Gran Turismo 7, the latest sequel to the real driving simulation game and the only kind of title developer Polyphony Digital is renowned for, was released for PS5 to a lot of controversies.

First, the online-always live service game went through a 30-hour server downtime when it was promised that it would only last for two hours. The servers went down at 2pm on Thursday 17 March. This was due to an issue found in Update 1.07. At the very least, players can always play arcade mode since that was the only mode that was available offline.

Due to an issue found in Update 1.07, we will be extending the Server Maintenance period. We will notify everyone as soon as possible when this is likely to be completed. We apologize for this inconvenience and ask for your patience while we work to resolve the issue. #GT7

— Gran Turismo (@thegranturismo) March 17, 2022

Server downtimes always happen for games that rely on online features and multiplayer. It’s rather weird that a series known for its single-player depth is now reliant on being online to have most of its functions available. And then there’s the controversial decision for developer Polyphony Digital to tweak winnings to make grinding for cars even longer.

See, the 1.07 patch reduced the amount of in-game currency some races reward, making it harder to unlock new cars despite criticism of the game’s microtransactions. Game producer Kazunori Yamauchi claims the situation will  be resolved with further content, which will be out god-knows-when. Here is his justification for the reduction:

“In GT7 I would like to have users enjoy lots of cars and races even without microtransactions. At the same time the pricing of cars is an important element that conveys their value and rarity, so I do think it’s important for it to be linked with the real world prices.

I want to make GT7 a game in which you can enjoy a variety of cars lots of different ways, and if possible would like to try to avoid a situation where a player must mechanically keep replaying certain events over and over again.

We will in time let you know the update plans for additional content, additional race events and additional features that will constructively resolve this. It pains me that I can’t explain the details regarding this at this moment, but we plan on continuing to revise GT7 so that as many players as possible can enjoy the game.

We would really appreciate it if everyone could watch over the growth of Gran Turismo 7 from a somewhat longer term point of view.”

The fact that this was added out of the blue and without much warning or prepping means that car-racing fans may be frustrated. Time will tell if the situation will escalate further. For more on how bad the grinding can get, check out our review of Gran Turismo 7.