll calm tf down.”

They also seems to have completely ignored this part.

we have confirmed that the content as sold matches the description and related advertising and is not faulty.

Wonder how the class action is coming along though?

 

[crome]

I don‘t think SIE tried to trick people into buying the wrong thing because it does not strike me as a good deal for them: the short-term financial gain pales in comparison to the loss of goodwill from affected people. I do think that it was sloppy execution though. It has been outlined in this thread repeatedly how people could have been led to make the wrong purchase. Call those people trigger-happy or naive or stupid all you want, but there is no denying that

1. a significant number of people have already fallen into this trap
2. SIE is aware of this
3. almost a month after release, they have done nothing to improve the situation

I can somewhat understand why you guys pass the blame to over-eager customers and defend SIE against accusations of intentional wrongdoing, but their reluctance to fix this problem is what‘s bothering me.

 

[Famine]

I do think that it was sloppy execution though...

... their reluctance to fix this problem is what‘s bothering me.

Again though, why would you think GT7 should have special treatment in this matter?

It's following the same exact format for Add-Ons and Featured Add-Ons as every other game with Add-Ons and Featured Add-Ons (and again, I bothered to check into this after spotting the pattern myself). Add-Ons are arranged in:

1. Date order, with the most recent on the left and least recent on the right, then
2. Alphabetically sorted, with the first ("1", then other numerals in alphabetically sorted order [10 -> 100 -> 1000 -> 10,000 ... --> 11], then "A", then other letters [unknown how special letters and symbols are sorted]

The Featured Add-On is either:

1. The left-most Add-On, or in certain circumstances
2. The left-most sale-priced Add-On

It's not fundamentally clear whether supporting the Featured Add-On function is a developer or a publisher decision, but with PD being essentially within SIE it matters little in this particular case. There's also an unknown policy change in mid-2024 relating to Add-Ons/Featured Add-Ons that I can't quite ascertain, but that covers it...

... and it's how GT7 presents with its Add-Ons: the left-most is the "5,000,000 Paid Credits (Cr)." as it's one of the two newest arriving on the same date (December 4, 2025), is first when alphabetically sorted ("Gran Turismo 7 - Power Pack" being second). None of its Add-Ons are for sale, and the game supports the Featured Add-On function, so the one that appears is "5,000,000 Paid Credits (Cr).".

It's dynamic too: Assetto Corsa Competizione PS5 had, until this week, the "Assetto Corsa Competizione PS5 - 2023 GT World Challenge Pack DLC" as its Featured Add-On, despite four newer Add-Ons. It was the newest Add-On that was sale-priced. It no longer is, and the most recent, alphabetically first, and also now on sale "Assetto Corsa Competizione - 24h Nurburgring Pack" is - and that's the Featured Add-On now.

Why should GT7 be an exception to this?


Of note: As of this morning, GT7 no longer shows a Featured Add-On to me on any account on PS5, thus this may now all be somewhat moot...

I do concur, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, that if I were either PD or SIE, I'd want the shiny new pack highlighted and not the MTX - both because you lose customers who think they've been cheated and you can sell more MTX to people you've sucked into the game than by hoodwinking them. That's part of why I've said all along that it doesn't have the appearance of being nefarious and only that of following a prescriptive format.

 

[crome]

Again though, why would you think GT7 should have special treatment in this matter?

[...]

Why should GT7 be an exception to this?

I don't, and it shouldn't. What you detailed perfectly explains why things went down the way they did. The sloppy execution part comes in where "they" (SIE or PD or a combination of both), knowing that this is how the algorithm works, created a situation where they, and I am paraphrasing what others have stated before me, essentially advertised an item that has significant overlap with an infinitely more sought-after item and charge the same price for it. And even if they truly did not anticipate that anyone could be fooled by that and that it could not have been any clearer that the two items were different (a notion that I do not agree with), they ultimately saw evidence that people were fooled by it and could have dealt with it in one of two ways:

1. Insist that this is consistent with how the UI works and do nothing or
2. Acknowledge that this has been a problem for many customers and fix it

I fault them for choosing the first route. On a side note, I also think that if their algorithm does not allow them to choose which of the simultaneously released items they want to highlight on the front page (other than giving them a different starting letter), it is a flawed algorithm anyway.

Of note: As of this morning, GT7 no longer shows a Featured Add-On to me on any account on PS5, thus this may now all be somewhat moot...

I do concur, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, that if I were either PD or SIE, I'd want the shiny new pack highlighted and not the MTX - both because you lose customers who think they've been cheated and you can sell more MTX to people you've sucked into the game than by hoodwinking them. That's part of why I've said all along that it doesn't have the appearance of being nefarious and only that of following a prescriptive format.

We completely agree here. And if it is indeed not featured anymore, all the better.

 

[UltimateLurker]

Wonder how the class action is coming along though?

No need, I got a 100% refund, and $5M free credits.

But if a CAS is filed I'd be happy to add my name to it.

 

[equalitus]

I was talking about there being no option for buying the PP at the games add on menu before entering the game. (See screen shot) But yeah, Im responsible. Just would have been nice (And logical) to offer the PP there along side the 5 mil credits offering. It would have avoided any confusion.


You are really not understanding the issue.

While I might have not known or known about the separate $5 mill credit package, since I 'hate' typing on PS5 & smartphones & typing on other things than a PC keyboard, I went straight on the Internet PS Store to buy the power pack. I can't remember if I saw the $5 mill before the power pack, but since you should know the name of the DLC is power pack it couldn't be confused.