How They Broke Car Collecting in Gran Turismo 7

I think most people will agree that Gran Turismo 7 has… Issues. But I’ve never really been entirely satisfied with the way the discourse surrounding it has gone. There are people who honestly believe that if you take out microtransactions and the need to be always online that the game will suddenly be ‘fixed.’ If only it were that simple...

My goal with this video is not to say that Gran Turismo should never try new things, in fact I’m all for fresh ideas being introduced (and I even have a fair few ideas myself), but more that how they handled car collecting (and the whole single-player experience TBH) is so dumbed-down when compared to the older games that it makes you wonder whether they even understand why people liked those games to begin with.

Maybe you think I’m rambling, or this might really speak to you, but either way please let me know what you think and if people enjoy this I will definitely be making more videos like it.

Music (in order):

Passion – Yuki Oike (Gran Turismo 5)
Light Velocity – Isamu Ohira (Gran Turismo 3)
Hypnosis – Isamu Ohira (Gran Turismo 4)
A Man Of The World – Masahiro Ando (Gran Turismo)
Mr. 4WD – Isamu Ohira (Gran Turismo)
The Motorious Zone – Isamu Ohira (Gran Turismo 4)
Mission Impossible – Isamu Ohira (Gran Turismo 4)
From The East (Album Version) – Isamu Ohira (Gran Turismo 2)

Channels credited:

0:00 Introduction
1:57 Part 1: How They Messed It Up
6:46 Part 2: Not All Cars Are Created Equal
13:36 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
18:31 Epilogue

[gazzawozza]

I liked how in older GT games, you can choose any car as long as it was the right criteria for the race and you had a chance of winning no matter what. Now it just seems that there are only a certain amount of cars that are capable of catching 15-20 secs in the 4 or so laps for some events. Races should have qualifying or a standing start to make it feel like a race rather than constant rolling starts that just feels like a challenge from Missions category.

[ironjade]

Just to note: The raffle tickets are pre-determined. Once you get the ticket it has a value assigned to it and the drop is guaranteed. This has been proven time and time again. One youtuber opened 60 some odd tickets and force shutdown his console without saving, and then reopened them; the "possible" items changed but the winning item was always the same. That makes it so much more insidious.

[Mesder]

I think one really important thing you touched on is WHY we like to collect cars. I never played the older games to collect every car, I wanted to build a garage of cars I had built memories with. We want to scroll through the garage like "Oh yeah, I forgot about this C4 Grand sport I found in the used car lot that I tuned up to win the American championship with! I had to retry it about 10 times and keep upgrading the car until I finally won!" not "Oh yeah I had to buy all these corvettes because the game told me to"

I don't care about getting EVERY car, I want to build up a personal collection that is unique to me and my experience with the game. Then I want to start a new profile and do it again with a completely different set of cars. Forcing you down a narrow path means the game has basically no replay value. The experience will be almost the same the second time through, so what's the point?

[joshuamurphy]

Totally agree. I think the bit which gets me the most is a lack of Championships. It sells itself as "the real driving simulator" yet there's no championship or even a race where you can qualify. Imagine a Gr.3 or Gr.4 or any type of car series where you have 6 or 7 rounds to compete at. They've got Monza and in the career mode you only race it once! What's that about!?!?

It's such a shame

[dmora]

The menu book part was so on point 😂 I literally did all of them thinking I was doing a really long tutorial... Come to find out, that WAS the game! I was like... Wait... What!?

[RowdyGT]

Nailed it. I had the exact same reasons why I thought this game was lacking in terms of collection and prize cars. In the older games like GT2-GT4, there were countless amount of prize cars that you could ONLY obtain by completing/golding licenses, championships or series. They were practically invisible in the showrooms, which made winning obscure cars like the HKS drag cars, and unique Japanese aftermarket tuner cars very rewarding and surprising. You were not given the option to buy them, you had to earn them.

In 7, every car is purchasable, but all the prize cars you can obtain are either basic ones by winning singular menu book races, or unexciting ones you win from golding all the missions. They could of made it where you could, for example, win the McLaren F1 for a long endurance race, or the 917K for golding all of the Human Comedy missions and exclude them from the legendary dealer, but we didn't get that.

[kanob]

I don’t really know how to explain it, but I remember back when playing the old Gran Turismo games, they really made you feel like you were buying a car. Like you earned it. In the more recent games, it doesn’t feel the same. It just feels like you unlocked something again. That earning feeling is gone

[dqpbwk]

It has so much potential... and so much of it is "locked" behind roulette already. Good job on the video.

[mbh]

Yeah… Polyphony blew it with the campaign of Gran Turismo 7. The sad part about it is the fact that they already have the perfect template to make an incredible, industry leading racing game campaign. The only thing they had to do was use their already established template, but modernize it. My only hope is that they learn from their mistakes and just give the players what they want when they make Gran Turismo 8.

[Roflwaffle]

I'm not really sure what to say here other than... Wow. Thank you all so much for the support, I wasn't sure if anyone would actually watch this, but the whole reason for making it is that it's the type of video I wanted to watch but nobody was making, so I simply thought "Huh, guess I'll do it myself" and I've gotta say that I am proud of how it turned out.

Although I've mostly held these thoughts to myself I knew that a lot of what I discussed here aren't totally original ideas and would already resonate with many other players, particular those who've been on the long haul with this franchise. Still, I wanted to put some of my own thoughts into it as well, sentiments that I didn't really see discussed anywhere else, so I feel like I managed to strike a decent balance with that and make points that a lot of people wouldn't have considered before watching.


To address a couple of things:

- No, I didn't forget about the 'invitation' system and for sure I could've mentioned it in this video but I'm saving my thoughts on that for a separate video focussing more on the reward and progression mechanics of the game (hence why I only briefly mention the roulette tickets in how they pertain to car collecting)

- Yes, this video is more centered on GT7 from the perspective of someone who has played these games for decades and come in with a lot of expectations. I feel like I did try and relate this to new players who don't have the same expectations in some ways (i.e. with the starter cars, how that experience is much reduced and new players may be short-changed) but the main appeal of the video was for long-term fans of GT, that much is clear. Going forward I will try and present these different perspectives more when I talk about topics like this.

- If you've picked up GT7 as your first Gran Turismo and are really enjoying it, more power to you! Like I stated there is a still a lot to enjoy here when you detach it from the expectations built up over the past 25 years. Don't consider this video as an impartial review, that was not my goal at all, and if you're thinking about picking up the game just make sure you go in with reasonable expectations. If you do that then you'll most likely find something to appreciate about the game, despite it's many issues.



I was planning on making more videos as part of this series (which I've dubbed 'GT Critique', fancy right?) regardless of the reception, but from everything I've seen from you guys here in the comments I couldn't be any more motivated to do that now. For those of you lamenting the single-player races in particular just keep an eye out, my next video may be quite interesting... 😉

❤❤❤

[Thorocious]

This was very well said. I've played Gran Turismo since the first one... and this is the first time in 25 years that I've been completely burned out, let alone bored.
And the thing is, it's really close to being a good... nay, GREAT game. Just add proper endurance races to some tracks (actually all tracks would be great), make the rewards relevant. Add some of TODAYS' cars. Add more relevant championships. Make EVERY event rewarded based on the time you spend doing it, that would make every event playable more than once.

Edit; since 2010 onwards I pretty much expect to be disappointed, MOST games these days are disasters.

[pocketfuloducks]

I too remember absolutely adoring GT3, and all of its aspects. Even after watching so many videos and weighing the cost, I bought GT7, and was disappointed that I’d finished it in just a few days. No pit stop strategy, no endurance races (not that I ever had time for those), and no sense of accomplishment.
Great video. Thank you.

[SmokeyRooster]

The platinum trophy for GT7 was pain. But because I'm more of a completionist than just settling for platinum, I also collected every car in the game. Just over $400m credits is what it takes. However, I'm fully against microtransactions so I took advantage of the tomahawk glitch that was a thing for the first little while after launch. I probably spent 4 hours per day for 2 months straight racing the same Tokyo expressway race over and over and over. I got pretty good at it, but at the cost of my sanity. I now haven't played GT7 for 6 or 7 months. The online races are one make races and the penalty system punishes you for being rammed off track. I can't race with friends because the lobbies are so laggy. There isn't anything drawing me back to the game at all. I did the thing and now there are no more things to do.

[ESKATEUK]

What cracks me up is, they included selling cars, but only when you’ve basically completed the game when you at that point won’t really need to sell cars.

[fyrefux]

No clue why this was in my recommended, but was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the upload. I have also played Gran Turismo since GT3 and played up until GT6 before falling out of the loop because I never had a Playstation 4 or 5, but had always wanted to play GT7 before launch. I see it has some major issues even after so long and it is such a shame to see them not correctly addressed. The Nissan domination in Gr3 and Gr4 online is probably the biggest turn off for this game for me at the moment however, as I would like to be able to use at least a handful of the selection of cars without being at a major disadvantage.

[John-zcmy]

They need to add 50 or so more races that include specific drivetrain, N/A or forced induction, manufacturer specific, and endurance. Also, more championships would be greatly beneficial too.

[areminderofwhatweare]

The thing about the legends cars that blew my mind the most is that there’s almost no way to legitimately earn the credits to buy them. Sure you can buy credits, but they’re somehow convinced that some of the legend cars are worth up to $200 USD. Polyphony, I already paid you sixty bucks for the game, slow your roll.

[cmdr_ultraviolnt]

The most insulting part is that the talking LinkedIn profile pictures look so condescending and patronizing. They’re looking at me like “hey champ, let’s go learn about automobiles!” Like I’m not a 30-yo dude that’s been playing since GT4..

[TWNTY-]

This video needs more recognition, everyone share this

[thestigseasterncousin]

Hard to swallow: GT7 is an extended version of GT Sport, not a new GT game.