Oh Look, It Appears Music Video Games Were A Bit Of A Fad Too

from the that-magic-bullet dept

It's been pretty sad watching the major record labels chase desperately after each new music-related fad, hoping that this time it would represent the "magic bullet" that would replace CD sales as its main revenue generator. For a while, there were ringtones, which the industry thought would save it, jacking up prices, and doing all sorts of annoying things, which eventually helped kill off that market. Then, a couple years ago, after labels realized that music video games like Guitar Hero and Rockband were doing well (and boosting interest in various acts), the labels again sought to kill the golden goose by believing that was the new moneymaker... and started demanding a bigger cut.

Guess what? Looks like that fad is on its way out as well, as there's not nearly as much interest as there used to be in those games. Many people who want such games already have them, and the "innovations" in the new versions just aren't appealing enough to pay the hefty upgrade fees. Perhaps the labels should have focused on keeping the games cheap, knowing that they actually helped drive more interest in the acts whose songs were available, helping to actually increase sales in other areas.

Of course, the music industry has already moved on to its next "fad" anyway: music apps. So how long until we start seeing that market start to fizzle as well?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: magic bullets, music games, video games


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2010 @ 8:03pm

    Or making an investment in the development studios, rather than squeezing the life out of them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2010 @ 8:52pm

    "apps"...I give it 6 hours for the people with too short of an attention span to use the word application or program to get bored and move on.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    athe, 25 Oct 2010 @ 10:21pm

    Well...

    Rockband 3 actually does have some innovation, in particular with the inclusion of the new "Pro" mode, allowing the use of "real" instruments. Guitar Hero, on the other hand, is just beating a dead horse with its latest release.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      byte^me (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 6:17am

      Re: Well...

      I somewhat agree but the latest GH does have one thing going for it - in the story mode the players get to play all of Rush's 2112.

      For Rush fans like myself, that is awesome! Unfortunately, for the rest of the world, that is probably nothing special.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Spectere (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 7:52am

        Re: Re: Well...

        Ugh, why'd you have to go and say that? Now I'm going to have to buy Guitar Hero...

        2112 has been on my wish list for Rock Band for a very long time.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    DandonTRJ (profile), 25 Oct 2010 @ 10:25pm

    I'm not sure it's fair to lay the death of the rhythm game genre at the feet of the record labels. They certainly could have been more amenable at the start, but most rhythm game manufacturers have no problems procuring master track licenses from labels nowadays. The real problem is that the developers, primarily Activision, absolutely flooded the market with lackluster installments and spin-offs over the last few years, eroding the goodwill of the consumer base. Nobody gives a damn about the new Guitar Hero games now, and it's a shame. Rock Band is pretty much the only series still doing the genre any justice.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      BigKeithO (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 10:54am

      Re:

      Activision killed the music game fo sho. You can't keep pumping out 2 new Guitar Hero games a year for $100 a pop and expect interest to stay high. Typical Activision though, keep pumping out the releases of any given game until people stop buying and then move on to your next property to milk to death.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Stuart Dredge, 25 Oct 2010 @ 10:55pm

    Well...

    I'm not so sure it proves they're a fad, as that people are just spending less money on them. Could that boom have been fuelled by people buying the more expensive instrument+game packs, but since they got the instruments they just buy the game-only discs?

    Ie if you have a Rock Band guitar already from the original Rock Band, did you need another for Rock Band 2? So it's not necessarily that these games are hugely less popular, just that it's been a software thing recently, not a more lucrative software plus hardware thing?

    Hence the Rock Band 3 keyboard, presumably ;)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Oct 2010 @ 1:28am

    I'm tired of shelling out 50 or 60 bucks every time they release a new version with 25 new mediocre songs. Their songlist hasn't come close to the caliber it did in the first guitar hero (IMO).
    I'm also stingy with buying from the online store because I feel like a software download for a handfull of songs at 10 bucks is crazy overpriced.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Gabriel Tane (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 5:43am

      Re:

      I think, on the contrary, the ability to download a handful of songs you actually like for $10 is much better than paying $60+/- for a set of songs that may contain a few you like. I think adding on such a robust DLC catalog has helped Rockband immeasurably. And I think that's where they left Guitar Hero in the dust. And between the (arguably) better peripherals and more 'grown up' graphics, it left GH with the image of the kiddies' version of the genre. At least, that's how it looks to me.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Spectere (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 7:50am

        Re: Re:

        I think adding on such a robust DLC catalog has helped Rockband immeasurably. And I think that's where they left Guitar Hero in the dust. And between the (arguably) better peripherals and more 'grown up' graphics, it left GH with the image of the kiddies' version of the genre. At least, that's how it looks to me.

        Well, the "better peripherals" thing is kind of debatable, since I've had more than my share of problems with Rock Band guitars (I'm still using my wired Rock Band 1 and Guitar Hero 2 guitars since I can't seem to get a RB2 guitar that completely works, and my kick pedal is cracking just like my RB1 pedal did), but I think that the main issue here is that Neversoft spent way too much time maintaining the status quo rather than innovating. You could see that just by looking at their extreme sports games.

        As far as appearances go, I rather like the exaggerated look of the Guitar Hero series, even after Neversoft further exaggerated it. The issue is that Guitar Hero 3 has absolutely no polish and is not convincing at all. The Rock Band series has an almost-absurd amount of detail put into the on-stage performances of your virtual band. Between being able to drastically customize your character to watching them sing and play (and, as far as I can tell, they seem to be actually playing what they should be playing) is just awesome. In comparison, when I played Guitar Hero 3 all I saw were stiffly animated caricatures flopping around lifelessly on a stage, occasionally jumping to life when you hit Star Power.

        So...I dunno. I think they could have made the "kiddie" look work, they just didn't.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Richard (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 4:21am

    Lockdown

    The problem is that the"Guitar Hero" genre is too locked down. To make the game better you really need to be able to import your own music into the game. That would keep the interest going - but of course it would cut the revenue stream - so it will never happen.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Spectere (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 7:34am

      Re: Lockdown

      You're right -- it'll never happen -- but it's not for the reasons that you're thinking of.

      Creating charts in rhythm games isn't something that could be automated. In games like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, the developers strive to (or at least, should strive to) make the charts "feel" similarly to how they would if you were to actually play them on a guitar. A computer program wouldn't know the difference between a chord and a single note, nor would it be able to intelligently decide which of the five buttons would be a good match. You'd either wind up with uncomfortable, nonsensical patterns, or boring, repetitious patterns. That's also assuming that the game would be able to tell the difference between a bass guitar, rhythm/lead guitar, drums, and vocals in the first place.

      Finally, it's also ignoring another serious problem: BPM calculation. Most of the songs in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games have human drummers and, thus, use the movements of a human as a sort of "metronome." If you were to sit down and work out the beats per minute of every segment of the song, you'd wind up with different values on just about every single beat. I imagine simply dealing with this would be half of the job of writing a chart, not to mention the reason why the timing windows of these games are so loose and why they don't score based on hit accuracy.

      This concept has been tried before with a Dance Dance Revolution style game. A company -- I believe it was Codemasters -- released Dance Factory to...well, dead silence. It had a problem with detecting BPMs. From personal experience, it sometimes failed to properly work out a usable BPM on electronic music with a loud bass kick and didn't bother with BPM changes at all. The charts were also bland, lifeless, and didn't have the same flow that you'd get on a choreographed dance game. Even Dancing Monkeys, possibly the best step chart generator for DDR-inspired games, spits out charts that are pretty sterile.

      Oh, I forgot to mention the issue with time signatures above. Not every song is 4/4. Rock Band has several tracks by Dream Theater, for instance, and they are widely known for going way overboard with time signature changes. If the time signatures aren't set up, the measure markers in the game won't work properly.

      If you can't generate a convincing chart on the simplest of game types, there's no way you'd be able to manage something like that for a band simulation game.

      You might argue that they should allow users the option to create their own charts. That brings on a ton of other complications. Even getting past the fact that user created charts can never be as complete as a real chart without hacking (since getting a proper song with separate channels for the different instruments generally wouldn't be doable for most, nor would it be a practical to support on a console), you still have to consider many other issues, most notably people being able to deal with the complexities of actually creating a chart.

      For one, we have the aforementioned BPM issue. Many people who are new to creating DDR charts have this issue and, as I explained, there's only so much that an automated program can do. It takes time and patience to be able to work this out. The person charting the song would also have to know enough about music to be able to work out the time signature that's being used. You could argue that they could assume it's all going to be 4/4, but that would make charting songs with different time signatures disorienting. The person creating the chart would also have to consider the offset of the first beat in the song and would have to place that accurately to avoid having the file start off-sync.

      Secondly, the person who writes the chart would have to have a damn good ear. Harmonix and whoever-makes-Guitar-Hero-now have the benefit of being able to listen to each audio track individually. After songs are mixed, telling what part is what can range from being somewhat easy to being nigh impossible.

      Finally, there's the issue of distribution. Since, in most cases, the person who finishes the chart will not have rights to distribute the track, the only thing that would be distributable would be the data making up the chart. You could argue that it means that anyone who owns the actual song would be able to download and play it, but in practice you wind up with another mess on your hands. For one, not all compression schemes and audio extraction software is created equally. Worse yet, not all CD releases are the same. Some of them are remastered, some of them are rerecorded, and others are just flat-out different (i.e. removing a bonus track for a greatest hits compilation, etc).

      The way I see it, even if all of the technical issues were resolved and this actually did happen, I can picture the end result looking sort of like what wound up happening with StepMania (a DDR simulator), and even things like Little Big Planet -- too much user-created content available with absolutely zero quality control.

      The Rock Band Network addresses many of the issues that I pointed out by putting the power into the hands of the bands. They can put together chart bundles that can theoretically match what Harmonix has in place and that can take advantage of all features of the game. It does some limited automation (which is probably reasonably accurate, since it actually has access to the individual audio tracks of the song, most notably the drum track) to lay down a bit of ground work for the file and to save some time for the author, then lets the chart author go crazy.

      To make a long story short, I think that the way that Harmonix is approaching the issue is the most practical. Automatic generation simply sucks too much and putting it in the hands of the general populous would lead to far too many technical, quality, and legal issues.

      Also, sorry about the wall of text. :]

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      jfh2112, 9 Feb 2011 @ 9:20pm

      Re: Lockdown

      They already have. It's called the Rock Band Network, now in version 2.0 with harmonies/Pro Keys support. Make your song. Get the tools. Rock the World. ;)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Oct 2010 @ 6:02am

    I think there's been a lack of understanding of the market, and I can only assume it starts at the label. For starters, the "buy a new game to get new content" approach is not going to win diehard music fans, but it's not a surprise that Activision has embraced that model. They only seem to be interested in milking the gamer demographic.
    Rockband has the model right with DLC, but the trickle of new content is the issue. They may brag a lot about having 3-6 new tracks each week, but in comparision to the quantity of new music out there, not to mention 50 years of back catalog material, it doesn't seem like much. Personal tastes vary greatly - the game needs to keep up as the music industry did in the past. Rockband Network seems to have put the tools out there, but it seems to only be used by indie artists - the major labels aren't biting.

    In short - if you starve the music fans, they will get bored and leave.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      byte^me (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 6:20am

      Re:

      Another problem with these games is inconsistencies between platforms. Last year for Christmas we bought Lego Rock Band for the Wii, along with Band Hero so that we had the instruments.

      Little did I realize that Lego Rock Band for the Wii does not offer DLC, even though it is available on the other platforms.

      When I realized that, I was not very happy.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Jon (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 6:31am

    I think you just about hit the nail on the head here. I was honestly content paying $2 or so a song for rock band 2 - the entertainment I got out of it was worth it. I never owned a music game before that, and only purchased Guitar Hero: World Tour after that - mainly because I needed a second guitar. The primary reason I've lost interest in the genre? Both of my guitars flaked out, and I've seen many more do the same. I refuse to pay that kind of money to continuously replace hardware. I've never had a $60 xbox 360 controller go bad, so why should a $60 controller shaped like a guitar? I refuse to pay for the costly upgrades and replacements.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Nastybutler77 (profile), 26 Oct 2010 @ 10:10am

    The games won't get any cheaper

    Perhaps the labels should have focused on keeping the games cheap...

    What the record labels charge to license their music has no bearing on the cost of the games. Console prices are set in stone for the most part; $60 for PS3 and Xbox, and I think $50 for Wii. The licensing fees just eat into the game publisher's profits, although maybe that cost is passed onto the price of the periphrials, as they do seem overpriced for the poor quality as was mentioned above.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jason Harris, 26 Oct 2010 @ 4:14pm

    We'll see

    Rock Band 3 just came out, but they've done a really good job of holding onto their following, and a lot of people are excited about them innovating in the new game.

    Guitar Hero has pretty much tanked, and it's been said above that Activision screwed the pooch by coming out with an endless stream of new clone games (GH3, GH:World Tour, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Metallica, Guitar Hero 5, GH: Legends of Rock, GH: Smash Hits) and they ran the well dry.

    Rock Band on the other hand has seemed to do well with a steady stream of $2/ea songs coming out. There is also user generated songs, albeit you have to go through hoops to become a developer and they're peer reviewed. But still, it has increased the content tremendously.


    Sure, Activision might not be taking in a hojillion sales on each game anymore, but the numbers for stuff like how much downloaded content is being sold are a lot more nebulous than NPD numbers. The GH series was never really committed to DLC, popping out a few songs here and there, but RB having a predictable steady stream has kept a lot of people coming back and buying more and more songs all the time.

    It's not that the genre died, it's just that a clear market leader has risen at the cost of the competition.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Suzanne Lainson (profile), 27 Oct 2010 @ 9:51am

    Rapid Iteration

    The beauty of music applications is that many people are creating them quickly, not investing a lot of money into them, and then making them available for free or low cost. This way you can have a lot of them floating around and see what works and what doesn't work.

    The whole field of video games is changing rapidly. It's shifting to a low-cost model rather than investing millions into the next big game.
    ___

    Video Game Revolution: Social Games, iPhone Apps, Digital Downloads - The Daily Beast: "One need only look to Facebook and the success of titles like Mafia Wars, Pet Society, or FarmVille to see such seismic changes in action. Not only do these offerings turn gaming on its head by offering instantly accessible, user-friendly titles that are appropriate for all ages free of charge, but also an estimated 200 million people are lining up to play social games each month, while demand steadily declines for the $60, male-focused first-person shooters or fantasy dungeon hacks of yore."
    __

    I'm particularly fond of apps that let anyone create music. Here are some of them:
    Music Creation for the Untalented, the Untrained, the Lazy, and Those with Some Time to Kill

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Goatboy9099, 9 Feb 2011 @ 5:14pm

    Well sadly I just have 2 things to say..
    Number one: " I whole heartedly agree with pretty much all of the ideas put forth by the Author"
    Number Two " Everybody stop raising prices on us! :)

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.