Urban-Themed Video Games 'Basically Dead'?

simoniker writes "Midway CMO Steve Allison has been talking about why he thinks the urban game genre isn't worth entering, suggesting of the cancelled Snoop Dogg/John Singleton collaboration Fear & Respect, which was in development at Midway: 'We killed Fear and Respect... because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe.' Do people really not care about GTA-style urban shooters any more?"

Comments

Meh.

[Rob T Firefly]

Do people really not care about GTA-style urban shooters any more?

Like most gamers, I care about most styles and genres of games if they're done right. The problem is when a genre or even a particular game (especially something like GTA which nobody had seen before) is popular, everyone wants to cash in with their own "me-too" knockoff. These of course aren't as impressive as the original, the market gets flooded with low-quality xeroxes, and the genre loses momentum. It's happened many times before with countless games. In the 8-bit era everyone wanted to make a Mario-esque platformer or a Zelda-like fantasy game. On PS1 there was the glut of forgettable 3D platformers and vectorized fighters, among others. How many Tetris clones can you name for game boy or cell phone?

Also, sorry Snoop, but gamers are savvy these days. Not since "Cool Spot" or "Yo, Noid!" for NES has a catchy license ever been enough to sell a game. In fact, it tends to raise a red flag for most gamers nowadays. "Why do they need to CGI-scan Joe Blow Rapper into the game, or have Billy Bob Actor do a voiceover? What crappy gameplay are they trying to distract us from? Is this another "Bruce Willis in Apocalypse?"