Why rhythm games succeeded & failed…
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Doing some thinking, I wonder when the tipping point for Too much was Too much. Honestly I feel like at some point people had to have gotten sick of the franchise as a whole (GH & R:cool:. When Guitar Hero first hit the market it was a very simplistic game with 1 controller & a game bundle. I loved it so much to the point where Id show off my skills to anyone who would watch (& I played medium sometimes hard haha). Then we upgraded to GHII then Rocks the 80s then GHIII became a huge success. Its still the greatest rhythm game of all time. Rock Band came out around that time & did great with sales & with marketing. The setlist was great & the only thing that was confusing was the choice to change up the guitar controller. Adding the extra instruments though made it a much more evolved experience & it truly made it the ideal party game. Everyone loves music right? No brainer! Which is what prompted GH to copy that formula. Fast forward to 2009/2010… I firsthand seen many friends turn the game away calling it boring or saying lets play something else. You could go into any thrift store & see a RB drum kit just sitting all by itself or a guitar (specifically a barely functioning RB guitar haha). I know RB3 was the big thing but nobody I knew outside of a single friend or 2 were into it. I felt left out because I was the one still into it. Thats including both Green Day RB & Beatles RB. Maybe its because we got older? I dont know but I know GH was also seen as inferior to many friends & critics. I had to be that person who got GHWOR for Christmas with the guitar haha. Anyway, its many years later after Madcats went bankrupt, after GHLive was met with meh reviews & RB4 is STILL getting DLC even today. Why did the rhythm game genre fail? Well its easy to say over-saturating the market (looking at guitar hero specially), RB did the right things to manage its series. It focused on main entries instead of making tons of different games. Sure the band games were only for fans of those bands but Beatles are for everyone to enjoy! I personally didnt know anyone who wanted to play GHVH like ever haha. Personally one of the things I hated was when somebody would say Why dont try to pick up a real *insert real instrument here*. That always got on my nerves. As if I could actually play Fury of the Storm on a real guitar pffft. All in all Im very happy to have a community like this thats still making charts for RB. Im also very glad for the introduction of Clone Hero (might have to check it out soon). So many fun meme chart videos from Jason Paradise haha.
I came to RB only a couple years ago by accident (bought a PS3 for my kids from some friends who had RB1 and RB2).
I must say that by now I probably would have gotten bored by it if it wasn’t for RB3 which gave us Harmonies, Pro Keys, Pro Drums on a real eDrums set, and of course infinite customs!
I can only speak for myself obviously, but 5-buttons instruments don’t quite cut it for me. I still play guitar/bass on RB3 every now and then (typically when my kids are using the good instruments and I am not in the mood for singing) but I don’t see how it could have been a long term fun for me if it was only that, and pro instruments were probably too expensive since the start for most casual players to even try them out…
Activision killed the market with oversaturation of games that were full price but not worth it. Also the recession of 2008 was murder on those companies bottom line.
I came to RB only a couple years ago by accident (bought a PS3 for my kids from some friends who had RB1 and RB2).
I must say that by now I probably would have gotten bored by it if it wasn’t for RB3 which gave us Harmonies, Pro Keys, Pro Drums on a real eDrums set, and of course infinite customs!
I can only speak for myself obviously, but 5-buttons instruments don’t quite cut it for me. I still play guitar/bass on RB3 every now and then (typically when my kids are using the good instruments and I am not in the mood for singing) but I don’t see how it could have been a long term fun for me if it was only that, and pro instruments were probably too expensive since the start for most casual players to even try them out…
Im actually glad I got into things early when everything was fresh. It really sucks to see the progression between, this is great & I can have group get togethers with friends!, into a sad, Nobody wants to play but me this sucks. I hate it but they did it to themselves.
Activision killed the market with oversaturation of games that were full price but not worth it. Also the recession of 2008 was murder on those companies bottom line.
You hit the nail right on head! Im glad you guys are charting new stuff. This is keeping me going, getting my fix of RB content. It sure does when you try to talk to friends who used to play & they reminisce & try to play again but its just not the same.
Rhythm games are still alive, but in a different form. Right now the king is Beat Saber, which is in VR, but sold exceptionally well despite being a VR game, maybe too well. To be honest, I bought a cheap VR headset just to try this game, and ended up buying a Quest this summer because rhythm games in VR feels miles better than non-VR rhythm games. It is hard to describe, the only way to know how it feels is to play them, watching gameplay does not show how it feels to be inside the game, quite literally. I haven’t touched RB since, surprisingly.
I know osu! is also a very big one, but I’m only talking about licensed/sold games, and not free/open source games.
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