Gran Turismo 7: Players given 1 million credits after game's outage

Gran Turismo 7 is a game we love here at Racinggames. However, the Real Driving Simulator didn't endear itself to players recently, after a prolonged outage prevented players from making in-game progress.

GT7 was down for over 24 hours while update 1.08 was rolled out last week. This severely dented the game's reputation in its first few weeks of its life cycle. But Polyphony have attempted to right this wrong in their latest update.

So, what has been done? And are we likely to see an outage as long as that again? We've got everything you need to know right here!

What update 1.09 has done

GT7's servers were down earlier today for the game's latest update. For those that are interested in the patch notes, they can be found here. Thankfully, the outage wasn't as long as the previous one, and GT7 is already back.

There was a nice surprise waiting for players when they booted up the game though. If you head to the garage and then the rewards menu, you'll see a one million credit cheque in there.

Just like your daily workout rewards, all you have to do is press X to accept and the credits will go into your account.

Yamauchi's open letter

As part of Update 1.09, Kanzuri Yamauchi, the head of Gran Turismo, has released an open letter to GT7 players. It reads as follows:

"Thank you for your continued support and feedback on Gran Turismo 7, your voices have not gone unheard. I would like to apologize for the frustration and confusion caused last week with our patch updates which resulted in, not only a server outage but also adjustments to the in-game economy which were made without a clear explanation to our community.

"We know that this is not the Gran Turismo experience you expect and we will be making a goodwill gesture in the form of a non-paid credit pack of 1 million Cr. available to those players who may have been affected*. You will see this hit your accounts shortly. Make sure you log into the game before April 25 to claim the credits.

"The patch update previously deployed was intended to rectify an issue with inconsistent reward payouts within a part of the World Circuit Events. But, to re-establish the intended equilibrium and provide more accurate rewards based on time investment and completion, it was necessary to recalculate the rewards system as a whole.

"To improve the player experience, we will be rolling out a considerable patch in the beginning of April. The number of events will be increased, and we will reestablish the reward system with greater balance throughout the game to benefit all players.

"Updates which will come into effect beginning of April:"

• Increase rewards in the events in the latter half of the World Circuits by approximately 100% on average.
• Addition of high rewards for clearing the Circuit Experience in all Gold/All Bronze results.
• Increase of rewards in Online Races.
• Include a total of eight new one-hour Endurance Race events to Missions. These will also have higher reward settings.
• Increase the upper limit of non-paid credits in player wallets from 20M Cr. to 100M Cr.
• Increase the quantity of Used and Legend cars on offer at any given time.

"Beyond this there will be a few additional patches deployed between now and the end of April which will add new cars and course layouts and make some other fixes.

"Finally, we also want to take the opportunity to lay out some of the near-term updates we are working on. We can’t confirm an exact date or specifics yet, but will give advance notice via www.gran-turismo.com."

• Increase the payout value of limited time rewards as we develop as a live service.
• Further World Circuit event additions.
• Addition of Endurance Races to Missions including 24-hour races.
• Addition of Online Time Trials and awarding of rewards according to the player’s difference with the top ranked time.
• Make it so cars can be sold.

"We want to thank you for your continued patience and valuable feedback as we grow and evolve GT7 to make it as enjoyable and rewarding for as many players as possible. We always want to keep communication lines open with our community so that we can work together to build the best racing experience possible."

Why does GT7 go down when it updates?

It's good that Polyphony have given this free reward to players and that they've apologised for the game not being available as often as it should be. This does beg the question of why the game goes down for updates in the first place, though.

It's a valid question, especially when offline modes, in theory, shouldn't be affected by this.

The main reason behind single player being online is down to the prevention of hacking and cheating. It also allows single and multiplayer modes to be better integrated, to allow for a more fluid experience.

That's all well and good, but the issue is that the game has to be virtually switched off whenever an update happens. While other games like Call of Duty and FIFA experience this issue, these have single player modes that they can fall back on when this happens.

This all begs the question, are we likely to see an outage this long again? Well, while it's possible, it's unlikely. Polyphony have been left embarrassed by this incident and will do everything they can to prevent a repeat.

Additionally, updates are more frequent and larger at the start of the game's life cycle, as fewer major issues are uncovered the further you are down the line from launch day.