The Design Failures That Led To Rock Band 177
CNN is running an interview with Eran Egozy and Alex Rigopulos, founders of Harmonix, about the long road that eventually led them to the creation of Guitar Hero and Rock Band . It wasn't an quick or easy process, and the two worked on a number of unsuccessful concepts before arriving at the games that redefined a genre. Quoting:
"I was watching people interact with our product, and the realization came crashing down on me — we had spent 18 months on a music system that was fundamentally flawed. Karaoke isn't about personal expression. It's about people reproducing the songs they know as accurately as they can. The whole notion of adding improvisation elements just wasn't connecting. So I retreated to my hotel room and was depressed for the next two days. The company was on the rocks. We had zero revenue. We had been trying for four years to make something work. We were out of ideas. Those first four years had been a graveyard of mis-starts and product concepts that never made it anywhere. Worse, there was adequate information about two years into those four years to realize that our big concept was fatally flawed."
Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
CNN is running an interview with Eran Egozy and Alex Rigopulos, founders of Harmonix, about the long load that eventually led them to the creation of Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
What, were they making C64 games?
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You obviously never played Amplitude or Frequency on the PS2.
Personally, they were much better games than their later Guitar Hero cousins, especially featuring online competition modes.
Unfortunately, they didn't have the gimmick controllers to sell them to the masses.
Creative people often make that mistake (Score:5, Insightful)
...thinking that other people are creative too.
Most people aren't (or at least, not in that artistic sense). Adding elements that require improvisation or creativity just makes the game like work for those who aren't inclined that way. There's nothing necessarily wrong in pandering to an audience that would prefer to be entertained rather than try to entertain themselves. That's why rail shooters are popular and Deus Ex was a flop.
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Indeed. There's a market for making stuff for creative people, but don't expect to make a blockbuster when you're targeting the creative crowd. The crowd is not huge.
BTW - they made a Deux Ex sequel.
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BTW - they made a Deux Ex sequel.
Yes, they did. And they made every effort to correct the flaws in the original game and increase its appeal to a wider audience.
This means it had simpler controls, only one type of ammunition, shinier graphics, more linear gameplay, and a less confusing storyline. In short, they made it more like a rail shooter.
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Makes sense. Logical, analytical computer people often make the mistake of thinking that other people will be logical and analytical, which is why (apologies, Slashdotter cattle) diehard Linux fans keep thinking their OS is just a couple of years away from becoming mainstream.
It's also why focus groups exist; because almost every corporation recognizes that when you've been developing something for years, you become blind to the flaws that will jump out to some
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How many at retail prices? I got my copy free with a video card, otherwise it was almost impossible to find in local shops.
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I bought my copy at some reasonable price on Steam. Glad I did, for all the old graphics and uninspired mechanics there's just something about that game that was incredible. Maybe is was just the atmosphere, but it had more memorable scenes than any other shooter I've played (or maybe I just like fighting battle mechs with a sword).
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From the Wikipedia article about Deus Ex:
It has sold more than 1 million copies, as of April 23, 2009.
If that's a flop, then let my games be flops too!
Deus Ex received quite a bit of critical acclaim, but it really didn't sell all that well. Yeah, 1 million copies sounds impressive... But how many copies does the latest incarnation of Madden sell every year?
And of those million copies, a number of them were re-releases for budget prices. And some got bundled with video cards. And some of them were re-sales to folks who liked the game and needed a new disc.
I guess as long as the publisher is getting money from it, a sale is a sale...
But I personally b
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--Deus Ex had a revival recently due to the Nameless Mod -- I've played it and it's really quite good. Google should return a result; I highly recommend it.
Sold to MTV (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish MTV was about music. For at least the last decade its been all trash reality tv and teen celeb gossip.
Re:Sold to MTV (Score:4, Informative)
I wish MTV was about music.
It was really great when it started. Just one video after the next with a VJ coming on at the top of the hour to tell you what was coming up. The concept was new and the only bands that made videos were the lesser-knowns. So you were exposed to a lot of new stuff. Best of all there were no commercials back then. I was too young then to know that stuff like that is always ruined with time.
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Every time there's some special on the history of MTV, they talk about it being this crazy idea that no one thought would work, but they proved them all wrong, etc.. And yet MTV itself abandoned the concept they supposedly "proved" was a great idea.
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And then they tried it all over again with M2, which revitalized the awesome, but it took them all of a year or two to ruin that with reality shows, too.
Even Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and National Geographic have gone down that route... I remember when Discovery channel actually was interesting: History (ancient battles), dinosaurs, a new discovery of some sort every Sunday ("Raising the mammoth" and its ilk), space and cool new technology. Now it's just junk: LA Ink, Miami Ink, paranormal junk,
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Ten years? Try since 1985.
It isn't about learning to play a guitar (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously guys, who in their right mind honestly believes that there is any correlation between Rock Band/Guitar Hero and learning to play a guitar. The two have absolutely nothing in common. People play guitar hero or rock band for a bit of fun, they have no interest in learning how to play a guitar.
Just like most people would rather play Halo than to build a FPS.
Actually that is a lot closer a correlation:
Guitar Hero/Rock Band = Playing Halo
Learning to play a guitar = Writing and designing a game.
So get off of your bloody high horses and realise that this is all about ENTERTAINMENT, not CREATIVITY.
Re:It isn't about learning to play a guitar (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, there's one *very* fundamental difference, here: when people sing at a Karaoke bar, they're still *singing*. ie, they're playing their instrument, even if it's not very well. But Rock Band? Guitar Hero? Like you say, they're simply rhythm games. Just tapping keys to a beat. That's it.
As such, the OP is absolutely right. There's nothing remotely creative at all about playing Rock Band. Of course, there's nothing at all wrong with that.
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Well, there's one *very* fundamental difference, here: when people sing at a Karaoke bar, they're still *singing*. ie, they're playing their instrument, even if it's not very well. But Rock Band? Guitar Hero? Like you say, they're simply rhythm games. Just tapping keys to a beat. That's it.
Rock Band has a vocal part, too, you know. (And The Beatles: RB will have three!) Also, the drum fills are insanely fun.
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When people go out for Karaoke no one calls it a waste of time and that they should get REAL singing lessons.
But most people who do Karaoke do need singing lessons.
karaoke (Score:2)
When people go out for Karaoke no one calls it a waste of time and that they should get REAL singing lessons.
But most people who do Karaoke do need singing lessons.
Well, no. Even if they're not good at singing, they don't need singing lessons... And depending on what kind of venue this karaoke is happening in, poor singing can be entirely acceptable, because it's about letting the singer have a good time.
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Karaoke is the vocal equivalent of air guitar. With karaoke, you can just sing "la" and, while you would likely annoy those around you, all is well. In Rock Band, if you just sing "la" then you will fail unless you enable the No Fail cheat. Vocals requires that the singer at least be able to modulate their tone and maintain time with the vocal track of the song, even if they screw up the lyrics. As you asked, I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who denigrate people who play the vocalist porti
Re:It isn't about learning to play a guitar (Score:5, Interesting)
So get off of your bloody high horses and realise that this is all about ENTERTAINMENT, not CREATIVITY.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Halo is a fairly predictable game. It is fun, it is entertaining, but it is predictable. The single-player is very linear. There's generally only one way to complete a level. If there's an obstacle in front of you, there's generally only one way to deal with it. There really isn't any creativity involved in playing Halo.
Deus Ex, on the other game, encourages creativity. There will typically be multiple ways around the obstacle... And if you really want to be creative, you can do all sorts of bizarre things the developers hadn't planned on. But Deus Ex is also entertaining.
The summary doesn't really say anything about people learning to play guitar, so I'm not sure where your comments come from... But if you read the summary you'll see that originally they were trying to build a game that wanted you to improvise. And people didn't want to improvise, they just wanted to play their favorite songs. This is where creativity comes into the discussion. Folks didn't want to create new music, they just wanted to replicate the music they knew.
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So get off of your bloody high horses and realise that this is all about ENTERTAINMENT, not CREATIVITY.
The summary doesn't really say anything about people learning to play guitar, so I'm not sure where your comments come from... But if you read the summary you'll see that originally they were trying to build a game that wanted you to improvise. And people didn't want to improvise, they just wanted to play their favorite songs. This is where creativity comes into the discussion. Folks didn't want to create new music, they just wanted to replicate the music they knew.
My comments aren't directed at the article nor the summary, they are directed at every person here who instantly goes "pfft, Guitar Hero? That's not playing a guitar. Go learn to play one." If you read through the comments you will see this sentiment repeated over and over again.
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Learning to play a guitar = Writing and designing a game.
Which has given me a brilliant idea for a new game: Programmer Hero.
You play a geek programming a computer. Using a specially designed custom "keyboard" that plugs into the console, you have to press differently coloured buttons in sequence at the correct moment, in order for the computer computer programmer to complete the game he is writing.
Choose from endless classic games just waiting to be programmed by you: Quake, Doom, Halo.
Everyone wants to pl
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I haven't owned a game console since my Atari VCS, but Programmer Hero could be the game that changes that!
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I think a better analogy would be:
Guitar Hero/Rock Band = Playing Halo
Learning to play a guitar = Putting on a space suit and shooting everything you see
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I got hooked on playing drums because of this game. I practice on it because its more fun then playing on a set by myself with no accompanying music. I'm thinking about buying an acoustic set because of it too. So I'd say mission accomplished t
Non Sequitur (Score:2)
Failures? (Score:2)
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Yeah.. I just read that. "Frequency" and "Amplitude" are two of my favorite PS2 games of all time and I still pulling for them to make a third in the series (though it's obviously not going to happen). The music licenses weren't were probably the best they could get at the time but saying that they still got same great names like Garbage and David Bowie to participate. Plus I don't think that the gameplay is as obscure as they make out in the article.
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Yeah.. I just read that. "Frequency" and "Amplitude" are two of my favorite PS2 games of all time and I still pulling for them to make a third in the series (though it's obviously not going to happen). The music licenses weren't were probably the best they could get at the time but saying that they still got same great names like Garbage and David Bowie to participate. Plus I don't think that the gameplay is as obscure as they make out in the article.
Well, I've been following various articles and such by HMX on the matter of FreQ and Amp for some time... After FreQ they were very self-critical, trying to find out what went wrong and why, and how their game design could be made better (i.e. producing a game people would more readily buy and enjoy) - they seemed very pragmatic about it... It really is possible to stand firmly behind what you've created, but at the same time examine it critically, and ask "what went wrong?" They were fortunate to have a
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The third is Rock Band Unplugged on the PSP. They've improved the controls a bit and added a 4th button to the mix, and you get the benefit of the Rock Band library for the music.
Rock Band Unplugged is in many ways similar to Amplitude, and I love that about it. But HMX didn't develop it. Thus in a sense it's not really a successor to Amplitude.
HMX did create "Phase" for the iPod, though, thus completing the trio of waveform-related titles... XD
Re:Failures? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
We naively believed that if we, backed by a big publisher, created a game that was fun, it would be successful. What we failed to recognize was that you have to make games that are easily marketable.
They are saying Frequency and Amplitude were not the commercial successes they had hoped for. I can understand that: the two games have a rather abstract look and the music selection will not suit everyone's taste. However, I love the games because of the look and music selection. And because the different instruments are on separate tracks, which makes for more interesting game play than for example DDR.
Misread... (Score:2)
"long load that eventually led them to the creation of Guitar Hero and Rock Band."
Heh. At first I thought that said "bong load."
Algorithmic composition with 2D controls (Score:5, Informative)
I think their earlier ideas were much cooler than the Rock Band franchise, too bad they couldn't sell them.
Most interesting part... the Beatles. (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought the most interesting part of the article was the bit about the Beatles and the way they're accidentally debunking Beatles urban legends in their trivia. I'm not much into gaming but I almost want to get it just for that. :)
Something strange about this story... (Score:2)
"The Design Failures That Led To Rock Band": everything they tried before they said "fuck it" and made a Guitar Hero ripoff with more instruments?
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You do know that Rock Band was made by the same people who made Guitar Hero 1 and 2, don't you?
Which invalidates my point how?
Not gonna feel bad for you jackoffs... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Informative)
Does this mean Guitar Hero-Abba edition isn't coming out?
Since Harmonix no longer develops Guitar Hero, I'd say the information in the interview has no bearing on that question.
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Oh. My. God.
I know that "LOL" and "new keyboard" are pretty much the most worn out cliches on the intarwebs, but when I saw the "Autism Rocks!" logo I came within an inch of spewing coffee across my computer and LOLed so loudly that my cat flew out of the room like someone had tased him. What's next, "I have EXTREME cancer!" t-shirts?
Re:Rail games (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't blame the game makers because of this, blame the GAMERS. The article was quite a good read, and I never knew how much failure the guys went through before landing on Guitar Hero. Next time you might want to read the article before posting such a useless comment.
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Keep in mind that their concept wasn't to develop creative tools for creative people to be creative. Their concept was to develop tools for non-creative people to be creative. That has much of the appeal of designing jet-packs for the blind, or
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Having to pay $100> for a new controller+game for each release borders on extortion
What? At least for the 360 version, the same Guitar Hero controllers work for GH2, GH3, GH4, Rock Band, and RB2. Also the PC version of GH3 (& I presume 4).
The Rock Band controllers don't work for the GH games, but they are at least portable from RB to RB2. My understanding is that on the PS3 the GH->RB transition doesn't work either. But even these are still a far cry from having to buy new controllers each release
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This [joystiq.com] tells what is compatible with what. Unfortunately, it has not been updated to include GH5, but being a Wii, owner, I have found it useful.
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Someone did think of it first: Konami. Notice that they mention Beatmania and DDR as inspirations, but curiously omit Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania...
GFDM are on something like their eighteenth release in Japan at the moment. Konami has been pumping out all manner of wonderful music games for over a decade now, they just really suck at publishing their shit abroad, much to the chargrin of the Western Bemani fanbase (which exists despite their best efforts, and believe me the use of 'despite' in that sentence
Guitar Freaks (Score:2)
Someone did think of it first: Konami. Notice that they mention Beatmania and DDR as inspirations, but curiously omit Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania...
Well, bear in mind, they were talking about a point in their company's history prior to Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Prior to any of their games. They saw a few specific rhythm games and realized that this might be a way to reach their goal... What really inspired them, I think, wasn't the specific gameplay of these titles, but rather the fact that people were enjoying these music-oriented games. This was leading into the creation of Frequency.
Their thinking at this point, I think, was that they wanted th
Re:Rail games (Score:5, Interesting)
If I have to listen to any more GH1 and GH2 I'll climb a clock tower.
I'm assuming you are referring to the music for GH1/2, not the game itself. I can't speak for Guitar Hero, but for Rock Band the game never seems to get old because of the new music I am able to download. Sure, if you have to keep playing or hearing the same songs over and over it can get old, but every Friday I check on Wikipedia to see what songs are being released the following Tuesday. I'm not a big fan of purchasing music (I will admit it - I downloaded most of my MP3 collection) but I think that the Rock Band songs are well worth the money. The amount of entertainment they can provide, when I have a bunch of friends over on a Friday night playing RB until the early morning hours, is well worth it to me. I also pre-ordered Beatles RB and will hopefully be playing it on September 10th and most likely well into the morning hours on the 11th.
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Actually, a friend of mine hides when we pull out Guitar Hero. He says the "twangs" and empty spaces when you miss a note grate on him something fierce. Not sure if that's what the GP meant, but there are some people out there that just don't like listening to the games themselves.
Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa, way to confuse "I just want to play a game for an hour" with, "I think I need a new vocation".
Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:5, Funny)
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I've seen people play Forza. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that you take a plastic controller and maneuver a car around a racetrack displayed on a monitor, avoiding other vehicles at the same time. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy a sports car and go to your local track. Practice driving a lot, trying to avoid accidents. When you feel good and up to it, consider joining organized races at the racetrack. Wait, that sounds stupid.
A great many people actually do this. It's fun, and not all that expensive to "race" an old Miata around cones in a parking lot, or on a lower budget some to the bigger go-kart stuff.
Seriously, video games can be fun, but so can actual real-life hobbies. You don't have to be good enough at playing the guitar to make a living in order to really enjoy playing. You don't have to be a professional driver to really enjoy amatuer racing. Climbing can be great fun if you live close to mountains. Shooting at r
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Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:4, Informative)
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Trivia: Dollars per second, autocross (racing around cones) is the most expensive form of amateur racing.
Speaking as someone who's done it, it's a lot more fun than most people might imagine. If you've ever wanted to go racing, take your family sedan out to the autocross track for a day. You won't make the fastest lap time in the world, but you'll have a lot of fun.
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Seriously, video games can be fun, but so can actual real-life hobbies.
How is playing video games not an "actual real-life hobby"?
Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:5, Interesting)
When you feel good and up to it, consider joining the Army so you can shoot real life people in the middle east.
I've tried that way (not the middle east, but still). I'm still waiting for my friend to respawn...
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I've tried that way (not the middle east, but still). I'm still waiting for my friend to respawn...
Be glad you're not on the other side: I hear that the match is kinda like one-way Instagib for those folks.
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You shouldn't have joined a 'Last man Standing' game.
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I've seen people post on Slashdot. I've never posted on it. ...
D'oh!
Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:4, Funny)
I've seen people play World of Warcraft. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that there are some kind of weapons and enemies displayed on a monitor and you try to use the weapons to kill them. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy a real sword and practice on a pell. Buy a selection of swords, and practice until you're good. When you feel good and up to it, consider joining the Crusades so you can kill real life people in the middle east.
I've seen people play Pac-Man. I've never played it. I'm not sure exactly what it is. I think that there are some kind of dots and enemies displayed on a monitor and you try to eat the dots before you get killed. Allow me to suggest an alternative. Buy real pills and eat them until you're good. When you feel good and up to it, consider becoming a hypochondriac.
Re:How to do rock band without "Rock Band" (Score:5, Interesting)
What's funny is that the people who say "learn to play a real guitar" usually don't actually know how to play a real guitar. I play a real guitar. I've spent a considerable amount of money on guitars and stacks and pedals over the years. I even did my part for aspiring guitarists by putting a bunch of tabs up on OLGA back in the mid 90s.
I still love playing Rock Band with my wife.
GH/RB are extremely popular with real musicians. You always hear about them playing on their tour bus.
Hell, did you even read the article? Dhani Harrison is a real musician, plays a real guitar, and "was up all night playing guitar hero".
wasting his time (Score:2)
He's wasting his time then. He could be practising.
Should be practicing at all times on the tour bus (Score:3, Funny)
He's wasting his time then. He could be practising.
Yeah, in the old days the tour bus would bring along a slave-driver - any band members who did anything apart from practicing for their next show while in the tour bus would be flogged.
Nowadays they tend not to bring the slave-driver, and band members indulge in other activities and "relaxation" between the shows. They've gone soft!
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What's funny is that the people who say "learn to play a real guitar" usually don't actually know how to play a real guitar. I play a real guitar. I've spent a considerable amount of money on guitars and stacks and pedals over the years. I even did my part for aspiring guitarists by putting a bunch of tabs up on OLGA back in the mid 90s.
I still love playing Rock Band with my wife.
I played all sorts of intruments in a garage band in highschool in the late 80s and early 90s. Loved it. Band fell apart in a nas
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Only losers play FPSs, real men go and shoot each other!
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Or, as was put more succinctly several decades ago:
"Here's a chord. Here are two more. Now form a band."
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and I did... we may have sucked, but we had great fun back then and we got better :)
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--Hey, it worked out OK for Green Day! :P
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2) ???
3) Hookers and blow!
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Allow me to suggest an alternative...
This is the 'old-school' tried-and-true method for learning to play in a rock band, as opposed to paying $100+ dollars for a plastic guitar controller and "Rock Band" game.
You, good sir, have completely missed the point.
Neither Guitar Hero nor Rock Band are intended to teach you how to play musical instruments. No more than Halo is going to teach you how to fight a war or Madden will teach you to play football or The Sims will teach you life skills.
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And you'll just have to believe me since you haven't bothered to get out of the basement in the last 4 years to even try it once. Which basically means you have absolutely no basis to formulate an opinion or a comparison. Just sayin'.
Incidentally, in the time that it took you to explain how to begin to learn to play the guitar, you could have played one or two classic songs on GH.
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Best troll I've seen in a long time... ;)
Re:Original idea flawed? Quick rip off GuitarFreak (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes and no. I find it completely insane that they don't mention guitar freaks in the article, when they mention karaoke revolution and say that Konami talked to them about it.
The article is about how they were doing something weird, that couldn't be explained to people who didn't play it, and it didn't sell. Then they sold some games, that also didn't sell well. Then Konami gave them a shitload of cash and credibility, they did something else that sucked, then Red Octane was like "Well fuck, we already r
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Yeah, and what's up with that Bic company and their ballpoint pens? Seriously, they slap a new coat of paint on the quill pen and inkwell and they act like it's something new. It's really sad that this watered down product is selling like crazy.
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Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Learn how to play a real freakin' guitar.
Don't really want to. Does that mean I'm not allowed have have innocent fun without people telling me I'm not allowed to? I can go get drunk and have a bunch of idiotic fun with my friends right now, without having to spend years learning guitar, and decades to actually be good at it. For what? Growing up (too late) to be a rock star, like the people I acknowledge will always be much better than me at it. I'm never going to be Adam Jones, or Pete Townsend, or Les Paul, or Tom Morello, or Slash, or... You get the point.
Can I play racing games without being an Formula One racer? Can I play an FPS without joining the Marines? A sports game with out being professional Athlete?
Does this also apply to books and movies? I watched the X-Men movies, and I'm not a mutant. I read the Bible, and I'm not God (or even Christian).
Relax, people do what they want. Its harmless fun. And on the upshot, a certain percentage of the people who play might actually get interested in music, and learn to play something real. Stop caring about what people do, you'll live a longer happier life.
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I think it is equally harmless to suggest people to try the real thing. If they like music they could be missing something under the false assumptions that it's 'too late' or 'too difficult'. Like I did during so many year (although me finally picking the guitar is not related with Guitar Hero games).
This is true, but a lot of people throw out the "waste of time, learn to play a damn guitar" as a holier than thou statement, and generally stated with complete ignorance of the irony contained in it (i.e. they
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Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
As stated above: Relax, and stop caring what people do for fun. You'll live a longer, happier life that way.
I love music, but I'm not a musician (unless you count playing the jews harp), don't have the desire to be one either. I support my local musicians, half of my friends are musicians (who play, surprise, Rock Band), I buy them beer, and hype their shows. I don't get my music for free, I pay real money for it. I every time a band is in town that I like I go to it, and spend money on t-shirts to show my support. But I also think Rock Band is a very fun game to play, especially with a couple of beers in my gut. Oddly enough, I also play it with a lot of my friends who are musicians, some of whom are (locally) successful ones. Odd, some of them have seemed to realize that music isn't "serious business". Some of them, I might add, are pretty serious, and classically trained.
And, as I also stated earlier, these games might get a certain percentage of their players actually interested in music. Interested enough to actually pick up an instrument and make their neighbors life hell for awhile. They force people to actually LISTEN to the music that they enjoy, deeply. Not all of them, obviously, but some. This is actually somewhat noble, being that most of the schools I know of have dropped any music programs that they used to have. This, to me as a non-musician, is tragic, as the selection of music would go up if people actually appreciate it.
Another fun thing, the drums in Rock Band is actually decent training for real drums, as is the bass guitar, since they teach actual rhythm and beat, which is pretty difficult to actually grasp for most of us.
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Just wait for it... eventually there will be a Rock Band Terry Bozzio [wikipedia.org] set. Which would be rather funny, but I have a feeling that it would lead to the loss of arms for many people. Same for Rock Band: Tool, and Rock Band Meshuggah.
I am a fan of Rock Band, and have to admit that playing bands like Rush in it make me somewhat sad.
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Re:Yep (Score:4, Insightful)
We're having some trouble hearing you guys down here. Can you descend to our level temporarily so we can receive the wisdom we so desperately need? It's probably our fault we can't hear. God, we're pathetic.
Rock Band isn't about playing a guitar (Score:4, Insightful)
You're missing the point of the game. Rock Band isn't about playing a guitar, it's about - doh - being in a rock band, just like Gran Turismo isn't about driving a car, but about racing.
Rock Band isn't a replacement for a real guitar, just like Gran Turismo isn't a replacement for the car in your garage.
I'm looking forward to your "People can't be bothered to drive real cars anymore" rant about racing games, though. It's always fun to read posts from people who have nothing better to do with their lives than complain about what other people do with their lives.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You know, that's what always annoys me about Ratchet & Clank -- people can't be bothered to jump through real lava fields and blow each other up with electric field weapons anymore. They just sit on their lazy backsides and do it on a TV instead of getting out there and really blowing stuff up! Come on people, get up and torch something with your plasma weapons instead of just pretending to on TV!
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Yes, basically every automobile is a copy of the Model-T, well actually probably the steam powered novelty cars from even earlier. The big difference being that the newer the vehicle typically the more reliable, fast, and feature filled it is. There isn't anything wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with DDR, Guitar Hero and Rockband, I just think that they are lame.
That's an opinion and it shouldn't matter in anyway to you or anyone else. To me all these games are just souped up versions of Simon th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Red Octane, creator of many (excellent) DDR peripherals, approached Harmonix about making a game wherein you used a guitar-like controller (manufactured by Red Octane, of course) to play music. Harmonix agreed, and Guitar
Yes, but: (Score:3, Funny)
The genius of what they did is that they made DDR for fat or lazy people.
Unsurprisingly, a DDR-like game where you're required to get much less exercise is much more popular in America.
(Yes, there are other reasons for that, too -- but that one's the funniest.)