Saying Goodbye to Gran Turismo 5

Some of you may have heard that Sony is shutting down the Gran Turismo 5 servers at the end of this month.  To commemorate this occasion, there are two final GT5 seasonal events, the Mazda Touring Car at Top Gear and the Nissan GT-R at Nurburgring 24H.  If you post times, you get six cars gifted to you in GT6.  I did both seasonal events over the weekend.  They are good fun.  Ordinarily this would be no big deal to me, except GT5 has not been an ordinary game for me.  Let me explain.

I first started playing GT5 when it was released in November 2010.  Just before it was released I purchased a Logitech Driving Force GT wheel and pedal set, which I used to play GT5 for over a month.  I even bought a Wheelstandpro to mount the wheel and pedal set to.  I was so enthralled with the experience, that I immediately upgraded to a Fanatec GT2 wheel and Clubsport pedals.  Before GT5, I did of course play Forza 1-3 and loved those games.  But they were games to me, not sim racing experiences.  It was GT5 that actually got me sim racing.

I stopped playing GT5 regularly in December 2013, when GT6 was released.  But, for three years, I played GT5 religously.  I would wake up early on weekend days, some days as early as 4am, just so I could get in 2-3 hours of GT5 before my wife and kids woke up.  I did almost the entire career mode, except for the two 24 hour races and the 9 hour race.  Even I could not do those endurance tests.  I played almost every seasonal event, except for the first couple.  I did Parcells' weekly GT5 Thursday night races for more than two years.  I spent thousands of dollars on sim racing equipment, primarily to play GT5, including the DFGT, Fanatec GT2 wheel, Clubsport pedals, Fanatec CSR wheel, Fanatec CSR Elite wheel, the list goes on and on.  I also bought several headsets for GT5, including one headset, the Sony Pulse Elite headset, that I only use with the PS3.  About two years ago, I did the great videogame trade-in at Game Stop, which ultimately culminated in me getting two additional PS3s and copies of GT5 so that I could do triple screen GT5.  It was worth every penny.   

GT5 remains my favorite video game of all time, and it likely will remain #1 for the rest of my life.  Yes, I love iRacing and Forza 5, but I doubt I will be playing Forza 5 for 3 1/2 years, and iRacing has significantly changed such that it is unfair to compare it to GT5.  Yes, GT5 has been updated, but at its core, it has been the same game for the last 3 1/2 years.  And, I love it that way.

There is no question that GT5 has given me hundreds and hundreds of hours of joy, such that I feel lucky to have gotten so much out of it, for so little.  As I was playing the last seasonal this weekend, it occurred to me that I still love playing GT5.  But, I have moved on to GT6, iRacing, Forza 5 and other games.  

So, even though I likely will play GT5 again in the future, it won't be the same.  I realize this may sound somewhat odd, it is a video game after all.  But, it is something I have done only for fun.  No money, no prestige, just for fun.  And, I will miss it.  But, it is time to say goodbye.

I am sharing this with you folks because I know many of you feel the same way about Forza.