So, how will/should Grid 12 make money?

[hypevosa]

The idea is inevitable, I was curious as to if it had any answers and what ideas were out there already. Not that I have tons of spare cash on me right now to throw at the game, but I was wondering what I could look forward to in the future.

I also ask because, for me, Realm's microtransactions made sense. You bought dyes for characters, more character slots, chests, dungeon runs, etc. There was rhyme and reason.

However, the style of Grid doesn't seem to allow for dye like things, show a need for multiple character slots or have an inventory for chests. Maybe we'll eventually see sockets that lead to dungeon-esque places, but that seems to be just copy-cat of realm if we have dungeon-equivalents and a place to buy such things. Double shards, loot drop, etc don't seem to really fit here either.

So, what are we going to eventually see in Grid 12 that will keep the servers running?

Is this a game we'll pay to buy off something like steam or app stores?

Ads and donations?

New tank skins?

[quicklite]

Funny that you mention this, I was thinking of this exact thing just two days ago.
Tank 'skins' could work. I'm stealing this from another tank based game because I like it so much :3.

Basically, each tank has 3-4 other 'skins': cool looking graphical re-designs of the tank. If you are good with said tank, you could buy one of these skins (with money, ofc) and look awesome with the tank that you play awesome with.

You could also adjust special effects for the tank. Such as explosion colours, laser colours, perhaps a cool (but just aesthetic) trail of fumes or something that the tank leaves behind. Basically, the idea behind this is mixing these minor customizations with skins gives you a totally boss tank of your choosing. Pay $10 to make 2 tanks look totally awesome in-game.

But that's all I got. Like you said, although this is really far away, it'll have to happen at some point, and grid would be hard to do this sorta thing with without becoming P2W.

[hypevosa]

Customizing laser colors is actually a unique thing I think would be thoroughly enjoyed.