Polyphony’s latest racer, Gran Turismo 6, is chocked full of micro-transactions. These optional purchases allow players to progress through the game at a faster pace than without, though offering players in-game credits at a cost.
This monetization strategy has been hitting consoles hard in the last few months, with many games offering up these new ways to separate you from your money.
Micro-Transactions is not a bad thing, says Sony
Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida stands behind these in-game purchases, claiming that these micro-transactions aren’t a bad thing.
“microtransaction per se is not a bad thing, how the game is designed around it could become a problem,” the Sony executive said via Twitter.
Though we do start getting onto a slippery slope when dealing with this monetization strategy. The free-to-play model usually increases the difficulty of a game to funnel players towards these transactions. It offers things like double points to combat the explicitly designed lengthy progression systems.
Gran Turismo 6 is due out later this week, and we’ll need to see just how egregious, if at all, the micro-transaction system is in this game. Forza 5 offered a similar aspect in its recent release, and it pretty much ruined the game — forcing Turn 10 to tweak the economy of that racer.
Published: Dec 5, 2013 09:00 am