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Rock Band 3 Officially Announced For Holiday 2010
An anonymous reader writes "Philippe Dauman, Viacom CEO and President, announced today that Harmonix is currently working on the next Rock Band game, Rock Band 3, due for release Holiday 2010. 'The company is pursuing the game in spite of an industry-weakening decline in the once-booming genre of peripheral-equipped music games. Although the franchise has generated over $1 billion to date, the category in general saw sales contract by as much as half throughout 2009. MTV Games parent Viacom also saw Rock Band declines drag on its balance sheet in its last fiscal quarter, and expressed a need to refocus away from pricey peripherals in favor of software. It also said that due to royalties it would need to be more "selective" about track listings, and that it needs more support from the music industry in that department.'"
I must have a different calendar. When is Holiday? Is that after or before Septemberary?
Yes they do. Their competition (PowerGig: Rise of the Six String) has a controller that is an actual electric guitar ...
...the franchise has generated over $1 billion to date...
It also said that due to royalties it would need to be more "selective" about track listings, and that it needs more support from the music industry in that department.
We ain't making enough cash off this donkey. Find me a cheaper one.
There. TTFY.
Why can't a company look at a product and simply say "You know, we had a good idea and we did it well." Why do they always have to look at how they can do the same idea again and try to fuck someone over harder to make the same money? It's the IDEA that's the money maker, not screwing over some part of the liabilities sheet. Seriously. Just once?
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Why would ANYONE charge to be in Rock Band? If you want a sure way to boost your sales, get yourself featured in Rock Band. Thousands of people discovering or re-discovering your music is a pretty fucking obvious way to scare up some sales. Hell, for any game where music is featured a band is only screwing themselves by putting up barriers for being selected. If I had a band, I would murder my way into getting put on a GTA music station. Even for big name stars, reminding hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people that you still rock isn't going to hurt. It is even more important if you are an older band whose original followers are in the process getting jammed into nursing homes. You should be fighting over the privilege to introduce yourself to the younger generations via Rock Band.
The music industry has its head jammed so firmly up their ass that is a minor miracle and a testament to monopoly power that they continue to exist each year.
...the once-booming genre of peripheral-equipped music games. Although the franchise has generated over $1 billion to date, the category in general saw sales contract by as much as half throughout 2009
Maybe its because the same peripherals could be used from Rock Band with Rock Band 2? The upfront cost of the game initially is expensive but once you have the guitars, microphone, and drum set the cost is significantly cheaper to move to a new edition and that's where the sales start to contract. The same goes for the Guitar Hero series also.
Personally, I think the genre has entered its maturity when it comes to growth and needs some drastic change or needs to evolve into something different. One solution might be introducing new peripherals but they need more advanced peripherals because at this point you need to justify paying for another 15 pounds of plastic.
That's got to be the most disheartening game release article I've ever read. "Our parent company think we're hemorrhaging money and we can't afford to put cool songs in the game because record labels are dumb, but uhhhh, yeah, we're gonna go ahead and do another game." I mean, what's the WoW2 release gonna look like?
"We at Blizzard are proud to announce that World of Warcraft 2 will be in stores on.....ahhh fuck it. Who are we kidding? We're just ripping money off of fat, friendless losers and people with OCD. Blah, blah, blah, enhanced 3d vectors and more elf chicks for creepy douchebags to write fanfic over. Have you read our support forums? Seriously? We're supposed to feel good about creating this shit for these people? Whoopee, we're bumping up the level caps so more 12 year olds can live in front of a monitor drinking mountain dew for hours on end instead of going outside. Huzzah!
Dude, Is this all there is to life? I mean, fuck, man, I'm gonna turn 40 soon and this is all I do? Write bullshit copy for gamer rags. I was gonna do something with my life, I was gonna be something. Screw it man, I'm gonna go drink alone......
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded in February 1991, and has published such hits as Starcraft and Diablo.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
It's the IDEA that's the money maker, not screwing over some part of the liabilities sheet.
That's BS. The original idea itself counts for very little; "ideas are like assholes: everyone has one". It's how you turn an idea into reality that counts, and how you get the money in from people in return for their little bit of that reality which counts, and yes, how you control liabilities.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
And along that point, it's worth reminding people that the Rock Band Network just launched, making it even easier for those bands to get on there. The downside being that you'll have to rely on community rating to show up among the crowd of other bands on there - there were a 100 tracks released on launch of the network, with supposedly another 300 in the pipe. And while there's a glut of unknown indie bands on the network who are desperate for the publicity, there's also a number of... maybe you'd call them "third tier" bands, groups that have a strong following but don't get much radio airplay. I picked up tracks by Flogging Molly, Steve Vai, and KMFDM on launch day.
When they say that they're going to be more "selective" with the music they pick up, I'm guessing that's the direction they'll go in. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll be using worse bands or less good music - it more likely means that you'll be seeing less of Metallica in favor of more Mastodon, things along that line. And I wouldn't have a huge issue with that.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.