Motorstorm 3 dev: "Racing genre is stuck in a rut"
- Thread starter green.pixel
- Start date
Main GT's are 80% or so according to the numbers above of that 56 million. Halo's peak and GT's average through 4 games are in the same ballpark. Somewhere between 11 and 12 million.
I dunno, Forza 3 broke 4M copies in less than a year and broke over 2M in less than four months. You start adding in all the other 1M+ racer sales this generation alone and it is a pretty long list. What tops the list in terms of HD console sales based on category? FPS, granted, and then Sports.
Racers are still a very competitive genre.
corduroygt
Banned
It didn't quite sell 4 million, according to the dev in your link. No game is going to sell 2 million the first 4 months, and then 2 more million in the next 4, there will be a drop off. You also have to remember the bundles that included it too.
Still Forza is a multimillion seller, and shows that racers either have to be sims or mario kart to sell really well.
If no game can sell more than 2 million in the first 4 months how many months did it take Assasins Creed 1 to sell 7 million copies?
As of February the game had sold through 2M, excluding any bundles. Certainly a successful title!
corduroygt
Banned
You should read my post again. I meant to say sales rate for months 1-4 is always going to be higher than sales rate for months 5-8 for any game. So if a game sold 2M during months 1-4, it'll certainly sell less than that in months 5-8.
Apples and oranges.(You really want everyone to eat oranges don't you ?
)These are just three franchises. As a whole? Its not what it used to be
Need For Speed has managed to build its own loyal fanbase for decades and the consumer pretty much expects from GT or Forza to offer them the best sim experience available. Any other sim is mostly ignored. Many brilliant arcade racers were missed.
Most high quality racers dont enjoy the same success. Probably there might be another or two that were at least successful. Its a genre that is getting shrunk in time. Shooters on the other hand? There are a shitload that enjoy a shitload of sales.
During the 32 bit era this was a different case. People were crazy for racers. Actually it was one of the most important genres in defining the console's quality library. Just like Fighting games.
Basically two decades ago, the Arcade experience was sought by gamers and wanted that experience to be brought to home consoles. Thats why racers, light gun shooters and fighting games were so important back then.
As time passed people begun to seek less the arcade experience. They shifted towards realism and richer games. People want interactive Hollywood-like entertainment now
Even platform games took different forms. Before it was Mario and Crash Bandicoot. Today its Tomb Raider and Uncharted with a good dose of shooting stuff.
corduroygt
Banned
I have tremendous respect for anyone who can get that MSR trophy for getting gold in all the races. Bad game design is giving a time limit to complete two laps in a track but your times being sabotaged by AI bumping into you deliberately. I love the speed events but racing against AI is Motorstorm's weak point.
R trophy for getting gold in all the races. Bad game design is giving a time limit to complete two laps in a track but your times being sabotaged by AI bumping into you deliberately. I love the speed events but racing against AI is Motorstorm's weak point.Prophecy2k
Veteran
I would argue that it's a fault of the racing games we've had this generation over the availability of games in other genres. We've had the big-budget high profile, shooters and action games for the last 3 gens now. Granted they've gotten bigger and more movie-like, but i don't believe that they're "more successful" than they have been. If you dismiss the two top racers in the racing genre then you have to dismiss games like COD, Halo and GTA in the action/shooter genres as they are also equally outliers and not representative of the "health" of their genres as a whole.
When i look at racers last gen, we had some really awesome ones that tried stuff that was completely new. Games like Need For Speed Underground 1/2. Games like that did very well and it wasn't because it was a Need for Speed game, but because it wasn't a traditional racer that fell into either the arcadey or sim racer category. Then you had the Burnout franchise which was also awesome and very successful. Again they tried lots of new things and thus it was a new experience.
Racers this gen, bar the top few tend to all copy each other or copy the games from last gen. Granted you have really left field games like "blur" but that wasn't really a concept with broad appeal to begin with.
I don't for one minute believe that the people that enjoyed racers last gen aren't interested in racers any more this gen. I'd argue that the racers this gen have just been "playing" it too safe and not really doing enough that's new and compelling enough for people to care about them.