Connecting the Fans to Polyphony Digital

Dear Polyphony Digital,

As avid Gran Turismo fans, we have been wanting to have a channel of communication with your studios, and the excellent people who have devoted themselves to producing the world's premier racing and car collecting game. Being isolated from the game company we regard so highly is disappointing.

The game industry is going through fundamental changes. For the PlayStation world, a huge metamorphosis is Gaming 3.0. This concept, well explained by Mr Phil Harrison, adds a huge amount of involvement with gamers around the world. But even before Gaming 3.0 becomes a reality, there is already an established movement to involve the fans with the developers.

We see examples of developers interacting with fans all the time, and this is something we are rather jealous of. Ninja Theory, developers of the upcoming Heavenly Sword, have a website complete with a forum, where developers can interact with fans, share some ideas and game concepts for a better chance to deliver what fans want.

Operation Sports is another good example of that. This is the biggest gaming sports website in the United States, and a lot of developers from games like MLB, madden, NBA 2k and others share their thoughts, give explanations about their respective games, make polls. The term "wishlist" is common in a website like that.

EA Sports every year hosts an event called "community day" where members of fansites get a chance to talk to the producers, see the next game first hand, share their wishlists. All of that aimed to give a better product to the consumers in the end.

Recently, Microsoft went so far as to hiring a well known gaming journalist to head the community aspect of the upcoming title "Forza Motorsport 2". Its a great initiative over at forzamotorsport.net, and we would love to have that kind of connection with the great people at Polyphony Digital.

We wonder why such a high-profile developer like Polyphony Digital doesnt have any interaction with its fans, and would sincerely like to see this situation changed. Is it a language barrier? Cultural differences? (but since developers like Hideo Kojima host a podcast, we doubt this is a factor). Is it lack of time or budget?

With the advent of HOME and the inevitability of online gaming, Gran Turismo 5 offers gamers any number of opportunities for unique gameplay and interaction. At GTPlanet.net, we are almost 100,000 registered members, all with great imaginations, all passionate about cars and with the same desire as Yamauchi-San to have the perfect driving simulator at our hands.

Lets not waste this chance. Gran Turismo must have a community tied with the developers we admire. Our ideas fit in very well with the concept of having HOME, and with what Yamauchi-San talked about at last years TGS.

Maybe GTPlanet.net can be Gran Turismos official website? Perhaps Sony has better ideas and is already working on something? We know that its not easy to make a game, and we are aware of the series of NDAs, that developers cant talk openly about GT5. But we at GTPlanet share the same desire to have more interaction with Polyphony Digital, and non-disclosure agreements shouldn't prevent some dialog with the people we consider to be some of the best in the world.

Best regards ,

GTPlanet.net Members