Fears of microtransactions in GT6 addressed

[FiftyBelowZero]

I don't get it.

 

[danardif1]

Define 'beat the entire game'-because there's a difference between reaching the end credits and 100% completion

And also getting full enjoyment out of the entire game... completing every offline race (which according to some other posts this particular person didn't even do) is not completing a car collection, setting personal bests in time trials, tuning and testing new cars, driving for sheer enjoyment AND online is still to come with the global launch.

Add in the new features that the early patch and presumably subsequent ones that are coming will bring and yes, there's a massive difference between getting to the credits and 'completing' a Gran Turismo game.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Don't know about anyone else, but my reservations about what might happen to the GT economy are not alleviated by this thread. If the ASpec payouts are about the same as in GT5, which many have indicated, then GT6 will be a massive grindfest without high payout Seasonals, bolstered by the log-in and low PP bonus. The entire economy of the game really rests on Seasonals being available from the beginning and so far I haven't heard a word about them. Hopefully it comes in the Day 1 patch.

 

[SnakeOfBacon]

Reaching the first ending in GT6 won't take long I'm sure, in GT5 it only took me about a week, but there is so much more to the game than just that.

 

[BrandonW77]

And also getting full enjoyment out of the entire game... completing every offline race (which according to some other posts this particular person didn't even do) is not completing a car collection, setting personal bests in time trials, tuning and testing new cars, driving for sheer enjoyment AND online is still to come with the global launch.

Add in the new features that the early patch and presumably subsequent ones that are coming will bring and yes, there's a massive difference between getting to the credits and 'completing' a Gran Turismo game.

Yes. 👍 This is why I play GT. If I had to rate GT5 as a "game" I'd give it a C- at best.....but I still played it several times a week for almost three years and had a blast. Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that the new career mode won't provide a whole lot, but the number of things to do in GT is really only limited by your imagination. Well.....that and some occasional odd decisions by PD.

 

[GTPMcBride]

I would like the fact if it was hard to make money saving to get your next car was essential.

Am sorry but sometimes i think games are made to suit those who dont have time (less than others who dont have time but try) if you understand what i mean.

I know some people dont see it is a hobbie but with this franchise their are alot who play this as a hobbie,

My opinion is that i agree with multi transaction because if its the only way a game can be a challenge, sure it might suck if someone beats you in a car thats better because they bought it but to be honest their wont be alot of this.

What would happen if you lost your data etc Cars that you bought using the multi transaction?? Hmm

 

[BrandonW77]

Don't know about anyone else, but my reservations about what might happen to the GT economy are not alleviated by this thread. If the ASpec payouts are about the same as in GT5, which many have indicated, then GT6 will be a massive grindfest without high payout Seasonals, bolstered by the log-in and low PP bonus. The entire economy of the game really rests on Seasonals being available from the beginning and so far I haven't heard a word about them. Hopefully it comes in the Day 1 patch.

I "earned" at least 60-70% of my GT5 coin from other people remote racing my Bob's.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I "earned" at least 60-70% of my GT5 coin from other people remote racing my Bob's.

I remember you saying that, and that you had several accounts with $20Million in them. I rarely used it myself, guess it's something I'll look into as I doubt that SSR7 track breakout will magically reappear. I was pocketing $20Mill a night in just a couple of hours Is remote racing back in GT6?

 

[lalaurentide]

Who is this guy anyway? I only trust Jeff Gerstmann.

 

[BrandonW77]

I remember you saying that, and that you had several accounts with $20Million in them. I rarely used it myself, guess it's something I'll look into as I doubt that SSR7 track breakout will magically reappear. I was pocketing $20Mill a night in just a couple of hours Is remote racing back in GT6?

I never actually did remote racing, I just created the Bob's and people on my friends list raced them for me. I'd check in every couple days and withdraw enough to max my credits (easy with the login bonus) and then go shopping. I didn't grind much and only did the SSR7 trick a couple times. I haven't heard if remote racing will be in but with the inclusion of all the new social features I hope it will be....or else I might have to earn my money the hard way!

 

[eSZee]

How much do races on average pay out???

The entire novice portion of career pays between 4000 and 5000 per race. You have 8 races I believe and a 5000 bonus for completing the series.

Don't know about anyone else, but my reservations about what might happen to the GT economy are not alleviated by this thread. If the ASpec payouts are about the same as in GT5, which many have indicated, then GT6 will be a massive grindfest without high payout Seasonals, bolstered by the log-in and low PP bonus. The entire economy of the game really rests on Seasonals being available from the beginning and so far I haven't heard a word about them. Hopefully it comes in the Day 1 patch.

Same here, mostly because the statement in the OP addressed none of the worries that people on this site had.

 

[Ferrari458Italia]

The entire novice portion of career pays between 4000 and 5000 per race. You have 8 races I believe and a 5000 bonus for completing the series.


Same here, mostly because the statement in the OP addressed none of the worries that people on this site had.

Thanks for the reply.
I suppose 5k isn't bad per race seeing as how novice cars are generally in the 10-30k range.

another question, are all the car available in Arcade mode or is it like GT5 how only a portion of them are available. I really want to give the FXX and 250 GTO a spin on day 1 :/

 

[ildd]

Thanks for the reply.
I suppose 5k isn't bad per race seeing as how novice cars are generally in the 10-30k range.

another question, are all the car available in Arcade mode or is it like GT5 how only a portion of them are available. I really want to give the FXX and 250 GTO a spin on day 1 :/

There's about 20 cars for arcade mode...

 

[Ferrari458Italia]

There's about 20 cars for arcade mode...

damn

 

[Mulan]

most important will be multiplayer and how that plays. Reviewing that must take more than 1 day?
This part is what im looking forward to since i hope it will be greater than gt5 online.

 

[Lain]

What's with the eyeroll? While PD might not know better regarding many things, I think they learned their lesson on microtransactions thanks to the huge amount of backlash that they recieved regarding their initial plans for having GTHD on the PS3 come with a small vehicle roster and the rest being paid-for DLC.

So much so that they decided to shelve the idea of GTHD being a major GT release and released it as a free tech demo with no DLC whatsoever, then following it up eventually with GT5P and GT5.

But hey, if they've forgotten the lesson, they'll learn it again here shortly.

 

[Imari]

What's with the eyeroll? While PD might not know better regarding many things, I think they learned their lesson on microtransactions thanks to the huge amount of backlash that they recieved regarding their initial plans for having GTHD on the PS3 come with a small vehicle roster and the rest being paid-for DLC.

So much so that they decided to shelve the idea of GTHD being a major GT release and released it as a free tech demo with no DLC whatsoever, then following it up eventually with GT5P and GT5.

But hey, if they've forgotten the lesson, they'll learn it again here shortly.

I think you hit the mark right there. Why would they use logic and reason on this particular feature, when using logic and reason seems to be completely opposite to the way they treat most other game features?

I wouldn't expect them to be intentionally brutal with the microtransactions like say, EA might be. I just expect them to screw it up somehow. Probably because no one sat down with a calculator and a pencil for a couple of hours to figure out what might be a reasonable economy.

 

[ShiftingGears]

Prices and links:

1 Million in-game credits: £7.99 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GX8H920/?tag=gtplanetuk-20


2.5 Million in-game credits: £15.99 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GX8H8Y4/?tag=gtplanetuk-20

Unbelievable. That's a quantum leap alright.

How much do races on average pay out???

It makes you wonder doesn't it?

Don't know about anyone else, but my reservations about what might happen to the GT economy are not alleviated by this thread. If the ASpec payouts are about the same as in GT5, which many have indicated, then GT6 will be a massive grindfest without high payout Seasonals, bolstered by the log-in and low PP bonus. The entire economy of the game really rests on Seasonals being available from the beginning and so far I haven't heard a word about them. Hopefully it comes in the Day 1 patch.

You would hope so, but high-payout seasonals don't fit in with charging £8 for one million game credits.

 

[Lain]

I think you hit the mark right there. Why would they use logic and reason on this particular feature, when using logic and reason seems to be completely opposite to the way they treat most other game features?

I wouldn't expect them to be intentionally brutal with the microtransactions like say, EA might be. I just expect them to screw it up somehow. Probably because no one sat down with a calculator and a pencil for a couple of hours to figure out what might be a reasonable economy.

It's not that they don't apply logic, it's that they have a different design philosophy. If you think their design philosophy is poor, that's one thing. I'd likely agree with you in certain instances regarding their design philosophy. But design philosophy doesn't really have much bearing on microtransactions, which is by far more in the realm of business philosophy.

The pricing of in-game credits so far does seem high in comparison to the cars that cost 20M credits, but the vast majority of GT6's cars are far cheaper than 20M. It's kind of hard to find a microtransaction price that makes the 20M cars reasonably affordable without making it to where you can buy almost all of the other non-20M content with just one of these microtransactions. Sucks, but it's just the nature of business. And it only sucks if you plan on buying into the microtransaction system, since the trademark GT grind doesn't appear to have been ramped up significantly, if at all.

 

[Imari]

The pricing of in-game credits so far does seem high in comparison to the cars that cost 20M credits, but the vast majority of GT6's cars are far cheaper than 20M. It's kind of hard to find a microtransaction price that makes the 20M cars reasonably affordable without making it to where you can buy almost all of the other non-20M content with just one of these microtransactions. Sucks, but it's just the nature of business. And it only sucks if you plan on buying into the microtransaction system, since the trademark GT grind doesn't appear to have been ramped up significantly, if at all.

No, it's not. It's a simple application of logic.

If it's as you say, and they want the most expensive cars in-game to be somewhat expensive to buy with real money, but don't want to make it too easy to get "normal" cars, there's easy ways to fix that.

-Reduce the range of prices, either by making the most expensive cars cheaper or the cheapest cars more expensive. Problem solved, you can't buy as many "cheap" cars with the amount of credits it would take to buy an "expensive" car.

-Use car tokens. Instead of buying credits, you get one token exchangeable for any one car. It becomes a waste to use on cheap cars because they would be costing you as much real money as an expensive car.

-Use an alternate currency. If they like the in-game economy as is, they're easily able to create a second economy for microtransactions. Say you buy Widgets from the PS Store, and then each car has a price in Widgets that they can adjust independently of the Credits price.

That's me, sitting in my living room coming up with three solutions in ten minutes. I'm not a game designer. These are all ideas that have been used in other games, with varying levels of success. This stuff isn't hard if you make an actual effort.

Hence my comment about no one taking the time to sit down with pencil and calculator and actually THINK about what they're doing.

 

[Madertus]

Prices and links:

1 Million in-game credits: £7.99 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GX8H920/?tag=gtplanetuk-20


2.5 Million in-game credits: £15.99 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GX8H8Y4/?tag=gtplanetuk-20

So if Seasonal Events payouts function similarly to these from GT5, this is basically what we're paying for 20, at most 60 minutes of playing

These prices are absolutely ridiculous. Not that I'm interested in buying credits at all (never, I love earning money by racing), but I'd rather spend that money on some price-dropped RPG game

 

[nickg07]

Not that I've seen. It seems pretty-much the same as payouts in GT5 to me, as are car prices, and tuning costs etc.

Err GT5 prize payouts were woefully low. This is not good. All they had to do was up the number of events and have them pay more credits.

 

[Lain]

No, it's not. It's a simple application of logic.

If it's as you say, and they want the most expensive cars in-game to be somewhat expensive to buy with real money, but don't want to make it too easy to get "normal" cars, there's easy ways to fix that.

-Reduce the range of prices, either by making the most expensive cars cheaper or the cheapest cars more expensive. Problem solved, you can't buy as many "cheap" cars with the amount of credits it would take to buy an "expensive" car.

-Use car tokens. Instead of buying credits, you get one token exchangeable for any one car. It becomes a waste to use on cheap cars because they would be costing you as much real money as an expensive car.

-Use an alternate currency. If they like the in-game economy as is, they're easily able to create a second economy for microtransactions. Say you buy Widgets from the PS Store, and then each car has a price in Widgets that they can adjust independently of the Credits price.

That's me, sitting in my living room coming up with three solutions in ten minutes. I'm not a game designer. These are all ideas that have been used in other games, with varying levels of success. This stuff isn't hard if you make an actual effort.

Hence my comment about no one taking the time to sit down with pencil and calculator and actually THINK about what they're doing.

Touche.

But to be fair, it's not that they (or I, with my previous post) weren't thinking. It's that we weren't thinking outside the box. And Polyphony is especially notorious for not noticing or caring about how other developers are doing things, so they don't have your advantage of knowing how, say, Forza has solved this particular problem.

And to nitpick, your three solutions are really just two. The idea of buying an alternate currency is essentially the same as car tokens, especially since some cars in Forza require more car tokens than others... it's not 1 token = any single car, it's that each car has its own price in Tokens. Most are one, but some can require 2 or more. Or in other words, if you make it to where a single car token can unlock literally any car, it's basically just alternate currency where all the cars are set to the price of 1.

 

[Imari]

Touche.

But to be fair, it's not that they (or I, with my previous post) weren't thinking. It's that we weren't thinking outside the box. And Polyphony is especially notorious for not noticing or caring about how other developers are doing things, so they don't have your advantage of knowing how, say, Forza has solved this particular problem.

It's not my fault that they're shut ins. But they're as able as any other developer to come up with these ideas on their own if the choose not to look at the world around them.

I don't see how you say it's not that they weren't thinking though. They've gone for the simplest possible solution with a number of drawbacks and what appears to be fairly terrible price choices. How are we not thinking outside the box with this? Is there some advantage to their system that I'm missing?

And to nitpick, your three solutions are really just two. The idea of buying an alternate currency is essentially the same as car tokens, especially since some cars in Forza require more car tokens than others... it's not 1 token = any single car, it's that each car has its own price in Tokens. Most are one, but some can require 2 or more. Or in other words, if you make it to where a single car token can unlock literally any car, it's basically just alternate currency where all the cars are set to the price of 1.

Fair point. I'm sure there's more ways of doing it but eventually it's going to be tweaks on established stuff.

 

[Lain]

It's not my fault that they're shut ins. But they're as able as any other developer to come up with these ideas on their own if the choose not to look at the world around them.

I don't see how you say it's not that they weren't thinking though. They've gone for the simplest possible solution with a number of drawbacks and what appears to be fairly terrible price choices. How are we not thinking outside the box with this? Is there some advantage to their system that I'm missing?

All I was saying is that these solutions to this problem which seem obvious to you don't necessarily spring to mind in people who've never heard of them before, even if they've earnestly given the problem some serious thought.

Though an alternative explanation to this is that Polyphony gave this problem zero thought, because it was all Sony's idea for it in the first place. It is very Sony-like in its horrible execution...

 

[Imari]

All I was saying is that these solutions to this problem which seem obvious to you don't necessarily spring to mind in people who've never heard of them before, even if they've earnestly given the problem some serious thought.

Though an alternative explanation to this is that Polyphony gave this problem zero thought, because it was all Sony's idea for it in the first place. It is very Sony-like in its horrible execution...

I'm sorry, but could you come up with more excuses why it's not PD's fault?

Sony made them do it.
They've never seen any other games so they don't know any better.
It's really hard to do this sort of thing.

They made the game. It's their name on the box, their names in the credits. At the end of the day, it's their responsibility.

 

[jimipitbull]

I'm sorry, but could you come up with more excuses why it's not PD's fault?

Sony made them do it.
They've never seen any other games so they don't know any better.
It's really hard to do this sort of thing.

They made the game. It's their name on the box, their names in the credits. At the end of the day, it's their responsibility.

If it's not hard, why aren't you making better games?

 

[Lain]

I'm sorry, but could you come up with more excuses why it's not PD's fault?

Sony made them do it.
They've never seen any other games so they don't know any better.
It's really hard to do this sort of thing.

They made the game. It's their name on the box, their names in the credits. At the end of the day, it's their responsibility.

I have no need or desire to make excuses for Polyphony on this regard, since this is a 100% non-issue for me and likely the vast majority of die-hard GT fans.

But it's a simple truth that most (if not all) things that are considered "obvious" aren't obvious, but in fact only seem like they are due to prior experience. Touch a hot stove as a kid and it becomes obvious that you shouldn't do that, yet it's clearly not inherently obvious to everybody since there's always going to be kids touching stoves because they don't know better yet. And for better or worse, Polyphony likes to stay in their little bubble and not pay attention to how other games are doing things. I can't blame you if you don't like their philosophy in this regard, but I'm not defending them. I'm just saying it is what it is, since I'm indifferent.

And regarding the Sony comment, it was partially a joke. But to defend it nonetheless, Sony's name is on the box too, as well as in the credits. And Polyphony is not the boss, Sony is. So it wouldn't matter if Polypony would've preferred not to have a microtransaction system at all, they can only fight Sony so much. I'm sure that Sony's probably tried twisting Polyphony's arm in worse ways before, so if Sony wants a microtransaction system, that's a pretty harmless request to agree to in order to somewhat appease the boss so they lay off you a bit...

If it's not hard, why aren't you making better games?

Because there's more to making games than being able to think logically?

 

[Imari]

If it's not hard, why aren't you making better games?

Of course. I forgot that you're not allowed to criticise something unless you've made something better. Which is why we ignore pretty much all the game critics, movie critics, restaurant critics and every other sort of critic who hasn't produced a quality whatever it is they're reviewing.

I don't need to be making games to see bad game design. Just as you don't need to be making cars to see that having a 12 inch spike in the middle of the steering wheel is a bad idea.

But it's a simple truth that most (if not all) things that are considered "obvious" aren't obvious, but in fact only seem like they are due to prior experience. Touch a hot stove as a kid and it becomes obvious that you shouldn't do that, yet it's clearly not inherently obvious to everybody since there's always going to be kids touching stoves because they don't know better yet. And for better or worse, Polyphony likes to stay in their little bubble and not pay attention to how other games are doing things. I can't blame you if you don't like their philosophy in this regard, but I'm not defending them. I'm just saying it is what it is, since I'm indifferent.

I can see how you might look at it like that. That's reasonable.

For my part, I see them as professional developers. It's not acceptable in any industry that I'm aware of to be ignorant of current trends and breakthroughs, and I don't think game development is any different. PD are a AAA developer, and I'm happy to hold them to the same standard that other high profile developers are held to.

 

[Brend]

There ARE license tests.

"Getting free games" is hilarious to me. I've personally spent WAY more money than I could ever recoup by getting a $60 game for free, along with the fact that I've spent every waking minute of my free-time since Weds working on the review for this game. No one ever thinks of that, which is why I laugh when someone starts a blog or podcast so that companies will send them a game. We've worked our asses off to build relationships with these publishers, and nothing has ever simply been handed to us. We do this because we love it, but don't think for a minute that we conduct ourselves like the corporate entities do. Fan sites like ours are really the only sites that I can even respect these days, and my hat's off to the people that go through what we do. I love what we get to do, and I'm suprised every day that we're included, but it's not out of some kind of idea that we "deserve" it, it took YEARS of hard work to get where we are.

Really feel sorry for the barage of nonsense you have been confronted with for posting here. Some people are just determined that GT6 will be awful.