Yeah it sets a bad precedent.
What would prevent a studio to make a PR campaign before launch against MTX to earn some goodwill and then monetize their game months later ?
Barring some kind of law, what would prevent it is if the player base was so appalled by the change that they left the game and didn't come back to it, or to sequels.
Not many people are going to look at GT7 and dismiss it because "oooh Polyphony Digital
lied about MTX in GTS and is a pariah of the industry".
In this case, the market deciding is probably the best force for justice rather than some exaggerated faux-controversy that the affected market doesn't care much about.
People need to feel legitimately cheated in order for this to be important, and I don't think many people do.
And where the limit is if it is okay ? How big a lie can be and still be accepted by the community ?
Make no mistake, corporations will always try to generate more profit and as a consummer if you don't make your limits clear, they are going to gain ground little by little.
Yeah, but I don't see too many consumers in this case giving a shit. Certainly, I don't personally. I don't feel like I have to make it clear to Polyphony that any limits were breached, because for me they weren't.
In fact, I welcome the option to buy a car if I don't have or want to spend the time grinding to get it. I'd rather that option be there than not.
If there is something related to this that I would voice out, it would be "just get rid of all locked cars", as someone above suggested. But that would be a pretty big change to implement design-wise. The matter of 'exclusivity' and appreciation of cars comes into question. I know that may sound stupid, but that is a part of the game design.
Plus, they're a business, so of course they want to make money. I don't feel that them changing their original stance in the way that they have is such a 'hideous lie'. "No microtransactions" was never a selling point for me about the game.