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Music Game Genre On the Decline
After enjoying several years of popularity, music games seem to be drawing less and less interest from gamers lately. Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles have been conspicuously absent from a list of the 20 best-selling software titles in the past two months, and one report estimates that revenue from those games has dropped by almost half. Analyst Jesse Divnich suggests that there's no longer much room for dramatic improvements in game play, saying, "it would be erroneous to assume that any franchise or brand can grow unless it brings something new to the table. After a while, utility to the gamer will diminish and he/she will surely move on." Nevertheless, the companies are happy to continue to rely on DLC sales while working on new releases. Harmonix is showing off a trailer and a partial set list for The Beatles: Rock Band, and Neversoft has detailed a number of new features and tracks for Guitar Hero 5.
Some innovative company will emerge with a new concept nobody's thought about, and we'll be hooked on that for a while.
There is no "perfection". There are only new concepts, and there's an unlimited supply of them.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
It doesn't help that the controllers cost an arm and a leg. In tough economic times, if I have to choose between 3 or 4 games and one game with it's proprietary controllers....guess what, I'm getting the former.
Guitar hero needs more Buckethead, less Elton John.
What's been released in the last 2 months ? Guitar Hero : Smash hits ? It's basically a rehash of already released content, you can't expect record sales from that. The last big release in the genre was Guitar Hero : World Tour/Rock Band 2, and that was late last year. Big article about nothing if you ask me.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Don't get me wrong--I enjoy extended Guitar Hero sessions with friends as much as the next guy, so I'm glad it exists. But it seems to me that if you're interested enough in playing music to spend hours on a simplified simulator, you might as well buy a cheap guitar / bass / drum kit and do it for real. It's not quite as easy, but it's far more rewarding and you aren't limited to playing other people's songs.
Your brain is not a computer.
Gee, think that might have anything to do with flooding the market with sequel after sequel until nobody can keep track of them any more?
DJ Hero looks to be the newest addition to freshen up the genre.
I'm not sure people will find it as "accessible" as guitar hero though due simply to the fact that almost everyone young and old understands the concept of a guitar.
Activision especially has been milking this market for a while with new Guitar Hero packages yearly. Harmonix seems to be much more focused on quality vs quantity and also focused more on DLC than retail goods. In the end I think Activision is going to be hit the hardest by this as they've been pushing new instruments and Guitar Hero games yearly. There's only so many times people will upgrade their plastic instruments before the market is saturated.
Plus, there's also the fact that you can go out and buy a real guitar for twice the price of one of these sets and develop a real skill with a real instrument that if properly maintained will last a life time.
Anyone else thinking that sales are down because there is only a finite market for music based games and it's much closer to saturation point now than it was when the last batch of good games were released? GH Metalica is really only a purchase if you're a metalica fan, while GH Greatest/Smash Hits has had lack-luster reviews and will largely only get a purchase from the hardcore fans and those new to the series that didn't get to play GH1/2/3/80's.
RB Beatles and GH5 are slated for September release and have now been out of the top 20 for 2 months. How exactly is the last major game release of a developer dropping out of the top 20 just 4 months before the release of their next major title a "decline"? Most development studios would make blood sacrafices to be in the top 20 that long!
Filler article for the summer games-news drought.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
1) MTV doesn't play music.
2)Are you seriously implying that the Who, Nirvana, Elvis Costello etc are MTV bands? Or the obscure stuff Bikini Kill, the Libyans, etc? So, they have a Panic at the Disco song, there's 70+ other tracks. Don't pick that song if you don't like it.
You're a whiner!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I'm a musician, I've been playing for as long as I can remember. And all my musician jackass friends snidely say this exact same thing to people who are good at rock band, and it has started to irritate me. Guitar hero is not playing music, and the skills do not transfer as people seem to think. Pressing buttons while holding your hands in a similar position as when playing a guitar gives you zero indication of musical ability or any positive benefit for your playing. It only shows you can move your fingers in time with a beat, but thats where the similarity ends. Its like me saying "oh fly fishing you wave a big wooden stick and baseball you do the same! Fisherman should be good at baseball!"
Don't get me wrong, I think these games are fun as hell even though I don't own them. I love when a friend has rock band and we all knock back a few and rock out, cheap easy fun. But don't dellude yourself, rock band will do little to lessen the years it takes to be able to play live with people and not make horrible noise. That being said, I respect people who are really good at it becase although i'm a pretty decent guitarist, I can't do those nutso songs on expert. And my friends are wrong to presume I should be able to.
Same thing happened with DDR. I love it, and there will always be a hardcore group of DDR players. But the market is saturated, and it isn't new anymore, so sales won't continue to climb forever.
*snicker* Oh, man. The desperate, flailing responses to this ought to achieve EPIC levels of hilarity. Here goes...
Could you define "serious" in terms of music games? Judging by your list of games, it has to be some combination of... let's see... inaccessibility to the US general public (either by gameplay, taste in music selection, and/or import restrictions)? Obscurity? Lower sales? Less popularity in the obviously oh-so-unhip US? J-Poppiness? Is it the J-Pop? It's the J-Pop, isn't it? The more Japanese and less American something is, the better it is by default, right? Ever since the lawsuit, ITG (er... ITG2? Why only 2?) was allowed onto your list, right?