From the article: "After over five years, the Rock Band franchise is coming to an end. It has been a very big part of my life, as sad as that might sound and I wished to share how it has impacted my life these past few years..."
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
Harmonix, best known for their work on the Rock Band franchise, has announced that they're becoming a part of the Epic Games family.
I don't get how people complained that Valve never released any games for years as an argument when defending Epic, and here's Epic just constantly revolving around one game, producing nothing else and trying desperately to keep retention on it by having over the top crossovers to stay in the news and social media. At least Valve knows how to make games instead of lucky shots.
It will never die sadly
If I have to be super blunt...there's too many idiots who buy into it.
I shit you not, I have someone on Twitter, a "friend" if you will, constantly complaining about needing money for gas, electric and to basically live, then when something Fortnite related comes out he then asks for money to buy the next Fortnite skins/pack. I mean who the f*** does that? "I need money to survive but if someone Fortnite related comes out I'll buy that instead rather than saving the left over money". The developers of this game must be laughing themselves all away to the bank.
I just think it's amazing how most of us as kids jumped from game to game, a variety of genres and experiences while today it's literally just COD, Fortnite, Fifa etc.
@Rachel: How have Epic had lucky shots? You don't create a great game by being lucky you create them by being talented. I don't care for Fortnite, not my kind of game, but talent is talent. They made great games before Fortnite too you know.
@Rachel
As someone who is far from a fan of Epic anymore ... was Gears, Unreal, and Unreal Tournament nothing more than lucky shots as well?
@Ted
@Xblade
They had almost 8 years of failures after Gears 3. They had failed to gauge any interest in IPs like Paragon and that Unreal Alpha they barely touched. Finally released Fortnite, but then they spent 3 months making a copy of a popular game at the time which was PUBG that everyone wanted to play. The problem was Pubg required expensive PC hardware and it was $30. But here comes fortnite with a free 2 play version, and all on console. It was the perfect chance to eat up what PUBG failed to do. They just got a lucky chance and seized it, that's it. It's no wonder they immediately canceled all their current projects including pushing STW off the focus over time to push their BR mode the game wasn't originally designed around. There entire company is built up all around Fortnite, but rather then make new games that bring in that same revenue, they would rather just buy up other companies and market share because I believe Tim doesn't trust his companies ability to produce another hit like Fortnite. If they are so talented then why do they not trust themselves to make new games with that great talent? At least Valve tries developing new games even with Steam protecting their revenue.
Harmonix, the developer behind Rock Band and Dance Central, reveal some new gameplay footage for the upcoming DJ song-mixing game.
Link is dead? ;<
Apologies for the server issues! We're making a change to a new one, so if the link doesn't work, just refresh a couple of times and it should come up.
Good read, though!
They will be back. With how well Rocksmith is doing for Ubisoft, Guitar Hero and Rocksmith will be back with "learn to play" styles to them.
....and welcome Rock Band 2 in 2014 on next-gen, right?
Damn I guess Rock Band Pink Floyd isn't happening..