I’ve had some negative sentiments for a while now, but a short chat with my cousin last night finally tipped me to the point of writing about it.
Activision and Neversoft officially disgust me.
Instrument incompatibility? Guitar Hero spam? Artist exclusivity agreements? And the atrocity that finally crosses the line (if you’re reading this obscure blog, you probably already know what I’m talking about): Guitar Hero: World Tour. Call me a Harmonix fanboy, if you like. That fanboyism is pretty much the basis of this entire post.
But you have to remember that Harmonix made Guitar Hero what it is today. And then they parted with their beloved franchise to build the revolutionary Rock Band. While Activision was busy whoring out the Guitar Hero name, Harmonix was working on their labor of love. It was Rock Band that “transform[ed] music gaming by marrying Guitar Hero’s exhilarating guitar gameplay with a cooperative band experience“. It was Rock Band that gave birth to “branching venue progression” in their non-linear career mode. Rock Band introduced the guitar solo distinction. Rock Band introduced drum fills. Rock Band introduced custom rockers. And now that Harmonix has proven the success of their innovative designs and pushed the genre forward, we see Activision making their cash-in attempt on it. In my mind, Activision’s latest prostitute is little more than a dirty thief.
As a fake rocker loyal to the Harmonix name, I don’t have a huge problem with Activision’s new software. I don’t actually care all that much for the features they have planned. I’m already skeptical of the actual utility of the music creation/sharing tools (the real desire for most users is to be able to map existing songs, which doesn’t appear to be the intention of World Tour’s design). And I have the utmost confidence that Harmonix’s genuine design talent will ultimately beat out the posers at Neversoft. Unfortunately, I do have one dilemma – its name is Red Octane.
Red Octane is the company that produced the amazing peripherals for the original two Guitar Hero’s and, after being purchased by Activision, are now hard at work on the spinoff titles – World Tour included. Rock Band’s instruments, while superb from a design standpoint, were (how do I put this delicately?) delicate. The Rock Band hardware implementation was sub-par. Everyone knows this. The guitar’s strumbar would fail after repeated use. The plastic kick pedal would snap after repeated use. The drum heads were rigid and often insufficiently sensitive. (In case you couldn’t already tell, I encountered all of those aforementioned deficiencies). It pains me to admit that Harmonix really dropped the ball in that respect (although I do admire EA’s convenient peripheral warranty). Unfortunately, it appears that Red Octane will be the one picking up that ball, ensuring World Tour doesn’t fail on the hardware end. The drum kit looks especially appealing. It boasts velocity-sensitive rubber pads and an additional drum input (with two inputs being elevated cymbal pads). As much as World Tour sickens me to the core, I can’t help but stare longingly at Red Octane’s handiwork.
Part of me wishes that Harmonix and Red Octane were still on the same team. Imagine – EA buys Red Octane from Activision! That would be one of those rare cases of an EA acquisition that doesn’t induce vomiting. But even the vast monetary resources at their disposal would undoubtedly be insufficient in prying Red Octane (and Guitar Hero with it) from Activision’s grubby fingers. And as much as I’d hope that Rock Band 2 would support the Red Octane instruments, we already know that Activision will work to prevent that from happening. I mean – psh – them spoiled consumers can’t have the best of both worlds, right?
So what are all of the Rock Band rockers to do? We already have a set of instruments. Are we supposed to buy another one to further consume our precious living room space? Are we to build another music library from scratch? Are we to entirely abandon our allegiances and support the cheap cash-in? Activision’s childish, copycat maneuver is extremely frustrating – their exclusive hardware practices limit consumer choice, and their design thievery steals thunder from the real innovators. And of course, average shoppers won’t know they’re supporting terrorism. They’ll just see the name “Guitar Hero” and pull out their wallets.
Besides… with a fake instrument arms race in full force, will consumers even bother with any of it anymore? As for me, I’ll just save that money and buy myself a real drum kit and a shiny new Les Paul. They’re always compatible.
UPDATE: Game Informer brings news that makes me weep sweet tears of joy! Harmonix is giving players the option to purchase a first-party premium drum kit made by Ion – an actual electronic drum kit manufacturer. But there’s more – the drum kit can be plugged into a “real drum brain” to convert it into an actual electronic drum kit! Why stick with a plastic peripheral manufacturer when you can go straight to the makers of the real deal? Brilliant! I can have my cake (more robust Rock Band drums) and eat it too (play on a real drum kit)!
Yeah, I know that there have been at least a couple of software options to convert current-gen Rock Band drum output into synthesized drum sounds, but the downsides I’ve seen are that they: 1) require a computer or laptop nearby, and 2) have some extremely noticeable latency between input and audio output. A real electronic drum kit has neither of those problems.
Anyway, this is a brilliant move and an extremely awesome development. I’m glad Harmonix isn’t taking Activision’s crap lying down. And then there’s also that thing with Konami…
As a afellow Rock Band player I agree, although I’m not going to buy the new GH because I don’t have that kinda money to spend on fake instruments AND because Activision are a bunch of wankers.
Really if Activision wanted to make as much money as possible (being the greedy little monsters they are) they’d make the new GH game compatible with the Rock Band instruments. It just makes sense. Their target audience have already spent the money on peripherals, why would they want to buy them again? They aren’t, and I believe it’s going to be the straw that breaks Activision’s back.
You got a bunch of guys with all the hardware you need already, and I’m sure they’d be willing to spend $50 on a game (even if it’s from Activision) just so they can have another game to use their hardware on.
Seriously, there’s no reason why Activision SHOULDN’T do this aside from being greedy and ignorant (or stubborn).
I’d actually propose the opposite – that Activision not try to block compatibility of Red Octane’s instruments with Harmonix’s software. I really just want to use their superior drum kit. I don’t care so much for their game – just their peripherals.
Although I’ll add that Mad Catz is producing some alternatives, so we’ll see how those go. I’m not too pleased that World Tour has three snare/tom pads instead of Rock Band’s four.
I’m gonna have to chime in here and remind you that Konami was the first to deliver a cooperative band experience…..sans the vocal. Anyways, I wholeheartedly agree with Activision whoring out and milking the GH franchise. Not a day goes by without me seeing or hearing the name Guitar Hero. As to the issue of peripherals, they’ll always continually improve, but just as some element from Konami said, why can’t we just all use one thing! As a gamer on a budget and partial environmentalist, we already have too much junk in our trunks, lets cut down on the e-waste please. So, whoever puts the most use into their products by including backward compatibility has got me on their team.
I think we can all agree that Konami’s “cooperative band experience” was inferior to Rock Band’s vision of the experience in at least three major ways:
1) limited to arcades: this might not be a problem in Japan, where the arcade scene is still thriving, but in most other countries, you’ll be hard pressed to find an arcade that has all of the necessary machines setup to link. Rock Band brought the experience home, making it immediately accessible without having to pop another handful of quarters to play some more songs.
2) no real cooperation: the session games are just “multiplayer solitaire.” Rock Band innovated the coordinated band score multipliers and the ability to save failing teammates, concepts which I’m fairly certain do not exist in the Konami games.
3) no persistent investment in the band: there’s no driving motive to keep a band together. Not only do the Konami games lack robust team mechanics, but they lack the career elements that Rock Band innovated – custom avatars, fans, non-linear venues, setlists, etc.
So yes, technically, I suppose Konami created the first band experience – but it’s hardly a cooperative one to begin with.
I’ll admit I’ve never played the Konami games in session mode (and I’ve only played their cabinets a couple of times) – my assertions are purely from second-hand sources. So correct me if I’m wrong. But there’s clearly no denying that Harmonix brought a lot of new and revolutionary ideas to the table. I’m far from claiming that they invented the rhythm genre, but they definitely moved it forward and brought it to a much wider audience.