Gran Turismo 7 is now the worst game in the franchise, at least according to the user reviews on Metacritic. The user review score on Metacritic plummeted towards the end of last week and over the weekend. That was largely in response to update 1.07. The game now sits at just 2.0 on Metacritic.
Update 1.07 contained a bunch of fixes and improvements for Gran Turismo 7 however it also made some controversial changes. In the update, payouts for some races were dramatically nerfed. The events that had their payouts nerfed were being played by gamers in order to try and increase their credits. Credits are used to buy cars and upgrade them in the game. However, the amount of credits that players get doesn’t match the cost of cars in the game. To make matters worse, many of the cars in the game can only be purchased for a limited time. The game rotates cars in and out. Players can also be invited to purchase a car for a limited time.
One example is the Mclaren F1. In Gran Turismo 7, the car costs 18 million credits. That’s in the region of what the car is worth in real life, which is by design. However, to make 18 million credits in Gran Turismo 7 takes much longer than in previous games. It was then made even more difficult with the 1.07 update that nerfed some of the better-paying races. Before the update, players could earn around 1.75m credits per hour. So just over 10 hours of real-time playing in order to purchase the Mclaren F1. After the update, players can only earn around 0.85m credits per hour. It now takes a little over 21 hours to earn the same car. For reference, in Gran Turismo 6 it was possible to earn 3.55m credits per hour.
Players are frustrated with the lack of credit-earning possibilities in the game and even more so when it feels like Polyphony Digital is trying to force them into stumping up for microtransactions that aren’t so micro. Enough credits to purchase the Mclaren F1 from the PlayStation Store would cost an insane $180. It’s no wonder then that players have been review bombing the game on Metacritic.
