Are Music Videogames Making a Comeback?

I can't be the only one to remember the Guitar Hero Marathons held in friends basements fuelled by Mountain Dew and Cheetos. Guitar Hero was a staple in most adolescent hobbies in the mid to late 2000s. You didn't have to know how to play the guitar or drums to feel like a rockstar. It was magical. Anyone could play, and everyone felt amazing. It actually inspired 2 of my childhood friends to actually get into music and pick up a guitar in REAL LIFE! I was always awful with video games, but I always jumped at the chance to feel like I was rocking out on stage with Axel Rose. After a while the novelty of it all wore off and the Guitar Hero style video games slowly faded out. Can they make a comeback? I'm not sure. They would have to add something significant to the game. We didn't play it for the amazing graphics. We didn't play it for a thrilling story line. We played it to get together with good friends and feel like we were in a rock band! If they can re-ignite that fire with something similar, they will be successful, but its going to be difficult. It was just four years ago that music games were declared dead. And the person making the pronouncement was the one who had benefited most from it. “It’s just not a category that’s getting consumers enthusiastic right now,” Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said on CNBC. “I think you need to focus your resources on the things that get consumers really excited.” Activision’s “Guitar Hero” franchise had sold $3 billion during its initial five-year lifespan, but the last installment in the series — “Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock” — sold fewer than 261,000 copies, with nine different SKUs on the market. Around the same time, the competing “Rock Band” franchise seemed to fade away as developer Harmonix focused on other parts of the music genre with games like “Dance Central.” Now both are back and receiving plenty of attention at E3. “We brought it back because our fans really wanted it to come back, they just wanted something new,” says Jaime Jackson, studio head in charge of the “Guitar Hero” franchise. At Harmonix, makers of the new (and original) “Rock Band,” the story is similar. “We have a bunch of ideas for where we want to take the franchise,” says Harmonix CEO Steve Janiack. “The [older] consoles weren’t powerful enough. The new engine we’ve made for this generation will offer new functionality and allow personal expression.” Both games will offer fans a large collection of new music to play on the games’ instruments — some classic tunes and some of the big hits since the original versions of the franchise were available. Developers always have new directions they want to take a franchise, though. For publishers, the return of these games is a timing decision. As consoles enter their third holiday season this year, the push for a wider [...]

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