What Happened To Rock Band / Guitar Hero?

[DrRipley]

I remember up until about early last year, everyone was playing and raving about Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero. In the years leading up to that, they released multiple titles that specialized in certain music legends such as Beatles and Aerosmith (I think?). So what happened, why did this game suddenly become so quiet? Why aren't they coming out with more of these, when it's still perfectly fun and not nearly as novelty-driven as Dance Dance Revolution?

 

[Haze]

Well this article explains why there is no more Guitar Hero: Why Guitar Hero went under | TG Daily

I'll quote what the article says:

As Slash told the site gunshyassassin, the demise of Guitar Hero was "inevitable." So why couldn’t this game hang in there and become an eternal classic like, say, Pac Man? Because the classic video games don’t have music that’s expensive to license from rock stars. Not to mention that once sales went down for the game, it was simple economics from there. “It was too costly to produce the game as a result,” Slash continued.

As assassin further reports, the word on the street from gaming insiders was that the game was indeed "too costly to get bands to agree to having their music used...It just wasn’t worth it for Activision anymore. They’d pay all this cash to get the hottest tracks from your favorite bands, but then weren’t breaking even on the back end."

As for Rock Band, a fourth game will come eventually would be my guess, but with so much DLC and newer songs being released for Rock Band 3, makes you wonder what they could do differently with a 4th installment.

 

[RaggaJungle]

I think Rock Band may have been more of a fad than anything else. Sure it was a great series, but personally I didn't like any of the expansion packs they brought out. I can't imagine the Beatles version for example got very popular It will be interesting to see if anything similar comes out for the PS4 too.

 

[ozadin]

As RaggaJungle said, it was a fad. It lasted for a little bit, but eventually, it was going to become just another game. I played it myself and thought the game was pretty boring. It wasn't very different from all the other games that were similar to that.

 

[Ebib]

I had to agree, I think it was a fad. I remember all the hype when they first came out and they were actual
good games, it was worth buying all the guitars, drums, mic etc. to play and enjoy them. Unfortuently the
hype has now died off and even though there's better graphics, better gameplay and more songs it's just
a bit boring now as it's just the same thing. They were great games though and I had fun playing them with friends.

 

[BlackSolaris]

It gave us some good memories when playing with friends, but looks like the craze is over. Maybe someday we will go back to it, this type with less plastic toys.

 

[carclain]

I never really liked either games, my friends did, but they became bored and sessions weren't long.

 

[DrRipley]

Well this article explains why there is no more Guitar Hero: Why Guitar Hero went under | TG Daily

I'll quote what the article says:



As for Rock Band, a fourth game will come eventually would be my guess, but with so much DLC and newer songs being released for Rock Band 3, makes you wonder what they could do differently with a 4th installment.

What a sad story. I had always just expected it to be around forever since it looked like a game that could do so, especially since it has always been a great promotional tool for people to discover and re-discover music. A lot of my friends were suddenly very interested with a lot of the old rock music and I discovered a lot of hidden gems as well. If Rock Band is still ongoing, hopefully it can go on for longer.

 

[lindbergh]

I loved playing Guitar Hero on the PS 2 and when Rock Band came out which allowed players to play as an entire band - vocals drums, guitars, etc, I was blown away. The problem is that this game dried out after numerous play throughs and listening to the same music over and over. Let's face it, it's a rhythm game at heart. It's just like Dance Dance Revolution. People would get tired of it eventually.

 

[Clark Wayne]

I think pretty much like all fads, it ran it's course. The market for it became so oversaturated since literally everyone was playing music games. Eventually everyone moved on to new and better things. Also, it didn't help they Harmonix would release a new game every year instead of taking their time with the games. One positive I will say is that the games were definitely supported through DLC for many years. The same thing happened with motion controlled gaming.

 

[Joker99352]

While I agree that music games were a fad, I still think they're perfectly fun and playable to this day. Even though Harmonix recently stopped releasing new DLC songs (and it was only a couple months or so ago), there are still thousands of songs out there. I've had the game for a few years now and I've downloaded new songs as recently as a couple of weeks ago. The only problem is that my drums are worn out (and the guitar controller stopped working a long time ago), so it's basically a karaoke game with the option of a keyboard at this point. Still fun, but a bit past its prime.

 

[Nymph]

Rockband and Guitar Hero may still serve countless hours of entertainment for a select few people; you can see this kind of addictive potential in most games given the right person, but in my opinion, they both have as much depth as the mini-games in the Mario Party series, for a lack of a better comparison. It is literally the same button-mashing madness no matter the mode, just in a different order with different songs - some more difficult than others. That's about as far as the gameplay goes. At this point, it can't hope to compete with the visually stunning rpgs and arguably more addictive fps games that hold many more captivating layers of gameplay. It was nice while it lasted and held strong because it was an original concept, it just lacked everything a long-term franchise needs.

Its only hopes now are party venues and cinema arcades unless they spruce it up for a new title.

 

[Joker99352]

I found it pretty engrossing considering it was a bunch of plastic. My favorite piece was the drums because it required a certain level of physicality. I was pretty much a pro by the time I stopped playing, but I didn't stop by choice to begin with. I still like having the game in case I ever feel the need to host a karaoke party. With Rock Band 3's harmonies, at least more than one person can sing at a time.

 

[Oberon]

Defo fun with a few people,Ive had pretty much all GH games and RB ones,imported most on the 2 I have left.
GH Warriors of Rock and Rock Band 3.Over 300 tracks on each game.
I use the Logitech guitar,better than the plastic ones easy.
Havent played for some time though.

 

[Esperahol]

While it was a fun game it had the problem diminishing returns. Once you bought the kit and the disc you were pretty well done with them. I mean sure you could buy new discs and download songs, but overall the major part of your investment was over and done with. Then of course depending on your level of commitment you were probably finished with the game sooner rather than later. So yeah, it just didn't make financial sense to continue the product without a really robust user base. Oh, well.

 

[Medza]

It just died off really. There was a period when people liked it a lot, and then it was on a decrease up to the point where no one was buying it anyone. So naturally they stopped releasing any DLC because no one actually cared. If someone did care, the sales certainly weren't reflecting it.

 

[Gamer_Fries]

Can't say I ever cared about either of them considering I didn't buy a single game from their series'. I played Rock Band sometimes with my pals but we really only played the Lego version because we found it the most interesting. I surprised their even still going considering they just release new songs for them and that's it basically.

 

[Mudgee]

It goes through fads and stages, I reckon the next gen consoles will see a reboot of the series. They were incredibly popular for a period there. Costs alot for the developers to manufacture the additional requirements i.e drumsets etc.

 

[lindbergh]

I think one of the downfalls of these types of games was caused by the numerous controllers that went out. Guitars specific to a game, drums, mic. . . It was simply too much. People don't want to pay for all of these gadgets just to enjoy one game.

 

[Mudgee]

I think one of the downfalls of these types of games was caused by the numerous controllers that went out. Guitars specific to a game, drums, mic. . . It was simply too much. People don't want to pay for all of these gadgets just to enjoy one game.

very similar to the 'light gun games' thread. Too expensive to produce the extras