Is the arcade racing genre dead?

As many people know the racing genre of gaming is one that gamers have been quite fond of over the past three decades. When it comes down to popularity the racing genre of gaming had arguably peaked during the 00’s in terms of variety as it related to various video games. During the 00’s we got to see numerous video game franchises increase in terms of popularity including Burnout, Project Gotham, Need For Speed, Gran Turismo, Outrun along with Forza Motorsport. During most of the 00’s we got to see the racing genre evolve as realism became more emphasized with most high profile video game developers moving away arcade based gameplay. When it came down to arcade racing titles there were more games within that genre that shine back in the 90’s opposed to the 00’s. During the 90’s Sega made some of the most iconic arcade racing titles of that decade including Daytona USA and Crazy Taxi while companies like Namco came out with Ridge Racer. Arcade based racing games were big back in the 80’s and a majority of the 90’s and it seemed like things began to change shortly after the release of the original Gran Turismo title from ’97 on the PS1. The first set of Gran Turismo games that appeared on game systems like the PS1 & PS2 played a role in changing the racing genre of gaming because they had more depth than arcade based titles. The Gran Turismo games from the late 90’s early 00’s were also extremely successful commercially by drawing a ton of revenue for Sony during that time period. In fact, the Gran Turismo series is still one of Sony’s most profitable video game franchises 25 years later.

While Gran Turismo dominated a majority of the 00’s decade as the premier video game series within the racing genre there were arcade racing titles like Outrun 2 along with the Burnout games from ’01-’08; which were also appealed to both hardcore and casual fans within the racing genre. The 10’s decade is slightly a different story because we no longer see high profile arcade styled racing titles within Burnout or Outrun series. Even though, Burnout Paradise: Remastered was a huge attraction following its release in ’19 it was still overshadowed to some extent by the likes of Gran Turismo Sport and Forza Horizon 4 from ’17-’18. Despite, the racing genre of gaming evolving significantly over the past 20 years we have games like Mario Kart 8: Deluxe which was arguably one of the most successful titles of the 10’s decade.