The sin is the most heinous
Last week, Sony's first-party exclusive racing game "GT Racing 7", which had just been released not long ago, caused a wave of controversy at home and abroad because of a server maintenance of more than 30 hours. With the re-launch of the server and the update of the game version 1.08, the players who have difficulty entering the game, and the sharply reduced event rewards after the update, as well as the official kryptonic behavior of adjusting the price of the premium vehicles in the game, have collapsed the mentality, and have begun to be on the game forum and social platform, on the "GT Racing 7" production team Polyphony Digital Studio and the Sony behind it. Even on the ratings site Metacritic, GT Racing 7, which has a media rating of 87 out of 100, has dropped to 1.7 out of 10, making it the lowest-rated game of any Sony studio. To this day, the official disputes between players surrounding GT Racing 7 have not been settled.
A brief popularization of "GT Racing 7", which is the latest work in Sony's well-known racing game "GT Racing" series. This work continues to be produced by the founder of the series Mr. Yamauchi Kazunori personally, its launch time also coincides with the 25th anniversary of the birth of the series, in addition to the ultimate pursuit of the game as always, the game is also a rare game work on the market that focuses on spreading the knowledge of automobile culture to players, with a large number of text science on the history of the development of the automobile industry, as well as complex vehicle tuning and maintenance gameplay in real life, which can be described as a series of works that are truly matched with the name of "sports car romantic brigade". After the release of the game, it also received unanimous praise from the media - it is undeniable that this is indeed a racing game masterpiece that relevant enthusiasts should not miss.
The museum function in the game does look very "romantic"
But after the game was officially launched, it also exposed two problems that could not be ignored -
First of all, the game uses a fully networked verification mechanism, players can only play a fairly limited amount of game content in the offline state, can not purchase vehicles and unlock new tracks, and the related game records can not be saved. Forced networking has caused many players who are not in a good state of the network to suffer from it. Since the launch of the game, the situation of not being able to connect to the server has also appeared from time to time, and even players who have no problems with the network may not be able to experience the game normally because they cannot connect to the server.
Secondly, compared with GT Sport, which previously logged on to the PlayStation 4 platform, this game has readjusted the prizes for the game and the price of the vehicle. In simple terms, it is to reduce the player earnings of a single game, while the general price of vehicles sold in the store has ushered in an increase, and the price of rare models is even directly linked to the fluctuation of the price of real vehicles in the real world. In the end, the price of a supercar in the game often starts in millions, and the player's income from running a full game may not add up to more than 100,000. Obviously, in the face of such a situation, the player's choice is either to burst the liver game and exchange their own physical health for the rapid accumulation of revenue in the game, or to directly click on the PlayStation Mall and spend real money to buy the currency in the game.
The price of rare vehicles in the game is very exaggerated, and some of them are even purchased for a limited time
In addition to the direct purchase of vehicles, there is also a way to obtain vehicles and modified accessories in the game - draw cards. Upon completing single-player tutorial levels and daily missions, players can receive different star draw tickets, including in-game currency, modified accessories, and a new car. But after the actual experience, you will find that no matter what kind of star tickets in the game, the probability of finally drawing the vehicle reward is very low. In most cases, players can only draw game currencies with varying amounts, but these currencies can only be said to be a dime a dozen compared to the price of buying a new car in the game. In the end, players still have to rely on liver and krypton to really drive their favorite luxury car.
After buying the car, the modification of accessories is also a big cost
The inability to play offline and the high price of in-game vehicles were the main sources of negative reviews after the release of GT Racing 7. However, at that time, considering that the game had just been launched, players still had high expectations for the official follow-up update and optimization, coupled with the rich content of the initial single-player event, the player's evaluation of "GT Racing 7" was still relatively optimistic. Until the day of March 17, the game fell into more than 30 hours of server maintenance for no reason, and the players' worries and dissatisfaction with the game began to gradually upgrade.
On March 17, GT Racing 7 started the server maintenance that was scheduled to be completed within two hours, but after two hours passed, players opened the game and found that they still could not connect to the server. And because of the game's mechanics of forcing the entire network to play, players can only continue to wait or play very limited content, including the new mode music rally, in the case of not being able to connect to the server. Twenty-four hours later, GT Racing 7 players around the world still can't wait for the game to be re-launched, which has caused dissatisfaction among many players. After all, for a game that has just been released, such a long maintenance time is extremely rare. The inability to complete maintenance on time, as well as the inability to play single-player content offline during maintenance, is undoubtedly a huge blow for fans of the series. Although the official explanation for the maintenance delay was quick, it was not possible to give a specific recovery time.
And things are just the beginning here, wait until more than thirty hours of server maintenance time is finally over, re-login to the game players, found that the official in the maintenance of the game 1.08 version, the old version of the game revenue has been greatly changed. Specifically, the following game game revenue change chart as an example, compared with the update before and after, you will find that in addition to the first two track race rewards, from 5000Cr (in-game currency) to 70000Cr, the settlement rewards of other tracks have all been reduced by 30 to 50%, even if coupled with the additional income obtained by fair competition in the game, the total gain obtained by players in a single game, compared to the game's tens of millions of car prices, is still insignificant.
After reducing the player's game revenue, the price of the game's advanced vehicles did not decrease. On the contrary, some rare models purchased for a limited time have ushered in a price increase according to the price floating mechanism that the game so-called linked to the auction information of the real vehicle. This is undoubtedly a huge blow for players who want to collect all the vehicles in the game.
There are also a small number of players after updating the new version of the game, there are different degrees of save loss and bad file problems, which means that all their previous efforts spent on "GT Racing 7" will be in vain, although this problem only appears on a small number of players' machines, but this also reflects the risks of the game's entire networking, and the official does not seem to have provided a solution to this problem so far.
Of course, for a wider range of GT Racing 7 players, the storm caused by the ultra-long maintenance of the server has disappointed them in the game. A large number of players expressed their dissatisfaction under the official push of GT Racing, and went to Metacritic to score low for the game, which led to the story of the beginning of the article, "GT Racing 7" set the lowest player rating in the history of Sony's game at M Station.
At the same time as the player was frantically pushing the official, the producer of the "GT Racing" series, Kazunori Yamauchi, finally stood up, forwarded the official push and apologized. At the same time, a letter he wrote to players was also released on the game's official website.
In this letter, Yamauchi explained the reason for the delay in server maintenance, because it found a malicious bug that would cause the game to not run properly on PS4 and PS5 hosts, so the game directly interrupted the 1.07 version of the update, and seized the time to push the fixed version 1.08. As for the game revenue and vehicle price issues that players care about the most, Yamauchi's explanation is that he hopes that players can enjoy the fun of the game without mechanically experiencing the same game, and the game also needs to reflect its value and rarity by linking the price of the virtual vehicle to its real value. But such an explanation further triggered protests from players.
The reason for this is actually not difficult to understand. First of all, in response to the server maintenance problem of more than 30 hours, the dissatisfaction of players mainly comes from the game's need to play the whole network. If it is from the perspective of the developer, we can certainly understand that the whole network is to ensure the fairness of the game's online mode play, after all, considering that some players can quickly unlock the advanced vehicles in the game through cheating, the appropriate network verification link is indeed necessary. But this does not mean that players who cannot connect to the Internet in the short term, or whose network status is not good, should be completely excluded. After all, everyone has spent real money to buy the game, and the result is that they can't play without networking, is it not fair to this part of the player? Moreover, the game has a lot of content that can be played by one person, and there is no need to do a one-size-fits-all mandatory network to play all the content. For example, the server maintenance of up to thirty hours this time may not be much for ordinary players, but for those who have invested a lot of energy and time in this game since the game was launched, they must have difficulty accepting such a long wait. And if the game has enough content to play offline, then the players' protests will not be so intense. Obviously, players have a hard time accepting that the initiative cannot be in their own hands, which creates an unprecedented sense of crisis and distrust of the authorities.
What is even more ironic is that after Microsoft Xbox just suffered a bombardment from foreign netizens because it announced that it must be fully connected to the Internet, the official push of foreign PlayStation at that time also posted a yin and yang strange atmosphere to each other, saying that "PS4 game discs can be played without networking", and with "thunderous applause". And now, netizens who love to live have also taken a screenshot of this sentence and posted it under the apology statement of the official number of "GT Racing".
Secondly, the game arbitrarily adjusts the player's income, and the problem of associating the value of the virtual car with the auction market of the real vehicle. From Mr. Yamauchi's letter, we can indeed see his concern about the problem of player retention in this game. After all, the GT series has always been a niche work, and for the producer who has been with the series for 25 years, he may not have much energy to prepare for the follow-up new work. The idea of "hoping the game will retain more players" is not wrong in itself, but the energy and time invested by players in the game should not be easily denied. Just to reduce the player's income, but not to reduce the price of high-end vehicles, coupled with the game immediately after the release of the shelves of a wealth of in-app purchase content, it is difficult not to doubt that the real purpose of the official adjustment of the player's in-game income is actually to induce players to kryptonite for the game.
Players also have many dissatisfaction with the probability of drawing cards in the game
According to the feedback of players in different regions, after updating the latest version 1.08, players who want to obtain advanced vehicles in the game through krypton gold often need to spend a lot of additional expenses. Taking my own Hong Kong service as an example, in the purchase option of the PlayStation Mall, the price of 2 million Cr points is 148 Hong Kong dollars (about 120 yuan), so if I want to buy a car with a price of 3.3 million Cr directly in the game, I need to spend at least 304 Hong Kong dollars (200W + 75W + 75W), equivalent to 247.5 yuan, which is basically catching up with the price of a normal PC game.
In contrast, the kryptonite method of the previous game of the series "GT Sport" is to directly buy a separate vehicle, the price ranges from a few Hong Kong dollars to tens of Hong Kong dollars, the price is almost only one-tenth of the former, such a large pricing change, it is really difficult to convince players to buy it.
Under the official apology tweet, there are also many foreign netizens who have released in-game purchase standards in their own areas, compared with Hong Kong services, which can only be said to be more than enough.
For most players who buy GT Racing 7, they obviously don't want to see a PlayStation 5 game they bought for $70 and end up relying on extra krypton gold to get the ideal gaming experience. This payment method has largely destroyed the traditional console game players' perception of the way to charge out-of-game games, but to some extent, it is different from the traditional online game Free To Play, and then rely on in-app purchase to maintain stable operation of the charging model. As a result, both sides are not flattered, and in the end it is the player who suffers.
And this kind of tumultuous operation, Sony in the past two years is not the first time to do. Before the release of "GT Racing 7", Sony's last blockbuster game work, Horizon 2: The Desperate Situation of the West, was criticized by netizens because of the ten-dollar difference in pricing between the game PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 at the beginning of the announcement. Initially, Sony did not intend to provide a free next-generation version upgrade, and later had to be pressured by public opinion to upgrade the GameStation 4 version to the PlayStation 5 version for free for players. There is also an interesting story, although Sony has promised to upgrade the game for free for players, but after the release of this game in the United Kingdom, according to the survey, the players who purchased the PS5 version of the game physical disk accounted for 68% of the physical sales of the game in the United Kingdom, and the digital version of the game sold, but also the players who bought the PS5 version accounted for the majority, obviously can upgrade the PS4 version to the PS5 version for free, but the British players do not seem to care about the extra ten dollars.
Returning to the kryptonic issue of the GT Racing 7 update, the implication behind this incident seems to be that Sony is trying to redefine the concept of console game sales in a new form of charging. Especially for a sustainable service game like GT Racing 7. Attracting target users at a standard price of $70, and then achieving long-term and stable revenue from games with additional content that can be hepatic and kryptonian – this is indeed one of the trends in the future development of the game industry. After all, in this era of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of AAA masterpieces, even if the price of ordinary games rises to $70, it is difficult for manufacturers to return their costs. Sony's attempt to make up for the losses caused by the development of buyout single-player games through the long-term operational capabilities of service games is indeed an excusable approach.
Price movements in the history of video games
In this regard, foreign analyst Daniel Ahmad observed an interesting phenomenon after studying Sony's 2021 financial report. In Sony's Games & Web Services segment, console hardware accounted for 24% of sales, while the game ontology accounted for only 23% of sales (including physical and digital versions), while the largest share of the division's total revenue was add-on content, in-game microtransactions and DLC revenue, accounting for 32%. It can be seen that for Sony itself, one of the future development directions of its game division is likely to include service games that provide players with more sustainable operations.
One of the most convincing examples is Sony's recent acquisition of Destiny 2 developer Bungie. Although in the eyes of the outside world, this $3.6 billion acquisition is very similar to Sony's counterattack against Microsoft's continuous acquisition of B and Activision Blizzard, but according to foreign media reports, Sony's acquisition of Bungie is not for Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the operation time of its transaction has taken 5 to 6 months. Subsequently, Jim Ryan, the current CEO of PlayStation, also said that "Bungie's successful resume in multi-platform distribution and real-time service games will assist Sony in its ambitions to take PlayStaiton beyond the console platform and increase our potential audience." In addition, he has made it clear that several of Sony's studios are currently developing a number of real-time service games.
In the final analysis, for domestic and foreign game manufacturers in the past two years, it has become a top priority to complete the transformation of game development and payment model. "Fortnite", "APEX Heroes" and even the domestic "Original God" and other games continue to be popular in the world, which has proved the strong gold absorption ability of online games in the new era by relying on Battle Pass and continuous content updates. At this time, traditional stand-alone game manufacturers have obviously been difficult to rely solely on fixing the standard game price of $60 to maintain high-investment AAA game development. As a result, the price increase of various deluxe edition and limited edition games, the main content is disassembled when the DLC is sold, it is not uncommon. But even then, their lives have not been much better. In essence, the rising cost of AAA game development and the prolongation of the development cycle make it difficult for traditional stand-alone game manufacturers to make a lot of money through a game or a series of works as they did more than a decade ago.
Sampling criteria for first-party and third-party games
Different people have come up with different solutions to this, and Shawn Layden, former president of SIE, once expressed concern at a conference about the doubling cost of next-generation game development. At the same time, he also believes that players should play more AAA games with a duration of only 12-15 hours on the next-generation console, just like they once saw in the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 era.
Microsoft, which has a lot of money, has completed several game company acquisitions that are enough to be recorded in history in recent years, successively using 7.5 billion US dollars and 68.7 billion US dollars to acquire B and Activision Blizzard, further expanding the volume of its studios, but also through the XGP subscription service, a steady stream of more users and funds for themselves, after years of development, today's influence can not be underestimated. As for the $70 pricing of the next-generation version of the game, as long as the game debuts or subsequently joins XGP, it will not be a problem for players.
But this kind of wealth is obviously not something that any manufacturer can imitate. For more manufacturers, adding more complex in-app purchase elements to the game is the most effective means they use to cope with the rising cost of next-generation game development year by year, but the game pricing is difficult to increase - in this regard, the manufacturer who knows the most is undoubtedly EA. According to EA's 2022 Q2 and Q3 quarterly financial reports, in these two quarters, EA's revenue has always been in a state of steady growth, and even repeatedly broke the historical record and historical predetermined value. Even with a modestly successful title like Battlefield 2042, EA has had a pretty good year with the performance of its EA Sports and a number of service-oriented games, including APEX Heroes, which has been quite moist in the past year, thanks in large part to the huge microtransaction revenue brought by its games. APEX Heroes, whose monthly active player base has grown by 30% over the past year compared to the same period last year, FIFA 22 is the best-selling game in the Western world in 2021, and Madden NFL 22 is the best-selling sports game in the United States and the best-selling third-best-selling game in the United States in 2021. All three games, without exception, have a fairly rich microtransaction content.
But that's by no means a sign that microtransactions are necessarily a good thing for the current gaming market. In the past two years, EA has been investigated and sued by many Western institutions because of the gambling involved in the opening of the box in the game, and I think everyone still has some impressions. Although the case ended with EA rejecting the verdict and winning the case after four years of tug-of-war between the two sides, the discussion about whether in-game microtransactions should be restricted is still controversial at home and abroad.
So, when we look back at the microtransactions that Sony added to GT Racing 7, it's not inherently unacceptable. Since the official launch of the next-generation console, the discussion about whether next-generation games should be priced up has never stopped. Sony has not tried to implement a $70 game pricing, but judging from the feedback from players that Horizon 2: Desperate for the West cannot be upgraded to the next-generation version for free, Sony still has a long way to go to completely popularize the $70 pricing strategy for next-generation games. It can even be said that before the PlayStation 5 officially replaces the PlayStation 4 as the main model of the player, it will be extremely difficult to implement this pricing strategy.
In such a situation, Sony's attempt to add more microtransaction content to the game, or launch more service-oriented games dedicated to long-term operation, is obviously a reasonable decision - but this process needs to be more verified for now. Taking the "GT Racing 7" as an example, while the official joined the microtransaction system, it can almost be said that it did not consider the game experience of the majority of players, blindly squeezing the player's income in the game, while improving the difficulty of obtaining rare cars, there is obviously a tendency to force Krypton. But if the production team can look at the problem from the perspective of the player more, things will not develop to the situation that makes both sides unable to get off the stage.
So, of course, players have reasons to resist. In the past two days, some players have used the "Remote Play" function of the PS console to develop a script that can easily swipe tens of millions of points without using the controller, which is also a bad breath for the majority of players. At present, no official measures have been taken against players using the script, and according to the script's own response, this script was specifically developed for Sony's reduction of in-game rewards last week.
Obviously, this confrontation, which neither side can see the smoke of war, is likely to continue.