• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

With the decline of Saints Row and Just Cause, does that mean we'll never have a "major" alternative to GTA?

Saints Row over 2 mill
Saints Row 2 over 3.4 mill
Saints Row 3 5.5 mill first, then "estimated" over 7 after bargain prices and humble bundle.
Saints Row IV less than 2 mill
Saints Gat ??????
Agents of Mayhem spinoff only 300,000


Just Cause over 1 mill
Just Cause 2 over 6 million!
Just Cause 3 ?¿????
Just Cause 4 Square said sales were low didn't cover dev costs, down 61.5% from JC3 in the UK.

These two franchises after years and years of GTA clones and competition, were the only games that had the sales and the chance of creating a major and viable alternative to GTA on the same field. Not random games taking elements or Ubisoft creed palletswaps like Watch dogs, but actual competitors to GTA.

No other franchises in this field came as close.

Saints Row started out a 360 exclusive and entered strong. Saints Row 2 took things further reaching a much higher number. Saints Row 3 sold the best but went on discount real fast, then became a part of a humble bundle and the retail price dropped to bargain bin levels and stayed there. Saints Row 4 barely lit a match as well as it's standalone expansion, and the spinoff game bombed hard.

Just Cause 2 was a surprise hit improving on the already good Just Cause 1 astronomically. But then Just Cause 3 was a disaster and while 4 was better the damage was done.

Both franchises had a chance of if not beating GTA, taking a large chunk of it's market possibly selling 9--15 million units with strong entries. Not including the anomaly of GTA V of course, I'm using IV and San Andreas as the baseboard.

Both series rose and then both series died after their 3rd games which tells us the 3rd games of each had ruined the mindshare of both franchises, which Saints Row the Third got around temporarily by being cheap.

What's more interesting is the best games of both series critically In aggregate, are the second games in each. Which also seems to match forum and social opinion from what I've seen.

(Before I forget yes Mafia iii did sell 7 million, an anomaly for the series. However it was practically given away just like Saints Row 3, and as far as I am aware there's no news of a Mafia 4 in development. Not to mention the Mafia Remake didn't light anyone's house on fire either.)


But with GTA now having the pull it has now, is it over? Sure we will still have clones and games trying to take some of GTAs pie, but is it the end of possibly having a major competitive and viable alternative to GTA?

Outside a miracle I'm not sure it's possible anymore. A new series would have to hit it out the park first entry, or be good enough to come close followed by a sequel that does hit it out the park. But the likely hood of a GTA competitor having the pull to sell 9-15 million units legitimately per entry are really small. Saints Row V already has an uphill battle to face when it comes out.
 

Blond

Banned
Precedent has been set. GTA or bust.

Saints Row and Just Cause games are even bargain priced fast. Makes no difference. GTA is too good with too much content to last eons.
JC 3 was fucking broken and turned me off from playing it till I got it for 10 bucks on Steam and Saints Row 4 changing the tone to a superhero game after already going straight up stupid with 3 also turned a lot of people off so I'm not shocked. Also OP, there's clear speak of SR 5 so take that for what you will.
 

truth411

Member
Saints Row over 2 mill
Saints Row 2 over 3.4 mill
Saints Row 3 5.5 mill first, then "estimated" over 7 after bargain prices and humble bundle.
Saints Row IV less than 2 mill
Saints Gat ??????
Agents of Mayhem spinoff only 300,000


Just Cause over 1 mill
Just Cause 2 over 6 million!
Just Cause 3 ?¿????
Just Cause 4 Square said sales were low didn't cover dev costs, down 61.5% from JC3 in the UK.

These two franchises after years and years of GTA clones and competition, were the only games that had the sales and the chance of creating a major and viable alternative to GTA on the same field. Not random games taking elements or Ubisoft creed palletswaps like Watch dogs, but actual competitors to GTA.

No other franchises in this field came as close.

Saints Row started out a 360 exclusive and entered strong. Saints Row 2 took things further reaching a much higher number. Saints Row 3 sold the best but went on discount real fast, then became a part of a humble bundle and the retail price dropped to bargain bin levels and stayed there. Saints Row 4 barely lit a match as well as it's standalone expansion, and the spinoff game bombed hard.

Just Cause 2 was a surprise hit improving on the already good Just Cause 1 astronomically. But then Just Cause 3 was a disaster and while 4 was better the damage was done.

Both franchises had a chance of if not beating GTA, taking a large chunk of it's market possibly selling 9--15 million units with strong entries. Not including the anomaly of GTA V of course, I'm using IV and San Andreas as the baseboard.

Both series rose and then both series died after their 3rd games which tells us the 3rd games of each had ruined the mindshare of both franchises, which Saints Row the Third got around temporarily by being cheap.

What's more interesting is the best games of both series critically In aggregate, are the second games in each. Which also seems to match forum and social opinion from what I've seen.

(Before I forget yes Mafia iii did sell 7 million, an anomaly for the series. However it was practically given away just like Saints Row 3, and as far as I am aware there's no news of a Mafia 4 in development. Not to mention the Mafia Remake didn't light anyone's house on fire either.)


But with GTA now having the pull it has now, is it over? Sure we will still have clones and games trying to take some of GTAs pie, but is it the end of possibly having a major competitive and viable alternative to GTA?

Outside a miracle I'm not sure it's possible anymore. A new series would have to hit it out the park first entry, or be good enough to come close followed by a sequel that does hit it out the park. But the likely hood of a GTA competitor having the pull to sell 9-15 million units legitimately per entry are really small. Saints Row V already has an uphill battle to face when it comes out.
I honestly don't believe Saint's Row or Just Cause was ever a serious competitor to GTA.
 
The first Saints Row was a nice appetiser before GTA IV was out, the multiplayer was fun particularly the Blinged Out Ride mode. I didn’t enjoy the others much , I got bored quickly.
 
JC 3 was fucking broken and turned me off from playing it till I got it for 10 bucks on Steam and Saints Row 4 changing the tone to a superhero game after already going straight up stupid with 3 also turned a lot of people off so I'm not shocked. Also OP, there's clear speak of SR 5 so take that for what you will.
I mention SRV in the post but it's going to face an uphill battle, not sure they can get back to where 2 brought them and restart the franchise with a new battery.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Never played any SR game (looks too quirky), and the only JC I've played is the JC 2 demo on 360. I remember driving fast down the street and getting to a place with electrical towers or something and shooting it out with thugs.

The frame rate could be hitchy, but it seemed decent to be honest. Probably didn't bother playing the demo more or buying it as I had other games to play.
 

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
In terms of sales I don't expect to see any competition, but in terms of quality, I've usually preferred GTA's competition. Saints Row, Sleeping Dogs, Watch_Dogs with an underscore, I find them all to be better experiences. I do find Just Cause's missions to be real boring though, keeps me from sticking around after a few hours in the sandbox. Mafia III lost me after just a couple hours.

That "Everywhere" game by that ex-GTA guy sounds ambitious. Maybe it'll actually happen. I'm skeptical.
 
The Watch Dogs series has been way more successful than both of those series. The first 2 games sold well over 10 million.

Also Watch Dogs is not a "pallet swap". It doesn't even use the same game engine as Assassin's Creed.
Watch dogs isn't a direct clone or competing with GTA. Its different and another Ubisoft open franchise. Even then ubisoft screwed that series up anyway with Legion.

Ubisoft does have that abandoned Driver franchise that used to be big back in the day. Driv3r was supposedly a good gta clone. Maybe they should try that again?

Ever since crackdown crashed and burned I lost any interest in the GTA clones (or at least anything after saints row 3)

I’m not sure if you’re trolling or not and that concerns me.

Crackdown 3? Arguably that was what Saints Row 4 ended up being lol. Never did get that cloud thing to work either, poor don mattrick, your swansong finally came out a mess.
 

Codes 208

Member
Watch dogs isn't a direct clone or competing with GTA. Its different and another Ubisoft open franchise. Even then ubisoft screwed that series up anyway with Legion.

Ubisoft does have that abandoned Driver franchise that used to be big back in the day. Driv3r was supposedly a good gta clone. Maybe they should try that again?



Crackdown 3? Arguably that was what Saints Row 4 ended up being lol. Never did get that cloud thing to work either, poor don mattrick, your swansong finally came out a mess.
Well even 2 was disappointing. CD1 was like a sleeper hit, I had no expectations of it outside of it coming with the halo 3 beta but I had a ton of fun. The sequels just felt too samey and 3 was definitely a disappointment after years of waiting
 

Unk Adams

Banned
Both series rose and then both series died after their 3rd games which tells us the 3rd games of each had ruined the mindshare of both franchises, which Saints Row the Third got around temporarily by being cheap.

What's more interesting is the best games of both series critically In aggregate, are the second games in each. Which also seems to match forum and social opinion from what I've seen.
This is correct. Saints Row 1 and 2 were about street gangs and had a 90's-00's gangsta rap aesthetic which made it unique and not just a "GTA clone". Saints Row the Third, on the other hand, abandoned that concept and instead made it a weird generic, goofy open world game and the fourth game was a Crackdown wannabe that tried way too hard to be funny. They took everything fans actually enjoyed about the original two games and just completely abandoned it. It doesn't help that they removed the online multiplayer options starting with the third game as well which were very popular modes for the first two games on the 360.
 
Sure we have a major alternative right now that people are dying to play.

You can play with any kind of gun/baseball bat you find. The object of the game is to get on the FBI's most wanted list. Just walk up to any car, bust open the window and drive away. Create as much carnage as you like.

if you do get caught for murdering hookers, you get an all expenses paid lifetime vacation to prision. You get free delicious meals for life (maggots included).

Plus you may find your true love Pablo. Just drop the soap a few times, the guys will come running for you.

This is a real life game I am talking about. Graphics are photorealistic. It starts when you walk out your door.
 

CamHostage

Member
Alternative to GTA? We don't even have a GTA right now.

I'm not against old-fashioned GTA-style play coming back (god, that makes me feel ancient, to consider "GTA" not only something classic but a thing of already left in the past,) but I'm not seeing competition stepping up when even the originator is concentrated with other things. They're about to release V yet again as a major release on a third platform, while 6 and beyond are little more than rumors in the GTA Online gameplan as far as we know. So, if Rockstar isn't even interested in repeating the GTA formula right now, would anybody else do it either?

That space has been abandoned, or transformed, or something? GTA clones were a thing back when GTA was one thing, a big city that you could drive around and punch people and start crimes, but I don't know exactly what we could settle on would be a GTA clone today? Even this thread, there's a question of if Saint's Row (1 and probably 2 were trying to be GTA, the rest have been more interested in being the next Saint's Row, for better or worse) and Just Cause (GTA? or Swiss Army Knife Physics: The Videogame?) qualify as examples of the topic at hand. Is Yakuza not a GTA because you can't drive? Is WatchDogs not a GTA because it's too Ubi to be anything but? Is RDR an old-west GTA "reskin" with horses? Where would Cyberpunk have fallen if it hadn't been a mess? Is GTA Online even GTA anymore, or is it just an interactive Whateverthefuck Playground?

Except for the satire and the hookers, practically everything of GTA has been stripmined for building other genres and franchises, so I'm kind of struggling to imagine what the next GTA clone would be, myself; I'm not even sure I have a clear imagination for what the next GTA itself could be...
 
Last edited:

Aion002

Member
Mafia is pretty good. It doesn't have the production values, but I enjoyed a lot the 3 games.

Watch Dogs 1 and 2 are fine, hopefully the series can survive after the pile of trash that is Legion.

Sleeping Dogs is amazing, a sequel could have been incredible.
 

bender

What time is it?
Saints Row was interesting. It went from a rather by-the-numbers GTA clone and then started running with the zanier aspects as GTA continued to get more and more self-serious. I know most people prefer SR3, but I think SR2 is my favorite. SR4 is where the series lost me as it just want too far off the rails and the core mechanics are too far removed from what I want from a GTA game.

JC2 was more lightening in a bottle. The original was mediocre but you could see the potential through all of the rough spots. JC2 smooths over all those rough edges and then the series is rewarded by going to an alternative internal studio and releasing one of the worst performing games of the generation. And even without the technical issues, it didn't seem to have anything new to bring to the table. I wrote the series off at that point. If your own studio can't give a shit about a flagship franchise, why should I?

I still think Violation could do something interesting but they probably need to divorce themselves from the Saints Row brand (Agents of Mayhem doesn't count) or at least treat it like GTA, a new game means a new location and a new cast of characters.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I'm sure we'll see someone take a crack at a big budget open world "city" game.

I loved SR2, but they should have just made another version of that in a new city.. they really went off the fucking rails lol
 
Last edited:

GodofWhimsy

Member
I'll never understand the hype around Sleeping Dogs. From my experiences playing it, it was a middling GTA clone with the arkham combat system thrown in. Was it the setting? The whole martial arts/triad theme? Those aren't exactly unexplored territory in video games. Just my two cents on that particular title.

But to answers OP's question, I don't think its viable to compete with Rockstar without the resources, funds, time and talent Rockstar have. They aren't exactly one of my personal favourite devs or anything, but I think they still set the benchmark with each new release. I'm convinced that company's dabbling in the dark arts with some of the shit they can pull-off.
 

BigBooper

Member
Just Cause is nothing like GTA so there's no comparison there. As for GTA competition, it could happen still. Cyberpunk was set up in a way they could have done that if they hadn't royally botched the launch. It seemed like the had more positive buzz before launch than any of the recent huge games.
 
Lmao the only time Saints Row was even close to being a "competitor" was in the first and second game.

They refused to go head to head afterwards.

Just Cause series was never a direct competitor either.

The closest thing we had from back in the day was the Driver series, and maybe somewhat the Getaway series - both titles long gone and dead.
 
Last edited:

Boss Mog

Member
Square-Enix had a potential GTA rival, not in Just Cause, but in Sleeping Dogs. They fucked it up though my making an online only F2P game nobody cared about instead of a proper sequel. There was so much to build on that first game which laid great foundations; truly a shame.
 
Lmao the only time Saints Row was even close to being a "competitor" was in the first and second game.

They refused to go head to head afterwards.

Just Cause series was never a direct competitor either.

The closest thing we had from back in the day was the Driver series, and maybe somewhat the Getaway series - both titles long gone and dead.
Iirc only one Driver game attempted to be GTA and after backlash they went back to the formula of the first two games.

To be fair if they polished things up and got new devs they could try something like Driv3r again. It's likely the only way you could revive the series anyway. These days people aren't interested in non-racing driving games.
 

EDMIX

Member
Square-Enix had a potential GTA rival, not in Just Cause, but in Sleeping Dogs. They fucked it up though my making an online only F2P game nobody cared about instead of a proper sequel. There was so much to build on that first game which laid great foundations; truly a shame.

Maybe... before I got lighting up Square with the smoke, do they even own the IP or where they just stepping in to publish the title after its troubled development? Do the own the team? Is the team even still around?

Before we REALLY go into it, many of those things need to be answered as I don't know how much control Square had over that.

edit....ok I read a bunch of stuff.

So Square owns the rights as to why its called Sleeping Dogs and not True Crime - Sleeping Dogs etc, United Fronts wasn't owned by Square though and Square okayed pre-production of Sleeping Dogs 2.

Not a lot of info of why they cancelled it though, I feel the issues United Fronts had with Activision and now Square are more so to blame. Maybe Square wants to reboot the IP, but only with the right team.


 
Iirc only one Driver game attempted to be GTA and after backlash they went back to the formula of the first two games.

To be fair if they polished things up and got new devs they could try something like Driv3r again. It's likely the only way you could revive the series anyway. These days people aren't interested in non-racing driving games.
There was definitely another Driver game in the veins of GTA that was set in the 70's or 80's, it was called DRIVER: San Francisco.

Only after they reverted, but still, that was to me one of the few that could - and tried quite earnestly for a short while - before bowing out to Rockstar's monopoly on that kind of game.
 

FrozenFlame

Member
Well, SR is more wacky and you quickly get overpowered, especially with the super powers stuff.
Just Cause it's always more of the same with each game, not to say it's unbalanced because once you get certain vehicles/gadgets, the rest becomes obsolete.
Mafia just needs a bit of focus with side missions/activities.
Gta is more grounded and reserved with what they give you so there's a sense of progression.
 
There was definitely another Driver game in the veins of GTA that was set in the 70's or 80's, it was called DRIVER: San Francisco.

Only after they reverted, but still, that was to me one of the few that could - and tried quite earnestly for a short while - before bowing out to Rockstar's monopoly on that kind of game.
Huh? I don't even think you can do anything out the car in that game how is it like GTA?
 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
Driver: San Francisco was a driving game where you could take over other drivers, and had no GTA style gameplay at all. Why post if you know nothing about the subject.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Really depends on what you're calling an alternative. If its a good sandbox set in a city, then GTA itself stopped being that alternative long ago too.
Game plays more like a story-driven open world crime thriller, in which case we have stuff like Mafia DE, Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch_dogs.
 
Huh? I don't even think you can do anything out the car in that game how is it like GTA?
Driver: San Francisco was a driving game where you could take over other drivers, and had no GTA style gameplay at all. Why post if you know nothing about the subject.

Woops, sorry, wrong title.

It was this one:

60813-driver-parallel-lines-playstation-2-front-cover.jpg


Here's some gameplay:



So yeah, that one.
 
Last edited:
really good game and i am surprised ubisoft did not follow on that
It was actually not bad at all if i recall correctly from when I played it.

It was a good enough of a wannable GTA clone, but obviously much more barebones based on the series trademark of being more vehicular focused.

But I guess they just gave up trying to compete against Rockstar and did their own thing, Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs.
 
Top Bottom