GT6 game play more about money grubbing than racing?

[C_Raccoon23]

At first, I was worried about GT6's economy being affected because of these micro transactions. But then I decided to change my approach of the game.

What I do to earn money is to buy or pick a car I like and then do any events it can enter. It may not be as fast as grinding the same high-paying event again and again, but it certainly is a lot more fun, and having fun is more important to me than trying to earn money as quickly as possible.

With this playing style, I get to spend a lot of time with different cars and more importantly, it makes the game last much, much longer. The money will come over time. So micro-transactions affecting the game is something I'm not really concerned about now.

GT6 may not pay as much as GT5 post-seasonals at the moment, but I'm okay with that. The game does seem to pay quite a bit as you get to the higher event tiers anyway.

 

[ragnar666]

i didn't think so at first, but after finding out they took out endurance, yes. clearly enabling players to buy credits they want to make sure people have a need to. the impatient will since there is no real way to grind a significant amount of credits now.

 

[coreytrini]

I'm very glad for you that the only choice Sony offers is the one you enjoy. Lots of people played GT4 and GT5 that way, would never think of winning the same Seasonal a number of times just to make money. You'll be content only being able to look at all those wonderful new cars & only picking the "right" one without driving the others.

The point is, one had the same choices in GT4 and GT5 but they could be found within in the game, without having to dip in to my credit card account.

Credits are much tighter in GT6 than in previous games. Credits in GT6 can be bought for cash. I'd like to think that combination of facts would outrage me even if I preferred the style of game play you do.

Rick

What pisses me of about having to buy credit to use in the game its like those free games you download on your phone. but the thing is i forked out $65.81 for this game i shouldnt have to pay an extra 4.99 for 1 million credit.

 

[USARMYCOMBATVET]

I have yet to purchase a single car yet. I am by no means a "fast" driver. This game awards you the perfect car for each race via golding all the events up until that race. I have 355,000 credits. I only had to tune the NSX '91 to complete Matterhorn so far. Most of these cars are perfect, as is, for races when gifted.

 

[Lynx1677]

One frustration, ok its not even a frustration but a slight roll of the eyes. I was in the "B" group races and the only car I didn't have in my 20 fancy car preorder was a 90's Japanese car for the.........yep, 90's Japanese car race. So I bought a 1995 RX7 and souped her up a little. Golded all 3 races and won..........a 90's Japanese car (Honda NSX). Gee thanks. Not a major issue but I did sort of breathe heavily through my nose in dissaproval (stiff upper lip you see).

 

[USARMYCOMBATVET]

One frustration, ok its not even a frustration but a slight roll of the eyes. I was in the "B" group races and the only car I didn't have in my 20 fancy car preorder was a 90's Japanese car for the.........yep, 90's Japanese car race. So I bought a 1995 RX7 and souped her up a little. Golded all 3 races and won..........a 90's Japanese car (Honda NSX). Gee thanks. Not a major issue but I did sort of breathe heavily through my nose in dissaproval (stiff upper lip you see).

The Evo VI TME Special Package is a gift car and eligible.

 

[Bluntified]

IMHO GT6's lifespan won't be as long GT5's. Time is something we don't have. Friends will be moving on to PS4, GT7 (if I comes out sooner rather than later), Xbone, etc. If my PS3 dies I won't be buying another. The way I figure it I want to do as much as I can within 1 year. I need credits quickly and if PD won't rightfully give them out I will find another way.

Look at it this way, GT5 was - and I quote the masses here at GTP "Total utter crap", but the funny thing is, that game was active for over a year? Die hard racers won't be leaving this game anytime soon, I know I won't. Unless a PS4 GT releases, I think people will stay put.

You're also forgetting that GT5's Career was about equal to GT6's payouts!! PD included micro-transactions for people like you, that have no time and want things quick! If you don't want to pay, play like the rest and save!

Anyway, all those who are complaining about money obviously haven't played any other GT, or game for that matter. I think it's funny when some people start there post with "I've been playing GT for 15 years, blah blah blah....", who ever actually played for that long will know, GT6's payouts are along the lines.

People here see the word "micro-transactions" and get all fussy, people need to chill, save up your money and spend it wisely. That's the whole point of any type of currency in ANY type of game!

 

[redrick]

Regardless of the micro transactions it's still about the same grind to get credits as every other GT. Now a year from now if they don't have seasonals with higher payouts then we can say while maybe it is the micro transactions. To me though I want to feel like I earned that million dollar car, that I just didn't go do some race 2 or 3 times and get a bunch of money to buy it. If you are really worried about it do the glitch at willow springs.

You really should read the thread you're responding to. To quote what you are not answering:

The bottom line of my disappointment is that every element of the game is obviously compromised once the publisher has a financial interest in making one element of it more difficult for reasons other than over-all excellence of play.

 

[redrick]

i didn't think so at first, but after finding out they took out endurance, yes. clearly enabling players to buy credits they want to make sure people have a need to. the impatient will since there is no real way to grind a significant amount of credits now.

Right. I miss the endurance just because I like them. But things change I don't like all the time because maybe others didn't like them. But now I'm angry about them being taken out because I have big questions about why they were taken out re this micro-BS. We lose a major part of simulating the GT races in the world so Sony can get people to buy virtual money.

And I'm really not getting all these people who say they like GT6 because of the way it forces them to play. GT5 offered you the choice to play that way. You didn't have to play enduros. You didn't have to play Seasonals at all, much less certain big pay-outs over and over, or use any of the other ways to speed up the accumulation of credits. I know many people who played GT5 that way. I guess some people just don't have any self-control and so are afraid of choice.

I liked to have many cars in each class, drive them all, tune them all, so that I could decide which I liked best and wanted to use in races, rather than having to buy just one car based on internet research of what other people thought was best.

In choosing a car there was also (at first) the option of trading expensive cars back and forth through gifting so that you could "test drive" cars for a while. But OH NO! We couldn't have that. Sony discovered that certain evil villains were actually using it to sell game elements- cars- for cash! Horrors!

Regards,

Rick

 

[DGXR]

Remember that GT5's log-in bonus did not appear until well into the game's life-cycle. Also remember how ridiculously easy it was to earn credits during the last third (?) of GT5's life cycle. It's way too early boo GT6 for not giving enough prize credits. Some people are way too impatient. I believe those people rushing to make massive progress so early in the game are likely to miss out on the real enjoyment and excitement of discovering what the game has to offer. They have the blinders on, determined to beat everything as quickly as possible, while missing out on so much else. Maybe you can't afford that supercar. Does that mean you can't have fun? Try a mission race. Or do the goodwood festival. Or enter a one-make race. Or enter a completed race with a lesser car, for more challenge and to test your skills and knowledge of the track. On and on...

Also, the career mode (GT Mode) is supposed to resemble a simulation -- hardly any real-life professional drivers had boatloads of cash when they were novices/amateurs. Why do you think you should have boatloads of cash so early in your career? Every driver among us wants the fastest cars, but we all have to wait some period of time to get them. So do you. Unless you are willing and able to pay real cash for game credits, which you are not.

Finally, challenging races in GT6 are not just for the rich. Try this: enter an arcade mode single race, professional level, with the AI turned up to 8 or 10. Then post back here and let us know what you think. These dialed-up arcade races may not be challenging for everyone, but they have been some of the best GT6 races for me, so far.

What concerns me most is that Sony or PD or whatever has a huge motive to keep players short of credits. I mean, in GT5, why would anybody need to buy credits with cash? I like to think I'd be so outraged at this that I wouldn't do it even if I was rich enough to.

From what I've seen so far of GT6, we may never be able to buy all those new cars. There's no 5-day log in reward of double credits/experience, rewards for winning races are low, even the first seasonals are pretty low. No used cars.

I'm not the world's greatest driver (elderly, slightly arthritic), but in GT5 I was always had millions of credits. I think I got more from the dozens of 2nd place finishes where it took me forever to gold a seasonal race. Here I'm afraid to use credits even to tune the few cars I have.

And the hypocrisy! Look how prissy they were, not allowing trading or gifting cars over a mil in GT5 because they were afraid money might be changing hands in a few cases. And here the same people are bare facedly selling credits for cash!

The game is really only superficially better than GT5. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy it until and unless they start to see posts from people who have figured how to make lots of credits without unreasonable amounts of grinding.

The great thing about both GT4 and GT5 was players could make it as much of a challenge as they wanted. Looks like a big part of that choice will only be available to the rich. And most rich people didn't get that way by falling for such obvious rip-offs.

Rick

 

[ell470]

I still don't feel like the game has been restricted payout-wise to force microtransactions on me.

However, I fear that seasonals won't ever get to the payout level of GT5's tho because of the MT's...

And I couldn't agree more, Microtransactions sucks!!

 

[Johnnypenso]

Remember that GT5's log-in bonus did not appear until well into the game's life-cycle. Also remember how ridiculously easy it was to earn credits during the last third (?) of GT5's life cycle. It's way too early boo GT6 for not giving enough prize credits. Some people are way too impatient. I believe those people rushing to make massive progress so early in the game are likely to miss out on the real enjoyment and excitement of discovering what the game has to offer. They have the blinders on, determined to beat everything as quickly as possible, while missing out on so much else. Maybe you can't afford that supercar. Does that mean you can't have fun? Try a mission race. Or do the goodwood festival. Or enter a one-make race. Or enter a completed race with a lesser car, for more challenge and to test your skills and knowledge of the track. On and on...

Also, the career mode (GT Mode) is supposed to resemble a simulation -- hardly any real-life professional drivers had boatloads of cash when they were novices/amateurs. Why do you think you should have boatloads of cash so early in your career? Every driver among us wants the fastest cars, but we all have to wait some period of time to get them. So do you. Unless you are willing and able to pay real cash for game credits, which you are not.

Finally, challenging races in GT6 are not just for the rich. Try this: enter an arcade mode single race, professional level, with the AI turned up to 8 or 10. Then post back here and let us know what you think. These dialed-up arcade races may not be challenging for everyone, but they have been some of the best GT6 races for me, so far.

Not picking on you in particular but many of you seem to miss the point entirely, you're just a good recent example. Many people do not enjoy "racing" against rolling roadblocks comprising the worst AI in sim driving known to man. No matter how you slice it, hundreds of thousand, probably millions of us, want nothing to do with offline. We want to race online with our friends, or just enjoy driving, collecting, tuning cars without have to slog through massive numbers of races with jokey payouts.

In many ways PD is stuck in 1998 mode and the laugable payouts in online racing at the moment are proof of that. You can't possible carve out a career online racing because you have to race for hours just to afford a couple of upgrades to one car, let alone buy another one. Offline career mode works for you and others and that's great, no one wants to take that away from you. Give the rest of us an alternate path to get to the same place without the distasteful grind.

 

[ell470]

Not picking on you in particular but many of you seem to miss the point entirely, you're just a good recent example. Many people do not enjoy "racing" against rolling roadblocks comprising the worst AI in sim driving known to man. No matter how you slice it, hundreds of thousand, probably millions of us, want nothing to do with offline. We want to race online with our friends, or just enjoy driving, collecting, tuning cars without have to slog through massive numbers of races with jokey payouts.

In many ways PD is stuck in 1998 mode and the laugable payouts in online racing at the moment are proof of that. You can't possible carve out a career online racing because you have to race for hours just to afford a couple of upgrades to one car, let alone buy another one. Offline career mode works for you and others and that's great, no one wants to take that away from you. Give the rest of us an alternate path to get to the same place without the distasteful grind.

Oh, now I understand the problem much clearer! Personally I don't play online so I didn't even think of that :/

Fingers crossed Seasonals will be getting a payout boost

 

[redrick]

For heaven's sake! The game is just a few days old! I'm fairly certain there will be a lot of high-paying seasonals a'la GT5 if people just calm down & wait a bit.

Some comments on the forum sounds like people don't want to drive at all, just rake in cash & buy cars.

GT5 didn't pay you well either, even I had my "Bob" earn me money while I watched movies... That's NOT playing the game! That is NOT why I play Gran Turismo.

GT has always been about the driving for me, I've felt that way since GT1.

GT6 will be the best GT ever as soon as the updated Course maker launches.

I'm very happy for you. GT has always been about driving for you. Great! I'm a lousy driver (elderly, a bit arthritic, & don't spend as much of my game time actually driving) & have learned a lot to my benefit by watching YouTube videos by people like you & getting driving tips that help me much.

But why shouldn't other people have the choice to play differently? How would that hurt you? I actually do spend a much smaller portion of my time actually racing. I like buying a lot of cars, tinkering with them, testing them & getting just the right car, tune, tranny setup for a given track... I know others want to just jump in a car and race. Good for them and good for you! The great thing about GT4 & GT5 was you could play it many different ways. It's always been much more than just a race-driving game.

I hope what you are "fairly certain" about comes true, though how it depends on my calming down and waiting a bit I don't quite understand. The problem is that Sony now has a huge motive for not making credit raising easier that didn't exist in previous games, and there already signs that it has been affected by that motive. It seems a much better strategy to me for many people to express their mistrust as widely as possible. This might goad Sony into making some sort of promise or at least releasing more info as to future plans. Or they might just say to heck with us, which would tell us where we stand and give us time to return the game within a 30 day window.

So far, they seem to think it's enough to have "cleared things up" by making a statement to the effect that it is not absolutely necessary to buy credits in order to complete the game. That is not good enough.

Sincere best wishes for your continued enjoyment of the game the way you like it,

Rick

 

[redrick]

... -- hardly any real-life professional drivers had boatloads of cash when they were novices/amateurs.

BTW 3 of the 22 F1 drivers in the 2013 season have or control truly boatloads of cash that go to whatever of the teams that will hire them. "Boatloads" is the very word I heard used a number of times by commentators during the race telecasts. And while they are not novices or amateurs, all F1 drivers are young- a bit younger in range than American football players. Vettel is, what, about 26? And a boatload-of-casher that's supposed to drive in next year's F1 is only 19!.

 

[Jubby]

What concerns me most is that Sony or PD or whatever has a huge motive to keep players short of credits. I mean, in GT5, why would anybody need to buy credits with cash? I like to think I'd be so outraged at this that I wouldn't do it even if I was rich enough to... The great thing about both GT4 and GT5 was players could make it as much of a challenge as they wanted. Looks like a big part of that choice will only be available to the rich. And most rich people didn't get that way by falling for such obvious rip-offs.

See my response pasted from a different thread: Oh come on, 95+% of all GT races don't pay out squat across all 6 games. GT1 was a grind machine up to the Highspeed Challenge, GT2 had to be grinded to get some of the 250k prize cars, but the actual payout wasn't helpful. GT3 payouts weren't all that great, but the prize cars helped. GT4's is the same. GT5's payouts were horrendous until the seasonals. This is not indicative of forcing people into micro-transactions. If people want to, they can purchase credits. Has anyone been prompted to buy them? None that I know of. Don't expect anything to change this time when it's been consistent over 15 years.

I agree with you, grinding would be fun if the AI drove normal racers. They are always spinning me out.

People wanted more aggressive AI. Getting a calculated chrome horn from an AI is something interesting to me. They act like some of the drivers we race against (albeit dirty).

Not picking on you in particular but many of you seem to miss the point entirely, you're just a good recent example. Many people do not enjoy "racing" against rolling roadblocks comprising the worst AI in sim driving known to man. No matter how you slice it, hundreds of thousand, probably millions of us, want nothing to do with offline. We want to race online with our friends, or just enjoy driving, collecting, tuning cars without have to slog through massive numbers of races with jokey payouts.

In many ways PD is stuck in 1998 mode and the laugable payouts in online racing at the moment are proof of that. You can't possible carve out a career online racing because you have to race for hours just to afford a couple of upgrades to one car, let alone buy another one. Offline career mode works for you and others and that's great, no one wants to take that away from you. Give the rest of us an alternate path to get to the same place without the distasteful grind.

GT has always been about earning the best cars, the hard way. To change that simple factor would lose the challenge. Is that what you're looking for? No challenge?

 

[redrick]

GT has always been about earning the best cars, the hard way...

So many people want to declare what "GT has always been about". It's always been possible to play GT "earning the best cars, the hard way", but the great thing about GT(I can only speak to 4 and 5) is that you had the choice to make it about just about anything in the automotive world you wanted. It's had the least forced linearity of any game in any genre I can think of.

 

[Johnnypenso]

See my response pasted from a different thread: Oh come on, 95+% of all GT races don't pay out squat across all 6 games. GT1 was a grind machine up to the Highspeed Challenge, GT2 had to be grinded to get some of the 250k prize cars, but the actual payout wasn't helpful. GT3 payouts weren't all that great, but the prize cars helped. GT4's is the same. GT5's payouts were horrendous until the seasonals. This is not indicative of forcing people into micro-transactions. If people want to, they can purchase credits. Has anyone been prompted to buy them? None that I know of. Don't expect anything to change this time when it's been consistent over 15 years.

People wanted more aggressive AI. Getting a calculated chrome horn from an AI is something interesting to me. They act like some of the drivers we race against (albeit dirty).

GT has always been about earning the best cars, the hard way. To change that simple factor would lose the challenge. Is that what you're looking for? No challenge?

Like a lot of people, you just don't get it. My first cell phone was nicknamed the "brick" because that's how big it was. It made phone calls and that was it. I've had probably 10 phones since then, each one better than the other. Can you say that about GT offline racing? This isn't 1998 man, it's 2013. Big difference between GT1-4 and GT5/6 is ONLINE. Once racing against real people became reality for many of us, everything and I mean everything else pales in comparison. GT was about earning cars the hard way...because that's all you had. You raced the AI and the harder they made the game, the longer you played. That was great in the 90's and 00's before ONLINE.

AI is not a challenge it's an time trial with moving pylons. License tests are ridiculous for any experienced sim racer. The "challenge" I'm looking for is racing real people, not robots. If I got all the cars in the game day 1 and just had to earn my upgrades I'd be ecstatic. Here's the thing though. Unlike you, I'm not trying to explain away stagnant game design with the useful response of, "that's the way it's always been". And unlike you, I don't want to take that away from you or deny it to you. What I want are alternative ways to play the game that reflect the growing popularity of ONLINE racing and the diminishing pool of people who want to play an extensive offline career mode. If you don't want all the cars to start, don't take them. If you don't want to do an Online Career Mode then don't. See, we can all win.

If PD doesn't get with the times and move ahead about 15 years they will eventually lose out to the next competitor and one is on the horizon. The new online setup is pretty good, if we only had some money and cars we could use it because the payouts are a joke online.

 

[Antairez]

We told PD to learn from Forza, like the sounds, and the customization options. They adopted micro-transactions.
We told sony to learn from XBox, like getting more exclusive games. They adopted paid-membership to play online.

I guess this is how it is. Japanese people are polluted by the big capitalism.

 

[redrick]

If PD doesn't get with the times and move ahead about 15 years they will eventually lose out to the next competitor and one is on the horizon. The new online setup is pretty good, if we only had some money and cars we could use it because the payouts are a joke online.

Could you say what's the name of that competitor and approx. how far the horizon is? & if it's for PlayStation? 'Cause basically I'm seeing GT5 as superior to GT6. The added tracks are nice and the added cars would be if you could ever afford to buy and tune them, but the freedom of GT5 play far outweighs that. The only thing I'm waiting on is how improved the "improved" the new physics are, and I'm waiting on an expert's opinion about that which I won't hear for another week or so.

Thank you,

Rick

 

[Antairez]

Could you say what's the name of that competitor and approx. how far the horizon is? & if it's for PlayStation? 'Cause basically I'm seeing GT5 as superior to GT6. The added tracks are nice and the added cars would be if you could ever afford to buy and tune them, but the freedom of GT5 play far outweighs that. The only thing I'm waiting on is how improved the "improved" the new physics are, and I'm waiting on an expert's opinion about that which I won't hear for another week or so.

Thank you,

Rick

Not an expert, but as a person who actually drives a real car I can tell you the suspension model is a great improvement from GT5, and perhaps the most realistic implementation on the market right now.

 

[redrick]

Not an expert, but as a person who actually drives a real car I can tell you the suspension model is a great improvement from GT5, and perhaps the most realistic implementation on the market right now.

Thank you very much for the info. Just to clarify, do you mean just the stock suspension or also how it responds to adjustment when you buy the fully adjustable kit?

Thanks again,

Rick

 

[ell470]

I'm very happy for you. GT has always been about driving for you. Great! I'm a lousy driver (elderly, a bit arthritic, & don't spend as much of my game time actually driving) & have learned a lot to my benefit by watching YouTube videos by people like you & getting driving tips that help me much.

But why shouldn't other people have the choice to play differently? How would that hurt you? I actually do spend a much smaller portion of my time actually racing. I like buying a lot of cars, tinkering with them, testing them & getting just the right car, tune, tranny setup for a given track... I know others want to just jump in a car and race. Good for them and good for you! The great thing about GT4 & GT5 was you could play it many different ways. It's always been much more than just a race-driving game.

I hope what you are "fairly certain" about comes true, though how it depends on my calming down and waiting a bit I don't quite understand. The problem is that Sony now has a huge motive for not making credit raising easier that didn't exist in previous games, and there already signs that it has been affected by that motive. It seems a much better strategy to me for many people to express their mistrust as widely as possible. This might goad Sony into making some sort of promise or at least releasing more info as to future plans. Or they might just say to heck with us, which would tell us where we stand and give us time to return the game within a 30 day window.

So far, they seem to think it's enough to have "cleared things up" by making a statement to the effect that it is not absolutely necessary to buy credits in order to complete the game. That is not good enough.

Sincere best wishes for your continued enjoyment of the game the way you like it,

Rick

I want them to make a "GT4" again, content wise. If it's one thing I feel is lacking in the last two iterations of GT, it's events & tracks!

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a one-make race around El Capitan again

Edit:
Rick, I don't do GT videos, as a musician I only do musicvideos. Search for "Patrik Ell" if you're curious

 

[Zuel]

The payout have gotten some what better now.

 

[Antairez]

Thank you very much for the info. Just to clarify, do you mean just the stock suspension or also how it responds to adjustment when you buy the fully adjustable kit?

Thanks again,

Rick

You observe the greatest changes in the stock suspension. In the fully adjustable ones people tend to stiffen them up, so you don't see much of bouncing around, but still you see the weight transfer much clearly in GT6. Unlike in GT5 cars were like a freakin tank and float through the ground, or behaving like an octopus that suck to the road and never flip itself if you hit a wall in 150mph. It is clearly way more realistic.

Driving in GT6 with a wheel is much more fun than driving in GT5, you get way more feedback about what you are doing to the car.

If you had 100 reasons to buy expensive wheels like t500rs in GT5, you would have 1000 reasons to do the same thing in GT6.

 

[Antairez]

What pisses me of about having to buy credit to use in the game its like those free games you download on your phone. but the thing is i forked out $65.81 for this game i shouldnt have to pay an extra 4.99 for 1 million credit.

Yes that pisses everyone off, but if you are in the company that's probably the same thing you will do too, to maximize income, unless you want to get fired.

Micro transactions have been a way of increasing company's income, especially in the long run. Because what used to happen is that people purchased the game, which is a one-time only transaction, and that %59.99 needs to last at least 2 to 3 years until they release the next one.

You don't have to buy any, but you can't stop them from doing this. As a matter of fact, some of my "wealthy" friends do enjoy the options when they are lazy, they will probably be pissed if micro transactions aren't around.

Just a fact.

 

[Whitestar]

Cause basically I'm seeing GT5 as superior to GT6. The added tracks are nice and the added cars would be if you could ever afford to buy and tune them, but the freedom of GT5 play far outweighs that. The only thing I'm waiting on is how improved the "improved" the new physics are, and I'm waiting on an expert's opinion about that which I won't hear for another week or so.

For me the added tracks, added cars and the vastly improved physics are the most important things and the main reason I regard GT6 as far superior to GT5.

Driving in GT6 with a wheel is much more fun than driving in GT5, you get way more feedback about what you are doing to the car.

If you had 100 reasons to buy expensive wheels like t500rs in GT5, you would have 1000 reasons to do the same thing in GT6.

Pretty much spot on!

 

[coreytrini]

The payout have gotten some what better now.

Sorry but have you raced online and won a couple of races?? the pay out is so small for example on la sarth 2 lap race at 550pp the pay out 3,700cr that is no way better.

 

[Corsa911]

i didn't think so at first, but after finding out they took out endurance, yes. clearly enabling players to buy credits they want to make sure people have a need to. the impatient will since there is no real way to grind a significant amount of credits now.

To go one step further.

I believe they removed shuffle racing for the same reason. If you want to race online, you need to spend your credits on the cars.

The game isn't blatently geared towards microtransactions, rather, subtle steps have been taken to push you in that direction.

 

[ragnar666]

To go one step further.

I believe they removed shuffle racing for the same reason. If you want to race online, you need to spend your credits on the cars.

The game isn't blatently geared towards microtransactions, rather, subtle steps have been taken to push you in that direction.

yeah pretty much, and at least they have been fairly subtle and they arn't as in your face as other games. its the new generation of money grabbing, its a real shame really. free to play and micro transactions are the plague of the gaming world.