Demos: Don't Push Us When We're Hot
Discussions of breaking the theme aside, here's the draft I sent over to the newspaper to be published. Sometimes, the demos deserve to be outshown by their full studio release sibling, and I think this column is a great example of that. Fear not, I've got something for the theme week, but this will tide you over until I'm happy with the quality and quantity of my output.
There is a discussion among music industry pundits as to what, exactly, to do with the games "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero". After you get through the usual "Why don't they just play real guitars?" question (Answer: It differs from person to person, but in a lot of cases because it's fun faster.) and the suits thumbing their noses (Hello Velvet Rope!), what emerges most often is the word "market".
Market is an important choice of word. It shows what gamers are thought of. It dehumanizes the subjects and dismisses the idea of a shared community, experience or anything else except for age or geographical location. I'll return to this later. But, they see an "emerging market" for music in gamers. This "emerging market" is the enthusiastic "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" players who will buy new songs, sold as downloadable content. Why are we an emerging market? Because the record industry didn't pay attention to gamers before (even with the huge success of SingStar abroad), and now that downloadable content and "Guitar Hero" took off in numbers that raised some eyebrows, suddenly, gamers (and I include myself) courted.
This means, first and foremost, there's going to be a lot more garbage released on "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band", as any band who is smart enough will insist that part of their contract mandate that the label work with MTV or Harmonix to get their material on the games will, with the right push from the label (read: burlap sacks filled with money), get their focus tested single in. (See also: The upcoming Aerosmith edition of "Guitar Hero".) But, it also means that Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Beatles songs (what the industry might reasonable call high profile content) will become available to play.
The music industry sees the energy and willingness to spend money in the gaming world as something worth tapping into, and worth trying to profit off of. (They are not wrong, gamers are an reliable market which generates revenue consistently and in a physical retail environment. For an industry losing its core demographics left and right, this is an especially tempting pie.)
The interaction between the players in "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" and the feeling of "yes, I'm nailing this song" are what sells copies, and makes believers out of gamers. This is at odds with the current state of the music industry. There's enough economics people in the music industry, which is common knowledge, but not enough believers.
What remains to be seen is how the people making "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" will respond to the tempting offers of money to stuff their high profile game with sub-par material. "Guitar Hero 3" (the latest iteration) had small, but unforgivable problems with button response time, which is crucial in a timed response game. On the other hand, it had a more varied and deeper track list, which made "Guitar Hero 3" unbearable to play, knowing that when I hit the notes correctly, and on time, the game would not register it, making a "plunk" noise and taking me out of the experience.
That edition of "Guitar Hero" has since sold over a couple million copies, which is a success for any game. The problem is, players who bought the game got frustrated with the controls, and have since stopped playing that edition. As the music industry loses goodwill left and right, it's important to note that the "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" franchises have had some crossover success. Let us hope the success is not Pyrrhic.
posted by James Thomas à Becket | 11:36 PM
2 Comments:
The control issues in Guitar Hero 3 you're talking about weren't present in the 360 version. As with Rock Band, the PS2 version of the game was a hasty port to capitalize on a successful franchise--I personally find the 360 version of GH3 to have fewer blatantly unfun songs and control/HUD glitches than Rock Band. For example, detecting a Hammer On is nearly impossible in Rock Band as they are very few even at the higher difficulties and use a non-standard graphic--many notes that feel like they should be Hammer Ons and use the Hammer On graphic will in fact not register if the strum bar isn't hit. And don't get me started on the guitar controller that comes packaged with Rock Band. True, the solo buttons don't require strumming, but only when used as the guitar (as opposed to bass) and during solos--strumming is nearly impossible the rest of the time because it responds differently than Guitar Hero's Xplorer controller. On top of that, the Rock Band controller is only compatible with Rock Band.
Now that I've argued about a tangent, I'd say that I agree with a number of things you have to say. For example, the track listings for most rock games have been noticeably influenced by pricing--for example, we can play "Sabotage" (which is a rap song, not a rock song) on Guitar Hero 3 or Rock Band, but famous rock acts remain curiously absent: from the bands we grew up on like the Offspring and Creed to iconic legends of rock like Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Another strange trend, especially recently, is the presence of popular artists, but not their most famous songs. Aerosmith shows up on GH3 and Rock Band, but with "Same Old Song and Dance" and "Train Kept Rolling" instead of "Dream On" or "Love in an Elevator." Disturbed offers up "Stricken," but not "The Sickness." Perhaps the worst offender is The Killers, sporting "When You Were Young" on both games, but not "Somebody Told Me" or "Mister Brightside," the songs that put them on the map. And while I'm at it, where the hell is Rob Zombie with "Dragula?" It's on Dance Dance Revolution, but not Guitar Hero, and that strikes me as fundamentally wrong. And of course there's the obligatory Rage Against the Machine track, but "Guerrilla Radio," the one that landed Rage a Grammy, still isn't playable outside of Frets on Fire--despite being announced at least once.
You're right about the distinctions between systems.
I can tell you that it is unlikely there is a cabal of people trying to keep players from Elvis and the Beatles. What I suspect keeps those songs from showing up on Rock Band/Guitar Hero is licensing red tape and copyright holders frankly, not being offered the kind of money they like to see the songs that they own the reproduction rights to sent to some guys making videogames.
Oh, and Guerilla Radio NEEDS to be on Rock Band. Can you imagine the ending? That would be huuuuuuuuge.
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