March 4th, 2010 @ Sway Bar, London
UK studios converge to battle over who's the cleverest - have you booked your place yet?
Thursday April 22nd, 2009 @ The Brewery, London
The countdown to the MCV Awards 2010 has begun – with date, venue and categories announced.
July 14th, 2010 @ The Hilton Metropole, Brighton
The Develop Industry Excellence Awards is the only event which rewards the work done by Europe’s leading games development companies.
Publisher admits the genre is failing to captivate the market, though has plans to change fortunes
Though developers and publishers may be allured by the mass-market potential in making a music game, Activision-Blizzard admitted yesterday that the genre is facing tough times.
Last night during its earnings call Activision Blizzard admitted that the music game genre is “down significantly”.
One explanation for the rapid decline in music game revenues might be Guitar Hero’s (and indeed Rock Band’s) prior dominance in the field.
Both publishers have together released 15 games from both franchises since 2005, a figure that rises to 24 if expansion packs are included.
Both franchises have failed to puncture both the US and UK software charts for several weeks, and yesterday EA announced that its music sales category was down 52 per cent (on tough YOY comparisons).
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Activision itself is confident that the genre can be revived. The publisher is ready to launch three distinct Guitar Hero packages this year, with Guitar Hero 5 being released with the pop-centric Band Hero as well as the turntabling game DJ Hero.
Despite its global woes, Activision added that sales had climbed across Europe. The firm added that its new games will provide “significant opportunities”, while the company looks to improve its inventory position at retail.
Could it have been a fad?
Did anyone else see that coming?
well of course the sales of the games are down. people arent millionares that they can affort to buy 4 or 5 guitar hero titles a year and of course if you release 5 guitar hero games a year the sales are gonna be split by 5 rather than having 1 single WELL MADE game the sales might be better.
they are throwing out badly made bugged hardly working guitar hero games now and i for 1 am sick of it and decided now that i wont be buying anymore games.
activision are quick to point out the fact that the game genra is in decline which is a lie. they know well that they have milked the genra for everything they could and now there is nothing left. they have destroyed the music games.
The DS version of Guitar Hero is terribley unresponsive at times, hereing the infamous "gdunck" sound when you strummed perfectly is severely irritating. I checked the calibration on the DS and it was fine. Clearly swiping at your Touch-Screen with modified pick isn't the best way to recreate that guitar feel. And on the subject of destroying the music game I suppose that happen back when they released the awful Aerosmith edition - Prrrrp!
"a figure that rises to 24 if expansion packs are included."
I didnt realise it was that high, that is truly astonishing.
Perhaps gamers and developers are starting to see the limits of the 'here is a colour, now press that colour on your expensive proprietary control system' genre of game which I believe peaked with the original DDR and Simon Says.
Releasing new packs with different tracks is also a dying art, games like Audiosurf have shown that putting a audio track some smart parsing in a decent enough set of code could make the only future edition of Guitar Hero ‘Guitar Hero: Your Edition’ wherein it simply loads your playlist.
That's what happens when you milk a game to within an inch of it's life.
If they had taken more time with their games instead of spewing them out at what seems like one a month, they could have a better chance at making things fresh and interesting.
