Of course this is just speculation, but I’m pretty sure their decision to move away from keys wasn’t just “Hey, we don’t have any people that can chart keys, and we really don’t feel like hiring any. Let’s just scrap them.”

I’m assuming it was a decision that they felt was in the best interest for the brand moving forwards as a company from where they are. Keys just did not do what they originally intended, and the addition upkeep is not in favor of the effort/costs/sales that they are looking at.

I hate to seem the go to as I did enjoy playing keys from time to time, and I agree that charting out key heavy songs before RB3 felt “weird” to play knowing there should be another instrument there… but I’m behind them in their decision. I’m hoping that the loss of keys will further strengthen and improve the main instrument base that they have. Can’t please everyone , and who knows… maybe they’ll revisit them on a later game.

I’d chart keys or vocals for just about anything that isn’t cookie monster for free.

I would think they don’t want any more staff considering the downsizing and layoff in the past.

You could probably offer to pay Harmonix to let you author keys, but if it’s not in their best interests right now then they’re not going to do it. I like occasionally playing keys, but I honestly can’t blame them for making the decision to drop the instrument (or pro guitar/bass, for that matter). There was never the interest at a mass-market level.

There’s enough pro keys players to justify it to stay, IMHO.

Honestly, this is the part of the argument that bothers me. I don’t play pro keys myself, I only dablle with them to test songs, and 5-lane doesn’t appeal to me, but it still bums me out that they were dropped, for a number of reasons. However, what you said, echoed by others, is like telling you that you don’t know how much money you make or how much you spend on groceries. You know what you salary is, you know how much you spend in a month, if you take your calculator out and you find out that you can’t go out on a fancy dinner more than once a month, I’m in no position to tell you you’re wrong.

They know exactly how many keys players they had and they also know exactly how long it takes to author an instrument. To question that is just silly. They have looked at their spreadsheets, run the numbers and had to make a decision. Also, suggesting that former RBN authors can just provide the service for free doesn’t take into account the huge number of factors that would prevent that, including having the audio masters leaving HMX’s facilities, having to work with somebody they don’t really know, having to check for parts of the job they may take for granted, etc. Heck. *I* gave up many times on asking for help on my customs because checking other people’s work doesn’t fit in my system, and I’m not selling anything…

^ RB3 may not give you ‘more options to play with’, though. It certainly gives you one less player slot, but it also dropped stuff from RB2 that was in high demand and had people pretty salty. There may be (and likely are) new mechanics, new game modes, and new features that make it a more robust experience, even if you drop an instrument. An instrument that, I don’t know, only a third (less?) of the catalogue supports.

Maybe not many people played it, but you can still try if you like in RB3. There is no option for that in RB4.

Keyboard is also not really my instrument of choice, but I still try it from time to time if all other instruments are used by other players.

We know nothing about RB4 yet, so we have to wait and see if they can really offer something that makes me say “okay, this is so cool, I rather take this over having keys or pro guitar”. But for now, all they announced so far is that they get rid of some features.

Also, the fact that other music games sold more doesn’t change the fact that RB3 was the most complete music game of them all. (And that it will probably still be, if RB4 removes features)