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Can the Guitar Games Market Be Resurrected?

Posted by Soulskill on from the axe-to-grind dept.

donniebaseball23 writes: Thanks to a glut of titles, hardware and precious little innovation, the Guitar Hero and Rock Band craze all but died out by 2010. Now, however, strong rumors are swirling that one if not both franchises will be making a return on the new consoles. But will players care? And will the market once again support these games? Charles Huang, co-creator of Guitar Hero, weighed in, outlining some of the challenges. "First, the music genre attracts a more casual and female audience versus other genres. But the casual gamer has moved from console to mobile," he warned. "Second, the high price point of a big peripheral bundle might be challenging. Casual gamers have a lot of free-to-play options." That said, there could be room for a much smaller guitar games market now, analyst Michael Pachter noted: "It was a $2 billion market in 2008, so probably a $200 million market now. The games are old enough that they might be ready for a re-fresh, and I would imagine there is room for both to succeed if they don't oversaturate the way they did last time."

8 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. MAKE SOMETHING NEW! by gurps_npc · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Trying to rehash a game that right for a particular technological level that we now exceed is not a good idea.

    Make something new and better.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:MAKE SOMETHING NEW! by mlts · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some markets just come and go. It might just be that these lines of games might be just as viable as databases for one's Cabbage Patch dolls.

      Would it make money? Maybe to a niche market. If I were to do something, I'd focus on price/quality as opposed to volume. For example, the guitar would not be a cheap piece of plastic, but perhaps a real one that can be strung and played as normal once someone got tired of the game.

      Also, te game should go further than the last game types. Make different instruments. Allow multiple players to play the instruments at the same time, either coop, or one after the other in a battle of the bands. Even go with odd things, such as a chainsaw and doing WASP or Jackyl songs.

      Mainstream-wise, no... this genre isn't going to be in vogue again, but there is still money to be made.

  2. Re:Just by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can't this be said about any video game that doesn't include unrealistic activity? Why not just drive cars? Why not just play football? Why not chuck rocks at pigs?

  3. Re:NO. Because ROCK is DEAD by halivar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The guy on controller two has to make sure he correctly presses the button every five seconds that loops a slice of a better, older song.

  4. Re:I prefer Rocksmith by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wish I could mod this up. I've been playing Rocksmith for about four years and I think it's a fantastic way to learn guitar.

    Sitting by yourself and playing scales and chords (badly) is very boring. It's easy to want to put the guitar down and do something else. Rocksmith keeps you entertained (motivated) and I find that if I sit down with the intent of playing for an hour I'll play for three.

    I just wish the guitarcade section of Rocksmith 2014 were better. Games are over very quickly and it takes too long to start them up again. There really needs to be some sort of infinite life mode so you could run the drills for as long as you want.

  5. Re:Feasibility of exploiting real instruments? by SecurityGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For guitar, it's called Rocksmith. Fun game. For voice, there are a number of games that do that already. I'm a lousy singer, so couldn't list off the names of those games as I've never bought them, but I see them any time I go into a game store.

  6. Re:Just by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Millions of kids bought Guitar Hero and Rock Band to realize their dreams of actually becoming ROCK MUSICIANS

    Quite literally ZERO kids actually did that. Just like zero kids bought Madden thinking it would let them realize their dreams of playing quarterback in the Superbowl. People buy games to let them live out fantasies of things they know they are unlikely to ever be able to do in real life, the music game genre was no different.

  7. Re:Just by bws111 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh, bullshit. The same number of kids thought they were going to be real musicians as thought they were going to be real race car drivers, assassins, airline pilots, or any of the other games you can get - zero.

    Nobody played those games to 'get skills', they played the games because they were fun. There is nothing 'sad' about it at all.