In this particular aspect of my gaming tastes I must be really obsessive, because combining games from XTS and PS3 I own 12 titles of the genre.
In fact, I love cars, and of the total bunch of racing games I´ve bought the last 3 years I´ve played more or less intensively at least 8, but in any case the point is that I understand why the genre is getting stuck. The problem is the small amount of "differences" a non-lover of cars can detect in the plethora of racing games available.
What makes Pure different from Motorstorm? A lot of things I´d say, but, does the average player think the same? Buggy cars in natural landscapes with stunning vistas. That´s all, not bad, but samey. I appreciate to a extreme degree the "feel" of PGR4, for example, that makes the game really stand in its own, the delicious handling, equally appealing for soft simulation lovers and arcade players. But the average Joe sees another city racer.
In fact, the main problem that I found is the "fusion" tendencies. Dirt for example: what type of racing game is it? A mix. More and more games invade territories that were not intended to be occupied. Blur is a mix of Wipeout and Mario Kart with the previous PGR feel. A remarcable one, but I see the racing genre well stablished for a long time, may be a bit "hardcore" in its roots, and with niches strongly founded. Let´s see, you have drifting arcades (Ridge Racer) with its own appeal, pseudo-sims covering "normal" cars (Forza´s, Enthusia, GT) and specific competitions (F1, NASCAR, WRC), tuning titles (NFS, etc), off-road racers, and so on.
But now some kind of "casual" approach and and a dangerous decision ("more -and less focused- is better") give us titles that are in the middle of nowhere: GRID is thrilling, but too big and the cars slide like, well, like a Ridge Racer arcade. Dirt is behind Motorstorm and the Monster truck fever; Split Second emulates the chaos of a GTA and mix it with maybe Criterion´s Burnout disasters.
I think that if the genre is in line with niche approaches the games would be less difficult to program, the assets nightmare would be less overwhelming and probably the "adept" would buy in their respective home. I wonder why there´s not a soft-sim WRC title available, or a F1 apart from the installment from Studio Liverpool (a good one, I think). Same cars, same roads, retouched engines and refreshed licenses would be enough to feed the hard aficionado keeping costs low.
In fact, I just need one Ridge Racer for generation, because I only need one drifting arcade. The fact that I own so many racing titles this generation makes me wonder if I was searching something without succes: a really different game and not a clone, an ambitious clone, because GRID is really ambitious; but I don´t think the searching for the definitive racing game is a good thing. The "hard" will find the title soft-sided, and the casual may be confused.
The question is, for example, why Bizarre didn´t keep in line with a saga with specific strenghts like PGR? The sales wouldn´t go much lower than PGR4...With the boom of its new game may be the case that the company is in danger. They´re taking risks that the market is not demanding by any means; and the healthy enough brand PGR is forgotten.
The market is looking to other genres. Shooters, for example. In these situations being conservative is a good bet, for sure. Keep expectations low and survive, making good games and waiting opportunities. The Ridge Racer approach is correct, I think; small game, good technology (60/1080 is REALLY a safe and satisfying thing for an arcade racer), focusing in something that the team really make well. It wouldn´t destroy charts for sure, but the brand is healthy and so is the company (I bet).
