Back in the day, MTV revitalized the music industry by beaming the latest videos into any household with cable. Could a videogame do the same for the MySpace generation?
Electronic Arts and-surprise!-MTV are hoping Rock Band can. Games like Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution have already shown that music is the great socializer when it comes to party games, and Rock Band, though pricey at $169, takes the game to a whole new level by adding drums, a microphone and a stage, limited only by the World Wide Web...and whether your ego will destroy the band.
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
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.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Music rhythm games dominated the video game market in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the genre would fall from grace shortly after finding success.
More like faded away than failed. Failed implies it was new and didnt take off... that is not the case. Rhythm games were hugely popular but the lights dimmed and the show is over.
You would think the current situation would cause a resurgence but im actually seeing more people picking up real instruments and learning to play. My son is one who started out on GH and now he plays real guitar.
I lost interest when they stopped allowing you to use the controller to play with, just couldn't get into playing with the guitar.
Not the sole reason, but over saturation by Activision releasing 5 GH games in one year, charging full price for all of them while only Metallica and GH5 were worth it.
I dont think these games failed at all. People aren't going to keep buying games and peripherals over and over. All songs need to work on either rockband or guitar hero thru updates. Guitar hero live was actually good but rockband with all its songs and same equipment killed it.
I'm sure part of the reason they faded away, at least over the long term, was that you couldn't download them digitally.
Since when did music need saving, EA needs saving. Actually no they dont, they should just go bakrupt thats the least they deserve for delivering crap games year after year.
since when did ppl care what MTV has to say about music? that ended a long time ago.
already ordered mine.. Booing at EA for not making the special edition enough.. 4 weeks wait.. WTF man
Good music saves music, not a game o_O as cool as it is. Whatever music they finally decide to play on MTV doesn't need "saving" and I didn't even think the M in MTV stood for Music anymore anyway.
When the HELL did gaming become the equivalent of environmental activism? Save the trees, save the air, save the water, save the planet, BLAH BLAH BLAH!
Anyone who thinks there's ANY facet of the gaming industry that needs saving is a fine example of a jack*ss.
This garbage has been tired and old for well over a year now, why on earth does anyone keep saying it? Do people feel as if it's their civic duty to report on the turmoil and pending armageddon happening within the industry? Does anyone REALLY think the bullcrap they spew will make a difference?
We get these "Will/Can ABC save the blah blah blah?" SEVERAL times every single week, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is a load of sh*t. Amazes me how frequently this sort of crap makes it past an editor.