Server maintenance on Gran Turismo 7 has made the online-only racer completely unplayable.
Months ago, there were concerns and complaints when it was confirmed that Gran Turismo 7 requires a constant Internet connection to work. Those concerns have now been validated, as the game has been rendered essentially unplayable due to ongoing server maintenance.
On Thursday the official Gran Turismo Twitter account said that there will be an extended period of server maintenance in order to resolve an issue with the recent 1.07 update. What that issue is was never specified and there have been no further updates on the situation in almost 24 hours.
As a result, the game is virtually unplayable. You can’t access most of the single-player content or buy cars because they still need to be connected to the servers to work. The Music Rally mode is available, however, and the game does remember your high scores so, hopefully, that’s a sign that players’ save data hasn’t been compromised.
All this serves to highlight the problem with making games online only. What’s more, when Gran Turismo 7’s servers are eventually shut down, the game will be completely inoperable. Unless Sony changes this in the future, there will come a point where Gran Turismo 7 may as well not exist.
Naturally, fans have been expressing their frustration online, and have even pulled up a poorly aged 2013 PlayStation tweet about how PlayStation 4 games wouldn’t require an online connection to work.
This hasn’t been the only complaint fans have had with the game. The 1.07 update also adjusted how many credits (the in-game currency) can be earned from certain races, as listed on the official website.
Basically, players now earn less than they did before which, combined with how expensive some cars are and the game’s own microtransactions, reeks of Sony trying to nickel and dime the player base, even though they already bought the game for £70.
All in all, it’s an awful look for the game and Sony, especially with this only happening a couple weeks after launch.
It also sets a very worrying precedent for future games, from any publisher. If more games with single-player content demand constant Internet connections this could become a sadly familiar story – not to mention what it means for people without a permanent or stable Internet connection.
Hopefully, developers and publishers are paying attention to this situation and learning an important lesson from it.
Gran Turismo 7 is ‘available’ on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
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