GT7 Suggestion: Make Car Ownership and Race Preparation More Meaningful

[ocuae]

Hello everyone,


I’d like to share an idea that I believe could make Gran Turismo 7’s online racing experience more rewarding and engaging.


One of the things I appreciate most about Gran Turismo is its dedication to automotive culture. The dealerships, legendary cars, manufacturer histories, tuning systems, and car collecting make the game feel like much more than just a racing simulator.


However, I believe there is an opportunity to make car ownership and the in-game economy more meaningful in online racing.


The Problem


Currently, many online events allow players to borrow eligible vehicles for free.


While this makes racing accessible, it also reduces the incentive to purchase cars, earn credits, and build a personal collection.


For example, I currently have around 32 million credits in GT7, yet I often find myself wondering why I should purchase certain cars when I can simply borrow them for online events.


In my opinion, earning credits and purchasing cars should have a greater purpose beyond collecting vehicles or participating in offline races.


My Main Idea: Make Preparing for a Race Part of the Experience


Imagine an upcoming online championship being announced several days in advance.


Players could visit the dealership, explore eligible vehicles, read about their specifications, and test them on the event’s circuit before making a purchase.


They could then save credits, purchase their preferred car, customize its appearance, practice on the track, and prepare for the competition.


This would make the journey toward participating in a race almost as rewarding as the race itself.


Instead of simply selecting a borrowed car and entering an event, players would have a stronger connection to the vehicles they choose to compete with.


Suggested Features


1. Ownership-required online championships


Introduce selected online races or championships that require players to own their participating vehicles.


2. Test drives before purchasing


Allow players to test eligible vehicles on the event’s circuit, practice, and record lap times before deciding which car to buy.


3. Optional paid rentals


For certain events, offer vehicle rentals for a reasonable amount of credits rather than making every rental free.


4. Rental damage and repair costs


Consider reasonable repair fees for rented vehicles in selected events, provided that the game can accurately and fairly determine responsibility for incidents.


5. Advance championship announcements


Announce certain events early enough for players to save credits, purchase suitable cars, customize them, and prepare for the race.


Maintaining Accessibility


I am not suggesting removing free rentals from every event.


Online Time Trials, in particular, should remain accessible to everyone because they focus on driving skill and fair competition.


Instead, I would love to see a balance between freely accessible events, rental-based races, and ownership-required championships.


Final Thoughts


Gran Turismo has always celebrated the history, engineering, and culture of automobiles.


I believe the game could take this philosophy even further by making car ownership, financial decisions, and race preparation more meaningful parts of the online experience.


It would give players more reasons to earn credits, explore dealerships, purchase cars, and develop a personal connection with the vehicles they race.


I’d love to hear what the community thinks.


Would you support ownership-required online championships alongside the existing rental system?


Thank you for reading!


PlayStation ID: ocUAE

 

[XSquareStickIt]

This might actually be the first time I've read something along the lines of, "I have too much credits in GT7 and nothing to spend them on!"

For me personally, I never have enough credits to spend despite having played this game (somewhat) regularly since launch. The fact that cars have irreversible mods available to them means I'd ideally want at least three copies of a UCD or LCD car; more if they have attractive body/interior colours. Some of the engine swaps are seriously expensive, costing millions of credits, and the results range from fun to funny. If you haven't already, I'd suggest giving some of the more well–known ones a try! My personal favourite though, is the very tame Roadster 12R with the RX-7 engine.

But more to your point of feeling proud of car ownership, I feel that GT7 already does a stellar job in that regard. Perhaps it's because I fool around with the Livery Editor a lot, but I've always liked how much personality and uniqueness we can give our cars in GT7, to the point where I'd never choose a rental car for online time trials or the odd Sport Mode race. Besides, GT Auto parts have been proven to affect a car's performance even under BoP, so there's a side effect of incentivising owning the car yourself instead of using a rental car.

Lastly—and this is of course only my personal experience and opinion—the only car game that I've felt a bond to my machine and have it associated with me is Need for Speed: World, and that's only because most cars can't be bought with in–game currency, and garage slots are severely limited, making what you choose to drive so much more important. I wouldn't want such nonsense in my GT game, though.

 

[bduddy]

The main issue I see with this is that it could easily tilt the game towards pay-to-win and more microtransactions. As annoying as the microtransaction begging in GT7 can be, right now it has absolutely nothing to do with being competitive in any race. Requiring owning and tuning cars could change that. The other issue is that, unfortunately, online sim racers have terrible taste and generally prefer to just race GT3s on the same five tracks over and over and over again forever. Something like this would probably have much lower participation and that seems to be what Sony and PD prefer to optimize for.

 

[eran0004]

Players who want to buy and customise their cars can already do that. I don’t see how making that mandatory for everyone would be an improvement.

 

[Nakano219]

Imagine an upcoming online championship being announced several days in advance.

I mean, this is your first problem. There's, what, 4 sets of 2 championships a year? All of which are GTWS and thus is going to have a player base that is anti-tuning.

The Championship section of Sport Mode could be really neat, but they just don't use the thing.

I still think there should be monthly-ish "here's a championship using the content from last month's update" championships.