Daniel Phillips of Gamer 2.0 writes: "It's not that we mind having our rhythm games duke it out Battle of the Bands style. A little competition never hurt anyone. And these games are a very lucrative outpost for artists-Mötley Crüe's new single sold more through Rock Band than it did through iTunes. It's just that this particular fake lifestyle is starting to get expensive, the rock songs are beginning to overlap, and we're still waiting on our cut from that five-track demo we put online a few months back.
So who really profits when a good idea-a rock band simulator-becomes the latest bandwagon? Will we be reveling in rock, or is this the death of the Dream? Lucky you, we're here to let you know which game is worthy of its own groupies."
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.
What?!?!??! There are three games with fake drum sets now? These peope are crazy. They cut their potential buyers with each new perfipheral. I am not ever buying a rythm game that is not compatible with my rock band instruments. I DO NOT HAVE ROOM FOR ALL THE FISHER PRICE MUSIC INSTRUMENTS.
It would seem as though they're messing with the drum layout just for the ROI. That I can almost fathom, since they want to make the GHWT ones wireless, but if the RR and GHWT guitars are not compatible, this will mean riots in the streets. RIOTS IN THE STREETS I SAY.
Guitar Hero's guitars are more comfortable than Rock Band's.
And now their drums also seem much better than Rock Band's as well.
What they both need is actually GOOD songs. Because out of the dozens of songs each game has, I only want to play 3 on average. And then they go and charge for the good songs on DLC?
BS!
Yeah, at least the gee-tars need to be compatible. Or massive riots FTW