What can we learn from the recent backlash of Gran Turismo 7?
There are so many great examples of businesses and products experimenting with messaging, and campaign executions where it just backfires. Some companies decide to ignore their customer's voice/feedback and backlash (usually when they have other cash cow business lines) and continue with impunity. An infamous example of this is the case study about Dasani (we all know what happened there) where they continued to roll out their product and just ignored the backlash they received especially in the UK. They didn’t do enough. There have been other companies and examples who genuinely believe in their product and listen to their customers and make the necessary adjustments to ensure they deliver value to the end-user. If executed well the brand feels more connected, accessible and human.
The case study I want to talk about is the recent game launch of Gran Turismo 7 (a PS5 car game). This is a huge franchise that was launched in 1997 and to date has sold +85m units! The fact that the franchise has remained relevant for over 2 decades is a great achievement. The game is self is a masterpiece with excellent physics, with great strides made in enhancing the experience with the Playstation 5 dual sense controller and it received a Metacritic score of 87. But this is where the pleasantries end because the eagerly anticipated self-proclaimed ‘the real driving simulator’ hit a few ‘bumps’…
So what happened? Well after a week or so of receiving high praise and positive PR, Polyphony Digital (the developers of the game) decided to launch a patch that introduced multiplayer online gaming (thumbs up), microtransactions (come again?) and an update to the in-game economy that made it near impossible to play (erm what?!) and complete. All of a sudden the true colours of Polyphony Digital came to light. The management team decided to push the microtransactions economy hard as possible and expected users to be ok after forking out $70 for the game to push them further into paying through their game to milk more money. They didn’t even hide it, they just thought it was the right decision. To give you a sense of how bad/greedy this was. If you wanted to buy an 18 million credit car, it would take you +24 hours of gaming (some people have jobs/lives!) to buy this one car, whereas you can just pay a one-off ~$200 for this ONE car on top of the $70 you spent (LTV Data Scientists must have been rubbing their hands). Game grinding is very normal, but balance is critical and this ruined the experience of the game and tarnished previous positive perceptions of the franchise's brand. They were seen as money-grubbers, hell-bent on squeezing every dime from users. Now, microtransactions in games aren’t new but it is widely accepted that microtransactions make more sense for free to play games like Candy Crush Saga and Fornite etc. and not for a $70 full-price game, especially with this level of aggression.
"Painfully behind the times, a clear cash grab at every turn. This is what it feels like to be robbed blind" - Random GT Gamer
The gaming community are very vocal and the title suffered from some serious backlash resulting in almost 10k user reviews giving it a user Metacritic score of just 1.8! With users citing that the recent patch update ruined the experience and tarnished Polyphony Digital's and the franchise's reputation.
Polyphony could have just sat back and stuck to their guns but they didn’t. They listened to their customers. They understood the pain points, they saw the value that they promised users was not being delivered. They understood that the franchise is at risk of becoming obsolete and wouldn't last another 2 decades as it did before if they ignored this feedback. All that hard work would have been undone.
So what did they do? Polyphony decided to re-calculate the rewards (in-game prize money) system and will release a patch to address this to balance the economy better. They also will give away 1 million in-game credits as a gesture for this debacle. They didn’t remove microtransactions because it remains a core part of their commercial strategy but they’ve made them more palatable for users. They learned a valuable lesson to LISTEN.
What can we learn from this? This is a short example of how the developer/company was able to jump into this crisis with clean, and clear comms, understanding and acknowledging their role in this fudge up and connecting with their customers on a human level. They have damaged their brand but are intent on fixing this by giving they human response to this issue. In my opinion, they addressed it well without veering away too much from their commercial strategy.
This example is a real challenge for most businesses. I can't stress enough that you need to have systems in place to listen to customers more but also know when not to listen to customers (i.e. sticking to MTX). Leverage forums, social listening tools, research etc. and speak to your customers regularly because you’re more likely to humanise the brand, drive stickiness and paint a positive perception of the brand especially if those pieces of feedback translate directly into the product experience. You also need to understand what customers are FEELING, SAYING, and DOING. All three are crucial.
