The heart of the problem with Gran Turismo 7’s monetization comes down to two key issues. First, Gran Turismo 7 no longer allows direct purchases of vehicles. That means that instead of a specific dollar amount for vehicles, they now have ambiguous costs in “Credits.” Credits are only available in lump sums, costing $2.49, $4.99, $9.99, and $19.99. That means Gran Turismo 7 players will have to overspend on Credits to acquire vehicles with price tags that don’t align to real money pricing on Credits.

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The second issue, and the far greater one, is that Polyphony Digital appears to have raised the prices on microtransactions dramatically, even compared to the heavily criticized Gran Turismo Sport. For example, a Porsche 919 Hybrid 16 in Gran Turismo Sport is said to cost $2.99. In Gran Turismo 7, it costs 3,000,000 credits. If all credits were treated equally, that would cost around $30, a price increase of 10x. Worse yet, players will have to instead purchase Credit packs of at least $35-$40 to actually get the correct total credits for the card.

Why Gran Turismo 7’s Pricey Microtransactions Are Concerning

As reported by VideoGamesChronicle, this pricing increase is near-universal in Gran Turismo 7. The Aston Martin Vulcan ‘16, $4.99 in GT Sport, costs 3,300,000 Credits in Gran Turismo 7. A McLaren P1 GTR ‘16, $4.99 in GT Sport, costs 3,600,000 Credits in Gran Turismo 7.

The one defense of Gran Turismo 7’s pricing system is that Credits can be earned in-game. It isn’t strictly a real-money currency. Unsurprisingly, though, Credits aren’t particularly easy to earn, outside some specific events that seem likely to be nerfed ASAP. Earning Credits in-game is certainly more accessible for unlocking cars than paying $40 per microtransaction, though.

This style of outrageously priced in-game currencies that developers and publishers excuse as justified based on the currency being earnable in-game is becoming more and more common. Halo Infinite was similarly criticized for its very expensive microtransactions, as one example. Gran Turismo 7, as a $70 title that’s not even necessarily seen as a live-service release, is unfortunately just the latest game to join this club of frustratingly monetized AAA releases.

Gran Turismo 7 is available now on PS5.

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Source: VideoGamesChronicle