Did SPORT ruin Gran Turismo?

  • Thread starter Groundfish
  • 105 comments
  • 6,546 views

Did making GT SPORT an esport game make the GT franchise better?

  • Yes

    Votes: 69 45.1%
  • No

    Votes: 47 30.7%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 30 19.6%
  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 7 4.6%

  • Total voters
    153
I don't know about ruining the series, you would have to ask that question after Gran Turismo 7 comes out, but it has certainly ruined many peoples perception of the series.

GTS is a game that bastardized the name Gran Turismo, in order to cater to a minority of the player base that:

1. want to be Lewis Hamilton.

2. are a part of the younger generation, that likely never played a system before the PS3, and therefore probably has no idea that there was a time when there wasn't an online component to console gaming. Most of these people insist that every game should have some big online component, and not even the only actual good form of online, gaming, that being co-op play, but solely some shallow pvp experience, because most of the younger generation's only real reason for gaming is to inflate their damn egos online.

This is a game that was made for online and e-sports, at the cost of pretty much saying screw you to the actual majority of the player base, who grew up playing the series since the original on PS1, and like it because of what it was. Until Forza, there wasn't, on console at least, and game that did what Gran Turismo did, to the extent that Gran Turismo did it.

the fact that over 80% of people haven't even touched sport mode, should speak volumes about what the actual majority of the player base wants.

The game never should have even been called Gran Turismo, because it is not a Gran Turismo game. It should have just been called GT sport, and the full Gran Turismo name should have been saved for Gran Turismo 7 which will hopefully be a real Gran Turismo game.
 
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Describing competitiveness as ego-driven doesnt fit imo. Then you can call every motivated sport participiants as ego drivens or whatever.
I played exessively GT2, GT4 and GT5. They were superior in that time and the AI and missions were often challenging, especially with the controller (remember mission 34 in GT4?). In that time it was fun, because it was the first time that 3D modells of real cars were playable in that grade of quality. But do you really want to do this and only this always?
What really "ruined" for the 80% who didnt touch sportmode is not the sportmode, its the GT League in GTS. They included this garbage into the game without any love, with an AI whis has probably not changed since 1998. And you believe it or not: because of playing it from time to time despite of that (out of tradition I guess:)), I meanwhile finished almost all of the >300 races there (3 or 4 endurance races are not done) and it was boring as expected.
And aditionally, I think the structure of the AI races in Gran Turismo makes it even worse: because all the races are "from last to first challenges", the player was automatically educated to ram the opponents off, squeez them into the wall or use them as brake assistants. Finally we continued doing that in sportmode also and thought it was racing.
The question is, do you want a game where the cars are beautifull und you can hang around with the stupid AI and think you know about driving or do you want a game which tries to provide racing with others in a civilized way?
 
I've been racing AI again lately. I find it a good tool if used accordingly. Like, sometimes I'll pull over to the side and let them all pass so I can pass them again.

I know a guy who plays offline only and complains about how easy the AI is. But I noticed he always has his car upgraded to the max. When I ask why not give the AI a chance? He says, that's not racing. I imagine a lot of people think that way.
 
GTS is a game that bastardized the name Gran Turismo, in order to cater to a minority of the player base that:

1. want to be Lewis Hamilton.

2. are a part of the younger generation, that likely never played a system before the PS3, and therefore probably has no idea that there was a time when there wasn't an online component to console gaming. Most of these people insist that every game should have some big online component, and not even the only actual good form of online, gaming, that being co-op play, but solely some shallow pvp experience, because most of the younger generation's only real reason for gaming is to inflate their damn egos online.

I don't fit into either of those categories. For me GTSport was a very welcome refresh to a series that was becoming increasingly stale. I would have near ignored another "traditional" GT release.

Everyone has different opinions. Ham fisting people into vague categories doesn't help the conversation.

People regularly cite the 80% of players not playing Sport mode statistic but there is a flip side to that. A game over 4 years old in a relatively niche genre still getting easily in excess of 100k players online a week is phenomenally successful.
 
To answer the question:

Yes, and Sport was necessary part of Gran Turismo. Now, I won't comment on the execution of Sport, that is another story.

Reality is, a strong online component was the only way to proceed forward if Gran Turismo is to remain relevant as a racing franchise. I can only speak for myself but I am sure I am not different to many long time GT player in that I played to death the old GTs, far as erasing saves to redo things 100%.

When online came along GT5, cool. GT6, I didn't really touch the single player. Beyond license and time trials, I didn't touch any for Sport. Single player campaign has became really dated and I just don't think the whole "grind" away mode would had been popular at all. People enjoyed single player games because online is not possible during GT1/2/3/4 eras. This is the E-Sport era, GT would had been a dinosaur if they didn't embrace it. Look at the rivals, ACC, Forza, F1, whatever, the online is the drawcard. Even FIFA and NBA 2K, where there are strong reason for single player mode, the online is thriving. Single player campaign is basically optional for FPS games now.

I love my single player games, but I ask myself, why do I like racing games? Answer is, I like racing.


The thing with AI is, unless AI has became really good where they have a plethora of characteristics, it runs into problem of balance. Are they too good, or too bad? You get the balance right but they still don't have a soul, you can't apply pressure because they don't feel. They don't close the door on you. Is not about faster or not faster. I used a lower spec car in one of the like 4 races I did for the campaign to make it interesting, won, ok. But it feels like is just a mission race, you need to hit the corners right. It doesn't feel racing, it feels like time trials with other cars around.
 
I just had a clean race long battle for the win with another driver in a lobby. For 5 laps we were nose to tail. On the last lap we went through 4 corners side-by-side without touching before I finally got the move done, and we crossed the line together with only 1/10th of a second between us.

AI cannot come close to this.

GT Sport online is brilliant.
Is it perfect? No.
Can it be improved? Yes, of course.
Has it improved the franchise? Undoubtedly.
 
I've played this game every single day for the first 3 years and half as much since then. Coming up on 2900 completed races and 190000 km's driven. What is that? Almost 5 times around the earth, half way to the moon?
Best money Ive ever spent including wheel, load cell and rig.
Im also lucky to still be in a healthy relationship with my fiancee. :gtpflag:
 
There's definitely the thrill of real, competitive racing to be found in Sport mode, on a good day. There's not a lot of Gran Turismo in it, though.

One thing I've loved about GT games, starting with 2, was GT mode: earning all sorts of different cars, tuning them and using them in a variety of races. 3 had a great GT mode too, and even the Hard/Professional Arcade races were good. With 4, not only was there an excellent GT mode, but Arcade mode was fantastically well equipped for quick 1 or 2 player races, and hotlapping with the ever-growing encyclopaedia of cars to pick from, in any colour; it also introduced photography modes. Tourist Trophy even let me do all that hotlapping on a bike. 5 had improved physics, unbelievable 1080p visuals, even better photography, but its GT mode was a few steps back, having less events, slower AI and serious money balance issues. In 6, further advancements were made in graphics, suspension, photography and the... moon, and now the GT mode was ridiculously simple; I'd never 100% completed a GT game yet, and I had gold in every event in 4 days. I spent many hundreds of hours afterwards driving the many cars around old and new locations, and it was nice to see VGTs and especially the Sierra Time Rally added to the game with updates.

Now, how is that paragraph relevant? GT Sport comes along with its marketing of "Let's burn it to the ground": rather than go about improving the game's AI, GT mode structure, or having an Arcade mode with the near-perfection of GT4's system but with the benefits of larger grids etc, they threw out everything, wholesale, in favour of a competitive online game (with actual, serious, money competition for the fastest 0.01%), sold as a Gran Turismo. Also a really nice photography game.

Updates have added a wealth of content to the game, many more circuits and cars for hotlappers to sink their teeth into, even some GT League races reminiscent of older GT Modes, with Isamu Ohira's joyous music in their menus and familiar titles, but with the worst of GT5/6s gameplay and no point in playing them besides credits. There is no progression to be made from slow cars to fast. Engine parts are now a slider. Tyres are free. Prize cars are replaced by a pseudo-random daily lottery where cars are given away like gumballs, and have even less value. You might occasionally have to go to your garage to tediously delete all the duplicate cars like junk emails. What are the credits for now? Buying only the few more desirable cars that the daily marathon lottery won't give you four of?

The franchise has a new element, for certain. The (weekly) Daily Races make online competitive racing much simpler and more accessible than it's ever been before, and it's a great feature to have. That element is not something I think the typical Gran Turismo fan is looking for, though. For occasional racers, the masses who buy the game and will spend less than 30 hours in it, it's unlikely they'll be hooked. For me, a fan of earlier games in the series who's spent thousands of hours across it but is definitely not "fast", I'm slowly warming to the Daily Races. I've accepted that I'll virtually never win (on a non-oval), but years of being trained to win at all costs by every other game make it a strange experience. Some of the grid are out to win, some of the grid skipped the Racing Etiquette and watched Drive Angry 3D instead. Often there's a few groups in the field separated by a massive gulf in qualifying times; so two people are having a real race at the front, and the rest are racing for third and trying to escape the fragmatch in the middle.

I think the "Sport" of Gran Turismo is a lofty ideal. Sure, it'd be nice if everyone in the world could enjoy clean and fair motorsports competition, it's worth having a try and it's a lot of fun, at times. GT Sport as a game is sorely lacking. The offline experience is a sad joke, especially if you're truly offline and can't even save.

But hey, the driving is still fun, Bathurst is still pretty (though I miss the day/night cycles, looking forward to seeing them again in 7).
Here's to hoping that the next GT can deliver excellent online racing and the best Car RPG since 2005.

edit: one "its"
 
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Sports Mode is an intro to FIA races. FIA World Tour is the selling point. Not necessarily Sports Mode.

FIA World Tour is like Nissan Academy. It sells the dream of being a Champion. Like the Academy it increases exposure and credibility. Not everyone becomes a Champion, but that dream sells a lot of games.

You may not personally like Sports Mode or play it but it does have a purpose beyond entertainment.
 
Did making GT SPORT an esport game make the GT franchise better?

Yes and no.

Whilst I personally don't care for competitive online gaming in general it was imperative GT got out of the rut of same-old same old and tried something new. It didn't do enough though. All they basically did was add racing rules to the GT6 quick races and ran three of them every week, plus the FIA competitions for the elites. Then you have the lobbies which again, are obviously not vastly different from GT6.

As I say I don't play competitive games at all but I'm vaguely aware of what other games offer for those that do and it's seemingly a heck of a lot more. When the first beta images were shown they hinted at regular weekly events similar to past single player events, but online. They didn't happen.

They could've created a system for proper in-game teams, they could have had tier systems so all skill levels could feel like winners, they could've had regular in-game contents with in-game rewards, and so on.

Then there is the problem of no tangible rewards for anyone but the elite. What motivation did PD give the regular playerbase to enter the FIA events other than the pure competition of it? Clearly that was not enough, going by the extremely low % turnout. They needed to offer in-game reasons for someone 5 seconds off the pace to enter, as I say, a tier system would've worked there.

One of the probable reasons for the absence of any of this is the age-old problem of PD and communication. Where other games/communities will have community managers constantly writing blog posts and community updates, keeping people engaged, reaching out on social media for new ideas, PD had nothing, other than usually soulless lists of results from events, only expanded to be more public for the finals events. Which is great for the 16 or 32 people taking part, but what of the other millions?

Contrary to other single player fans I do NOT want to see them just return to the status quo with GT7 though. I want them to continue being brave and changing up that formula, even if I (or others) don't like it. There is so much more you can do both with single player and competitive online racing, so I'll be very disappointed if GT7 is just GT1-6 with a slight lick of paint and GT Sport daily events/FIA tacked on.

There is still a huge opportunity for GT to innovate and improve, they need to keep trying.

People regularly cite the 80% of players not playing Sport mode statistic but there is a flip side to that. A game over 4 years old in a relatively niche genre still getting easily in excess of 100k players online a week is phenomenally successful.

It is all relative though. Generally speaking the genre might be a bit niche but GT is a standout in the in the numbers it pulls and people it appeals to. iRacing getting 100k numbers a week would be phenomenal, given that they've only had something like 175k total members.

With GTS having 11+ million total players in those four years though, 100k still playing sport mode is a decent number but not crazy, it's a small (~ 1%), dedicated section of the overall player base.
 
It is all relative though. Generally speaking the genre might be a bit niche but GT is a standout in the in the numbers it pulls and people it appeals to. iRacing getting 100k numbers a week would be phenomenal, given that they've only had something like 175k total members.

With GTS having 11+ million total players in those four years though, 100k still playing sport mode is a decent number but not crazy, it's a small (~ 1%), dedicated section of the overall player base.

To make a beak down of current engagement

Out of 13,462,000 accounts

826,400 launched the game in the past week (6.1%)
114,400 entered sport mode at least once last week (13.8% of active players)
~40,000 enter sport mode on a daily basis (4.8% of active players)

These are accounts though, not copies of the game. The ones not playing sport mode have no reason to make extra accounts while those most active in sport mode seem to also have multiple accounts going. So the sport mode numbers are a bit inflated. If you look at it as a percentage of total accounts, only 0.3% still play sport mode daily.

The question is, will the 94% that have stopped playing come back to GT7. The entry after a disappointing entry usually gets to bear the fallout of a disappointing entry. Only 5% have done more than 20 sport mode races, out of 17% giving it a shot. (83% never touched it) 70% of those that tried it didn't enjoy it enough to get invested in it...
 
What's really missing is more events. More local tournaments. More specialized tournaments.

So far it's been FIA, Toyota, Olympics sponsoring the events. I think it's been a mutually pleasant experience. Why not others? Cars, parts, clothing, etc... huge marketing potential.

I honestly don't know what the problem with the Auto industry is. They always seem to be viewing the digital world as an enemy instead of a tool. Like it's weird that no car website has a virtual test drive feature or a simple tool just look at the exterior and interior? But a game does. The entire industry is kind of hive dumb when it comes to new things outside their control.
 
Sure when I had more time, tuning cars to get to the max was great, and back then was the old dial up internet, or not good enough for gaming etc, so not really useable.
Tbh now I just want to jump in and go, really haven't got time for all the other stuff, just the online part.
 
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Not really.

A lot of the major improvements came from the physics changes, a proper attempt at competitive online racing and custom races being implemented. These are all well and needed for future titles, but isn't really something that screams "Gran Turismo".

For the longest time, GTS didn't really feel like a Gran Turismo title - partially due to the catering to (its own) e-sports and less focus on the vast majority of players that still don't show up in Sport Mode today. The result was a step above GT Academy in terms of its scale, but something like that is meaningless to the average person or to the person who doesn't care much about competition.

To a lot of people, GT is meant to be a sandbox game that allows them to express themselves through their car selection, tuning or through different disciplines of racing/driving. It's a soulful game that celebrates automotive, racing and (arcade) gaming history. All of which is achieved through the single player events, livery editor, scapes and showroom museums - which I believe were all present when the game finally made it past delays.

A few months after release, Polyphony eventually managed to get GT League in, but it might have been a bit "too little, too late". The release state set the precedent and made it difficult to look at as a GT game let alone a good one. I think most complaints towards the game now is just a bad aftertaste from the release of the game and what felt like an eternity to get all the content in.

Regardless, its predecessor, GT6, was able to provide at least some of the Gran Turismo with the Moon, Senna and Goodwood challenges alongside our familiar tracks such as Deep Forest and Grand Valley. Sierra was also massively popular at the time, but was never used for any professional events.

The Hamilton and Vettel challenges were a bit contemporary but they both succeeded in maintaining that soulful and historic aspect of GT while using things that were relevant and new.

E-Sports happens to fit into that category to some degree, but not everyone can get into it. And not everyone is an e-sports level driver. Being part of that history-in-the-making requires you to be a statistical anomaly which is impossible for all players to reach. Unsurprisingly, many don't want to get involved in something that does not care to involve them beyond what is essentially a quick race. It doesn't represent them as part of the GT community. It doesn't represent them as players, motorsports fans or car enthusiasts.

If Daily Races & Nations Cup aimed to express all these facets of Gran Turismo. I think it would be better received than what it is currently. To the people who care about Sport Mode, at least.

Since Kaz and Polyphony seems to be aware of this, I don't think GTS has ruined the franchise. Nor has its e-sports focus. Depending on how they play their cards, it might be better than what we ever imagined. They might just have to draw it closer to Gran Turismo's roots, though.

--

Hope this makes sense lol
 
I think moving forward, PD will treat SPort MOde and Arcade MOde, as two separate "discs". Maybe Simulation Mode will bridge the gap. What Sport Mode has done for PD, is give more insight to the Greater GT Commmunity. What has worked and what hasn't.
Kaz/PD have acknowledged they have had a problem. Looks like they are aiming to remedy it, but we'll see.
 
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