Gran Turismo 6 in-game currency priced: 1 million credits for $10

Yes, you'll be able to buy virtual currency with real money in Gran Turismo 6. But how much will it cost to hasten your way through GT6's 1200 car...

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Yes, you'll be able to buy virtual currency with real money in Gran Turismo 6. But how much will it cost to hasten your way through GT6's 1200 car library?

Ahead of the game's launch on Friday, Sony has revealed the cost of buying in-game currency. For $10, you'll be able to get one million credits. Of course, you'll "save" more by buying more. For $20, you'll get 2.5 million credits. For $50, you'll get 7.5 million credits.

Of course, what can a million credits buy? Sony has been keen to point out that with one million credits, you'll be able to buy nine high-end cars, including the BMW Z4 GT3 11, Ford GT, and Tesla Model S. The Z4 is the most expensive of the bunch, costing 350,000 credits by itself. However, Gamespot noticed a YouTube video where one of the most expensive cars--the Jaguar XJ1--could sell for 20 million credits in the game. (Note: Given this video is based on pre-release code, pricing could change by release.)

Sony has been keen to point out that purchasing in-game currency is entirely optional. "We do not require players to purchase or use purchased in-game currency," a Sony rep told us. "As with previous installments of GT, users are able to earn in-game credits and unlock additional cars by competing in races or event challenges. The value of both items will naturally increase as the user completes higher ranked challenges and races, including online. Users have the optional choice to purchase in-game credits in increments of $1 Million through the PS Store to unlock content faster if they prefer to do that rather than earn them through gameplay."

Forza Motorsport 5 recently received a lot of flak from fans due to the unbalanced nature of its in-game economy. Microsoft attempted to defend the pricing, but ultimately apologized to fans and issued free cars to players.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    December 4, 2013 2:30 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Gran Turismo 6 in-game currency priced: 1 million credits for $10.

    Yes, you'll be able to buy virtual currency with real money in Gran Turismo 6. But how much will it cost to hasten your way through GT6's 1200 car...

    • reply
      December 4, 2013 2:42 PM

      This trend is so dumb... wish it was possible to get people to boycott publishers/developers that pull this kind of shit, but I don't think trying to get people to boycott for such reasons would actually accomplish anything. EA is a prime example that you can fuck your consumers repeatedly and still keep them (and get new ones).

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        December 4, 2013 3:50 PM

        I know it won't make a difference to them, but I'm not getting Forza5 or GT6, passed on last generation and I think I can go another generation.

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      December 4, 2013 2:46 PM

      $130+ for one car. LOL

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      December 4, 2013 3:48 PM

      where is manlyman to decry how Sony is killing gaming?

      • reply
        December 4, 2013 7:27 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          December 4, 2013 7:39 PM

          ...you're actually expecting a response?

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          December 4, 2013 8:01 PM

          contrary to popular belief I don't actually shack every minute of the day, and shacksearch has been down so I can't find replies on my phone easily.

          I don't have time for some long winded response right now. Suffice to say I wasn't arguing about value here. If you don't care about Kinect and don't want to spend $100 extra that's fine. What I took issue with was this narrative that the inclusion means MS doesn't care or focus on games. All those comments about the PS3 were basically just about value. They weren't some indictment that Sony doesn't care about games and they're pushing media instead, it was that those people didn't see the value in the media features. No one was doubting that Sony was putting a lot of power in gaming features, getting exclusives, etc.

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        December 5, 2013 2:11 PM

        We don't know if regular playing has been worsened to encourage extra spending or if the extra spending is just extra. Complaints about past games seem mostly based on micro-transactions hurting the normal game.

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      December 4, 2013 3:48 PM

      UUuUUUuuuuguguuhrugurguhrghruhurhg fuck all that pissing noise.

    • reply
      December 4, 2013 3:51 PM

      BF4, GT 6, Forza 5, Crimson Dragon
      Skip skip skip skip

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        December 5, 2013 2:12 PM

        why? I haven't heard GT6 reviews yet but the others have gotten bad reviews so I can understand those.

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      December 4, 2013 3:56 PM

      "We do not require players to purchase or use purchased in-game currency, as with previous installments of GT, users are able to earn in-game credits and unlock additional cars by competing in races or event challenges."

      Turn 10 said the same thing; technically, you CAN get any car in the game without spending a dime of real currency, you just have to play until you're too old to care. I really love the driving in Forza 5, but they ruined the rest of the game.

      Here's hoping that the racing payouts in GT6 are reasonable and not skewed towards grinding to persuade users to buy credits.

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        December 4, 2013 4:10 PM

        The Grind has always been a part of GT so I doubt GT6 will be any worse or better than 5 in that regard, but still, $10 for $1 mil credits? That's insane.

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          December 4, 2013 5:43 PM

          Here's a quick guess, using GT5's economy, of "what the player's time is worth", using my favorite A-Spec race events for grinding:
          (numbers for prize credits are from Strategywiki.org, since I haven't turned on the PS3 tonight)

          - Where I am now in GT5, there's a 5 lap race series called "European Championship" in the Extreme Series that will yield 82,600 credits for 1st place. The only restriction in is that your car needs to be of European origin; this is a walk in the park with the BMW E60 M5, Audi R8, and so on, as long as it has something north of 400 HP. For $1 million credits, it would take 12.106 wins, at an average of 13 minutes, so 2.6 hours. $3.81 per hour. HOWEVER, the minimum level requirement for Expert Series is Level 22, so you won't get here until lots of playing.

          - Earlier in progression, one of my favorites was "Japanese 80's Festival" in the Professional Series (Level 12 requirement). Obviously, your car had to be Japanese, from 1980 to 1989. One of the earliest faster cars I bought was the Supra 3.0GT Turbo A '88, which I dumped a lot of tuning time to get it north of 400 HP, which made this race a breeze. I just ran through 5 laps with that (since upgraded to 526 HP) car, at 7 minutes 26 seconds, and received 20,400 credits. I would need 49.01 wins on that course to reach 1 million credits. That would be 6.1 hours. $1.63 per hour.

          I think it's more depressing that the ultra-fast cars are still out of reach, probabyl not even able to be test-driven, as you could in Forza 4. Perhaps both Turn 10 and Polyphony both said, "Forza 4 was GIVING it all AWAY!!! We should be monetizing that!"

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            December 4, 2013 6:15 PM

            Another data point: Japanese Championship (Expert Series), Level 18 requirement: 10.5 minutes, 32,000 credits. Car was the Amuse S2000 GT1 Turbo (with a bit of sloppy driving, but easy win).

            31.25 races to 1 million; 5.46 hours, $1.82 per hour.

            Another one: American Championship, Extreme Series, on Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Level 23 requirement: 97,600 credits. 4 minutes, 30 seconds. But you pretty much MUST get the C6 Corvette ZR1 and race-mod it... and pray that the Chapparal 2J doesn't get set up in grid ahead of you, otherwise it'll beat you in the turns (remember, that car has a snowmobile engine driving a vacuum skirt, which led to the FIA banning "movable aerodynamic devices" due to the unfair advantage this car has in turns at all speeds). And it's a boring grind (I didn't buy GT5 to do the equivalent of a NASCAR race).

            But... 10.24 races to 1 million; 46 minutes; $13 per hour. For a boring, boring, boring, BOOOORING grind... Just to buy what? A 1,000,000 credit car whose handling or cockpit I might end up LOATHING after I buy it? This happened to me with the Takata Dome NSX GT500 car, which is 950,000 credits; it's fast, but the hood is so high, I can barely see the track. Since it's a homologated series car, I'd be better off with the Lexus Sard SC430 '08.

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              December 4, 2013 6:28 PM

              The fastest way to earn credits in GT5 were the seasonal events in conjunction with the consecutive login multiplier. Both of those better be back in GT6 or I'm walking!

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                December 4, 2013 6:37 PM

                That was if you were online. If you aren't, you're stuck with the regular races.

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        December 4, 2013 5:37 PM

        [deleted]

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        December 5, 2013 2:17 PM

        They seem to be saying that specifically we have not made the game harder or more boring to encourage you to spend more money. If that is true or not we will see with people playing it and reporting back. Right now this news is slightly positive rather than being a negative.

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      December 4, 2013 4:02 PM

      Hey I've got a better idea... You guys take those virtual currency sales you're placing in your next-gen console games and you shove them right up your ass!

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        December 4, 2013 5:21 PM

        GT6 is still a current gen (PS3) game, but I agree 100% no matter what the platform is if the entry price isn't free.

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      December 4, 2013 4:59 PM

      So, if these consoles do get jailbroken eventually, what are you guys' moral positions on unlocking on-disc unlocks like these cars (not DLC packs, just things that would use to be available via cheats)?

      Is it distinct from pirating DLC due to historical expectations of what a full game is, or essentially the same thing since both are supposed to be sold ? Is the line whether they are unlockable in-game through grinding, or does even that constitute circumventing what is supposed to be a sale at least some of the time?

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      December 4, 2013 5:40 PM

      Seasonal events always payed out well in gt5 remains to be seen if they scaled back the income from that but from what i have played i would say the progression is about the same as gt5. I always had more money then i knew what to do with in gt5 but the fact the 20mil cap is still around is retarded though.

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      December 4, 2013 6:12 PM

      This is like the real money auction house., and GTA Online - it just makes me not want to play the game, even if it's no harder than before to earn credits. It just feels unfair. It makes earning by playing seem like a losing proposition.

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        December 4, 2013 6:36 PM

        The other thing is that both Turn 10 and Polyphony have excuses for doing this:

        1. iRacing
        2. A position to the effect of, "The expense of licensing so many real-world cars has forced us to explore alternate revenue streams..."

        But the context of taking a free-to-play game's economy, and dropping it into a $60 retail game is disgusting, even if the "$0 post-retail-purchase" user story condition balances out in a time expenditure aspect to be roughly commensurate with the dollar spend of buying the equivalents with real money, AND with the progression curve of past pre-DLC iterations. The first taste of this that the game reviewing public got of this new, disgusting game economic proposition was Dead Space 3 (Giant Bombcast, 02-05-2013, start from 47 minutes).

        It's also really really sad that both Turn 10 and Polyphony seemed to shun the ability to test drive any car, which Forza 4 had in the Hot Lap mode. Like I said in another post, not everyone will be 100% satisfied with their top-dollar car purchase, and they may not know what they'll hate about the car until they drive it. Most car enthusiasts who buy real-life cars test drive them before committing (well, yeah, I reserved the Scion FR-S way ahead of time, but I lucked out, and I knew MOSTLY what I was in for: a boxer engined, rear-wheel-drive car).

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          December 5, 2013 12:48 AM

          Do you really index all the Bombcasts? I know some think that's crazy, but I'm thinking that maybe this could be put to good use. Maybe you could ask rudds or azshack if they'd be interested in adding some sort of index to the pages where the bombcasts are. I'm sure this could be useful for the community.

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      December 4, 2013 9:26 PM

      Pick either a free-to-play model or a retail model. Until then, fuck these games. I'm out.

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      December 4, 2013 10:00 PM

      So many people crying about micro transactions but very few people answering the question: is the game still fun?

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        December 4, 2013 10:33 PM

        "Gamers" stopped caring about games being fun roughly around the same time that they realized circle-jerking on Reddit or Neogaf, without any connection to what real people thought, was its own form of entertainment.

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        December 5, 2013 12:49 AM

        I think we will know tomorrow, when the embargo lifts.

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          December 5, 2013 6:22 AM

          Right but my comment applies to all games featuring these options.

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      December 4, 2013 10:19 PM

      How does the price per car etc compare to Forza 5?

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      December 4, 2013 10:56 PM

      They did this completely wrong. What they should've done is followed the LoL model, with some tweaks to match racing better. Release the game for free (or charge a pittance of money, call it $10). Allow me to acquire cars the old fashioned way, by racing, winning, getting credits and purchasing them. Allow me to purchase in-game currency with real dollars. Have a test drive garage that has a few cars per week that I can do test laps in. Call it 5 cars a week.

      Now here's the part that I think would be awesome. Allow me to buy and sell cars from other players on an actual market. Limit the availability of certain types of cars (because all cars on the market would ultimately come from Sony). Take a cut of the sales that people make--call it 20%. So if someone buys a car from me for 10M credits, I get 8, Sony gets 2.

      I can virtually guarantee a secondary market would form that would allow me to turn credits into actual money. Players would love that they were able to (at least theoretically) turn their racing time back into real money.

      Allow people to race for pink slips, if they want. This could've been awesome, and a great way to do multiplayer. Sony could've milked this for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

      Instead they've managed to completely piss their fans off. Great move, dudes.

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        December 4, 2013 11:21 PM

        I have no idea how many people think similarly to me: if this was on PS4 it would be a day one purchase. On PS3 I won't even rent it.

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          December 5, 2013 2:09 PM

          Why? It wouldn't be better on the PS4 unless you waited a couple of years. it tuns at 1080p 60fps and looks better than forza 5 to me so why? They would sell maybe 1/20th of what they would sell on PS3.

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      December 5, 2013 1:39 AM

      I dislike the usual, disingenuous, PR speak - "In the past, our customers have complained about Gran Turismo's shitty grind. Well we've listened and have now figured out a solution that would have impossible to achieve without micro-transactions". *vomit*

      Reviewers, likely, will not have enough time to reliably assess the impact of micro transactions. I suspect the days of finding yourself an nice little money-making event are probably numbered. Depending on the backlash, a post-launch reward nerf, to the most efficient credit-earning events, is not outside the realm of possibility.

      Don't want the Real Money™ customers to feel ripped off by allowing any 'overly-generous' events.

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        December 5, 2013 2:19 PM

        It should be easy enough to compare the grind to previous GT games.

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      December 5, 2013 3:54 AM

      Shock! Outrage!

      I've played Forza since about four days after launch and have yet to feel the need to buy anything for real money. I enjoy the game, so doing races doesn't even feel like a grind. If GT is anything like that, I can't imagine this will be that big of a deal.

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      December 5, 2013 4:05 AM

      MS Points are back!

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      December 5, 2013 4:06 AM

      Don't support this stuff or it'll stick. Let the fancy cars sit unused so developers don't start this shit with every popular game.

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        December 5, 2013 2:23 PM

        The money risk-takers won't let this go away. All we can hope is that developers balance the game so that it feels good without micro-transactions and then just add that as a crutch. This announcement is actually a slight positive for me. These transactions were going to happen no matter what but the statement seems to say that the game will work as usual for the fans but that you can unlock cars faster if you really have to spend more money.

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      December 5, 2013 4:11 AM

      [deleted]

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        December 5, 2013 2:27 PM

        You could look at a bad game and say all games are bullshit. 99% of games barely work at all and we don't even hear about them. Even if 99% of games implement micro-transactions in a shitty way that still doesn't mean micro-transactions make games bad. Greed overshadowing quality make games bad and you don't need micro-transactions for that.

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      December 5, 2013 4:34 AM

      IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH THIS PRICING POLICY, DON'T BUY THIS GAME

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        December 5, 2013 2:28 PM

        We don't know what the pricing policy is since we don't know if the grind is balanced for normal play or for the micro-transactions.

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      December 5, 2013 6:05 AM

      this is comedy.... Thank you Sony.

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      December 5, 2013 6:14 AM

      I know the Shack always leans away from having the F2P whales onboard, so I'm not surprised to see this, but you have to know it's still going to make them giant moneybags.

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      December 5, 2013 8:39 AM

      Have they changed how you fundamentally earn cars in GT? If not but i can choose to hastily and unwisely buy a super car then thats ok......cos i won't buy me a car. The slow grind is the best thing about these games. You earn the roar of that V12.....earn it!!

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      December 5, 2013 9:30 AM

      I was going to make this game my last PS3 purchase.. not going to support this micro transaction shit anymore..

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        December 5, 2013 2:03 PM

        Generalize much? Say you make a game where you have to progress to unlock new cars. The game is fun, it is challenging to unlock new cars. Now add the ability to pay cash to get cars faster. How does that change the game experience from before? If you don't pay for the unlocks then aren't you playing the same game from before? For sure greed wins out for many games and the regular route is made more hard or annoying to get people to pay more. You cannot just expect every game to have bad microtransactions just because 99% of them do just like 99% of games in general suck an / or barely work but you don't go around saying you dislike games in general.

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          December 6, 2013 4:07 AM

          It's extremely hard to believe that the ability to buy in-game progress with cash had no effect on the progress curve. They'd be constantly tempted to make the "free" curve brutal, to maximize the temptation to break out the wallet and speed things up. This would be acceptable if the game was free, or at least super cheap, but it's not- so we're worried.

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      December 5, 2013 12:51 PM

      At least Real Racing was F2P...I'd prefer it was 9.99 with no microtransactions, but paying 49.99 or 59.99 and then having microtransactions at those rates...ridiculous. Annoyingly though, I bet there will be a lot of people spending the money and it will prove to the game publishers that people are willing to spend the money.

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        December 5, 2013 2:48 PM

        We don't know how hard it is to unlock cars normally so it would be impossible to say that these "rates" are ridiculous. A huge million dollar house in a posh neighborhood seems ridiculous to some but as long as regular people don't have to buy that house to enjoy their own shelter then the million dollar house is not so ridiculous.

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          December 6, 2013 1:16 PM

          I have the game... it's identical to gt5 progression. You unlock cars by completing series of races in events and a variety of challenges just like every gran turismo ever. Money payout is the same as it's always been and now you can buy pretty much every car in the game at any time because there is no more used cars. I think the micro transactions for in game money was more of a after thought then being built around it like other games.

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