Guys who run gaming companies are the kind of people who don't like to let you die wondering. In a classic piece of schoolyard pouting, Activision boss Bob Kotick would like to let you know that Guitar Hero is doing well."We're outselling [Rock Band] 6:1," says Activision boss Bob Kotick.
These groundbreaking video games changed gaming forever and drew in scores of fans in the process.
The Guitar Hero franchise died in the wake of Activision's lust for Call of Duty, but we should be dusting off those plastic guitars for a new Guitar Hero game.
Guitar Hero was good. The problem was Activision started creating many versions. Guitar Hero had the every one year cycle like COD and people felt they were being robbed.
It was even worse then that. My roommate and I were big into rock band. Had a concert sized sound system for it in the shop. Both rock band and guitar hero were doing a yearly release yeah, but then also doing song packs and band packs every other week almost at one point. AND releasing them on physical disc. Before we stopped we had litterely dozens of discs for different songs and bands. They just never stopped coming out. People can only handle buying so much for 1 game.
Why in the hell would one want to spend time to learn a button mashing order when you can lean to play a real guitar in the same time frame.
TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."
I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.
"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played
"trying to make do in a way it was never meant to be played"
I disagree. The accessories were a fun gimmick (and very marketable) but they were added AFTER the genre had been well established with games like Frequency and Amplitude (both also made by Harmonix).
The gameplay formula is different on a controller - there's a focus on switching lanes and contributing to all of the instruments.
Never played Frequency, but Amplitude and Rock Band Blitz were really good. I would love to get more of that kind of game. It's basically a different part of the genre, and stands on its own.
The insurmountable difference in popularity between Amplitude and Rock Band proves my point
Popularity isn't proof of quality. If it was, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now. lol. Our disagreement wasn't over which one is more popular. Amplitude and Blitz just aren't "torture" to play.
Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live failed to revive their sub-genre, and Rock Band 4 caused Mad Catz to have to file for bankruptcy. Doesn't mean that instrument-based music games are bad.
It does mean that there's too much overhead and risk for anyone to take a gamble on a big budget game that needs instrument accessories now though.
For the genre to thrive, for now, it needs to do so without the instrument accessories. That's just a fact, unfortunately.
VR games like Beat Sabre (a new sub-genre) and traditional music games make more sense and are more viable right now.
*"If quality is always proved by popularity, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now."
I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.
People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.
But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.
So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.
A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
The only issue I ever had with any of the hardware was the drum pedal on the original rock band set stared to crack in half. The reason I, and other friends I know who played, lost interest is they weren't putting out new tracks that we were interested in anymore. I think earlier this year I looked through the releases for the last 2 years or so, and there was maybe 3 songs I would have bought.
Yeah I had this happen too with my drum controller, I ended up attaching a metal strip to it which fixed it up nicely.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
But that's not really a fair statement. Because Guitar Hero comes out with like a bazillion SKUs, it's been around for a longer time, and it's a lot less expensive so it's an easier purchase for casuals. Not to mention that GH3 had a MUCH better offering on Wii (which became its #1 bestselling platform) than Rock Band.
But I'll be interested to see how World Tour sells in comparison to Rock Band 2.
You can't get your finger-burning rush from Rock Band. You need a good ol' TTFATF Expert Level to really feel the rush and Guitar Hero has proven itself as the hardcore guitar game.
nah i dont think thats the deal at all remember The Eu version of rockband was never released well i never saw it, i pre orderd mine and it never came to the shops... and that was back in April lol
That may be the reason why.
Activision will bring out yearly Bond games,Call of Duty,and Guitar Hero games.Looks like they are becoming the new EA.
No to mention WoW,Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 will keep pumping money into their wallets