@karateka: Because everyone likes music, and not everyone is a musician. Acting in harmony with a musical rythm is one of man's most basic pleasures. It makes perfect sense to make games out of it, and frankly, I think it's a genre that won't die for as long as there is music at all.

Kyuu

I think Konami deserves some kudos for, firstly: Inventing pretty much every music game concept around these days. And secondly: Not trying to re-board the bandwagon they should be steering.

GH and RB are basically the same games as Guitar Freaks/Drummania/Karaoke Revolution, but made insanely popular due to their western-oriented gimmicks.
Now, Konami COULD have acted up and decided to make their own "american rock-style Guitar Freaks", but that would've just been sad for a Japanese company to try.

I'm glad they've settled with feeding their solid end of the market with Beatmania and Pop'n'Music, which are still doing well.

Kyuu

I'm not going to try and understand it...but how the music game can be that sucessful is beyond me. I mean you play on some fake guitar and drums...you sound like shit, but you think you got some kind of skills and a rocker. I suppose. as long as it makes you feel good, but I tried it and I didn't like it. In a way I'm glad I'm not into it, because it looks like if you do, you have to spend a shitload of money just to enjoy it. Drums, guitar, expansions....this looks like something that will never end.

karateka

@SupaPhly: I've got a fever!

PreachingLlama

And the DLC fuels the market further :)

I believe some songs are selling better as DLC than they are as actual song downloads

Idylla

@SupaPhly: for sure! We gotta have more cowbell!

SAKY

@supremesonic: I'd have to agree with that as even the older adults (35-65) in my family have ENJOYED playing GH or RB at one point. Same can be said about Wii Sports so Nintendo's big numbers could also be explained in this way.

Rock games are a great new genre for the industry everyone involved seems to making money hand over fist. Congrats to the folks that completely westernized these games I'm sure Konami is kicking themselves for not do this 5 years ago.

SAKY

@supremesonic: Completely agree with ya there. I can still challenge myself playing hard guitar or hard mic while my friends (Or relative/parents) just enjoy playing all the different instruments on easy. The games work well with parties and when you have friends over for a few drinks it just flat out fun to watch other sing and play.

Deltakiral

Can't wait for cowbell hero

SupaPhly

You know why I think music games are so popular? It's not just the idea of simulated rock stardom to a bunch of awesome tracks, I think it's also got something to do with the fact it merges casual and hardcore gaming so well.

Think about it - Instead of playing rubbish like "Big beach sports" on the Wii, which only casual gamers will ever enjoy, stuff like Rock Band can work for both. The casual gamer messes around on songs like "In Bloom" on easy, but when they're done, the more hardcore players can easily ramp it up to expert and try and beat songs like "Constant Motion".

They can do this together, just mess around separately, and so on. Henceforth, when the new music games come out, both parties want them for different reasons. Genius!

supremesonic

@Kyuu: Not so sure it's going to just keep going on forever. There's only so far you can take this concept. Where do you as a game developer go now that you're simulating a full band? What's in the next release?

GH and Rock Band are probably going to be like DDR in that they'll get to a point (and I think they're pretty much there right now) where there's just nothing left to do except release what amount to glorified song packs every couple of years.

Don't get me wrong, I actually like Guitar Hero (and I snagged two GH3 bundles for $29.99 each, so it's not like I feel ripped off), and I'm sure Rock Band is fine too, but at the end of the day it's still just a bunch of colored notes moving towards you that you have to hit in time with the song. The concept is too simple to really allow for much in the way of gameplay exploration or experimentation (or even differentiation). And anything you add ends up just making the game harder, which narrows the audience. So I'd be surprised if we aren't at or near the peak of these two series' popularity right now.

Of course, some other music game could supplant them just like GH and Rock Band supplanted DDR, but I can't really imagine what hasn't already been done in the music game genre. Combining Rock Band and DDR into some sort of marching band simulation? Kinda doubt that'd sell.

badasscat

I don't really like American music games out now. If they had a Japanese version of Guitar hero, I'd be all over it.

AngelMayLaugh

@karateka: Not everyone has the talent, and even if they did check out the cost for lessons, instruments, maintinence and even just time to master a real instrument and get the same level of enjoyment.

djlowballer

Did I miss something? When did Guitar Hero World Tour start promissing all of it's songs will be master tracks? (it's in the article)

I know RB2 will be, but I have not heard the same about GHWT.

AZRockslide

Have both GH3 for the Wii and RB for the PS3 and they get weekly use. I just wish they would make them all compatible with each others equipment like Sony just made them do with the next gen games. I would love to pick up GH3 for the PS3.

zombie16thc

Haven't played either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. And I'm pretty unlikely to do so. Especially if there are other humans watching.

The screenshots of these games always remind me of Klax, and I didn't like that game very much.

Eltigro

@supremesonic: I agree with you completely. I'd also like to add that I think we are a generation that grew up falling in love not with songs, but with recordings. We don't want to play the songs our favorite bands play, because we can't play it just like they do, right? We'd rather just play the recording. Music games let us (sort of) do that.

BtownDesignGuy

@Kyuu: "I think Konami deserves some kudos for, firstly: Inventing pretty much every music game concept around these days. And secondly: Not trying to re-board the bandwagon they should be steering."

Corect me if I'm wrong but did they introduce something at E3 that signified that they are indeed "trying to re-board the bandwagon they should be steering". Just taking a quick glimpse at their E3 stuff shows something called Rock Revolution. It sucks that Konami missed the boat as they did introduce a lot of concepts we see in this genre.

SAKY

I was a music gaming freak way before the Guitar Hero boom (heck even before the DDR boom). Once I had laid my hands on Parappa some +10 years ago, I fell in love. Gitaroo Man, Space Channel 5, Samba De Amigo, UNiSON, Frequency, heck, even Brittney's Dance Beat. I loved them all way before Guitar Hero had been farmed out to the casual crowd.

I just hope now that the music genre has gone mainstream, it can give some of these other music games a chance (EBA 2 or Space Channel 5 part 3, let's see it happen!). Fingers crossed when Samba De Amigo Wii comes out in September (a 2008 holiday must have? Must have!)

journies_end

@Kyuu: You're being sarcastic, right? Or have you not heard of Rock Revolution tip-tapping toward us? So Konami is trying to "re-board" as you put it. I can only assume you tongue in planted firmly in cheek.

I like music and rhythm games. I'm pretty sure nobody (except for drums on expert) thinks they have any great musical talent when they play the game; it's just a fun way of implementing controls in a rhythm game. Before the GH and the RB I loved Frequency and Amplitude.

Anarchist_Gamer

Makes sense to me ... I've downloaded like 90 songs for Rock Band and look forward to each new release Tuesday. It's weird, because I thought I would hate music games, but ended up loving them.

Strangelove

I find this entire situation to be extremely depressing. What ever happened to having a real garage band?

gnugeek

I would fucking LOVE to play Rock band, if there weren't a few issues - living in Estonia, NO STORE is willing to carry it for. Why? For the second issue - it would cost around 350 USD. Importing is an alternative but from the UK, the easiest for me, would be over 400 USD. So yeah, THANKS, Harmonix! Thanks for forcing me to be in a real band in stead!

PixelPeZ

@journies_end: Agreed PS 1 + Dreamcast fueled my earlies music game obsession. There also was the SegaCD with the "Make My Video" series but they were just like a choose your own adventure pr0n.

zombie16thc

@karateka: But that is the whole premise of video games, isn't it....pounding on a piece of plastic pretending to be someone else. I know that my wailing on fake drums doesn't make me a rock star. It's just a fantasy.

But likewise hardcore gamers playing Halo 3 or RFoM aren't really saving the world...they're just watching TV, pushing buttons on a piece of plastic and enjoying their fantasy.

And, I've been doing this since the days when we were pretending to play tennis :-)

sibtrag

The other thing that drives it is all your non gamer friends who got addicted early on. You may not like The Cars, but i bet one of your friends does. Then they start whipping out 20 dollar bills saying "I don't care whatever get it get it get it I wanna play". Either way its good for gaming. Now I want gaming in the Olympics.

Freakizoid

@badasscat: You're right, but I think we're heading for a plateau rather than a peak (which implies a sharp fall afterward). As someone else said, moving in time with music is one of life's basic pleasures, so there's always going to be a built-in level of accessibility and popularity to this genre that will ensure ongoing success for a loooong time.

It's a new kind of karaoke, really, and karaoke has been around since the 70's with no signs of abating.... unfortunately...

freakout

The fact that Rock Band releases new songs every week (Last week's Megadeth, Dream Theater, Machine Head, Killswitch, etc... was awesome) just keeps me playing.

Onslaught_Fei

@freakout: Well the problem is no game exists in a vacuum. There is competition. Dance is also a pretty basic pleasure and people have been doing it basically since we were apes. But still, DDR's popularity has fallen dramatically over the past couple years, because the series just went as far as it could go and other games came out that people bought instead.

My earlier point was a little unclear, I think - I'm not saying I think music games as a whole are going to die out. What I'm saying is that these particular series - GH and Rock Band - will not necessarily be popular forever. And I do think the genre as a whole has reached sort of a plateau creatively already - how many games do we need with this same convention of the notes moving toward a target that you need to hit on time?

I think there are probably some different concepts you can still do with music games that haven't been thought of, something like Samba De Amigo did that was a little different. But probably nothing as universal or popular as playing guitar in a band or dancing.

Also, I mentioned snagging GH3 (for PS3) at Guitar Center for $29.99 - I think that's a sign. That is well below cost. Yeah, World Tour is coming, but not for a while, and GH3 is being cleared out at some stores. If its popularity was really continuing at the same pace, that wouldn't be necessary.

badasscat

@AngelMayLaugh: "If they had a Japanese version of Guitar hero, I'd be all over it."

I'd really like to have Japanese music too. I've become quite the fan over the last 10 years. I'd be keen to try out music from many different countries though now that I think about it. This could be a whole new DLC avenue.

With Activision's Kotick suggesting iTunes-esque concepts for future Guitar Heros, maybe this is something they could incorporate. An on-demand DLC system with music from all over the world.

Here's another interesting thought... pay per play. Try out a song for 10 cents. This would let you play it in your game once and see how you like it. If you want to download it you pay a buck and get the digital rights, similar to iTunes. Then you can play it whenever you want and you can transfer to your iPod, computer, etc. I think if people can cheaply and easily try out music they are likely to do so, and probably end up buying a lot more of it and so many songs from around the world would be fresh and exciting sounding.

ReadNLearn

@Anarchist_Gamer: Hehe, I wasn't being sarcastic, actually... I guess I'd just missed out on that one.

Okay, reevaluation from my part: Konami /are/ trying to re-board that bandwagon and it's rather embarrassing. Shame, really. /:

@badasscat: Well, I didn't mean that GH/RB will never die, more like music games as a whole. About those games going the way of DDR, I agree fully... There's only so much room for innovation in the field of music games, but there'll be new ones to come after people have gotten sick of these ones.
It's kinda like with FPS games, I think. They haven't moved the genre very far from where Wolfenstein 3D started it, but there'll always be a market for them as long as there are people who are amused by pewpew-action.

Kyuu

@badasscat: While I agree there's not much room for innovation in the core gameplay concept, Harmonix is showing the way forward here: it's no longer so much about the individual titles in the series being massively popular "events" as it is about building a new delivery platform for the songs.

Guitar Hero may eventually peter out if Activision stick to their strategy of pumping out new retail bundles every year, but Rock Band is building a more solid foundation for long-lived popularity. It'll be interesting to see how the new music creation system in World Tour plays out, though. Probably just a novelty for the hardcore few, but if they get it right and make the "creation" of music as simple as the "playing" of it, that really could be huge.

Maybe it's just my own wishful thinking 'cause I enjoy them so much, but I reckon these games are going to be around for awhile yet.

freakout

I love how people get on these message boards and write comments like "whatever happened to real garage bands" like music games are going to prevent any future music from being made. Come on people. GTA hasn't stopped crime. Just because someone can do something virtually, that doesn't mean they won't do it in real life. The only affect GH/RB may have on real music is keeping a few tools from playing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" at coffee shops or some kids from making some noise in a garage for a couple of hours till they get bored and go play video games.
Real music will continue to exist. All GH/RB do is allow people to experience music interactively instead of just sitting in a chair and listening.

DarthAthema

@AngelMayLaugh: "If they had a Japanese version of Guitar hero, I'd be all over it."

It's called Guitar Freaks, sadly only ever released in Japan. On the plus side, I hear you can use the GH controller for it.

Kyuu

@supremesonic: It's also the fact that it plays on the worldwide, long-time tradition of Karaoke which is entirely a socializing "event" - only you hardly even have to embarass yourself to get together with friends when you're playing guitar or drums!

tybeet

The neat thing with the music game genre is that they've figured out a business model that thrives on constantly selling the end-user something new. Its going to quickly get to the point of ink jet printers and razors where you get the buy-in product for less because of the promise of keeping you stocked with all the added products. Ink cartridges and blades will beget song downloads. Not sure they are there yet, but they will get there and its only going to take off more from there. Only problem right now is the content. Music isn't a pure commodity, after all. You don't just churn it out. It requires a lot of negotiation with artists. We're getting there, but exclusivity of artists could really hurt the genre long-term. Its not going to kill it, but it could impede its growth and there will be a point where this either establishes itself as part of our gaming culture, or fads away like a fad. That's the point where it could be hurt, but we'll see where it goes.

BStu

well what did you all expect everyone plays these games

rob61920

Figures, just shows how overpriced these games are!

fenderfuel08

@fenderfuel08: Overpriced? The only game I see as Overpriced is he Aerosmith and Rock the 80's those feel like cheap expansion to cash in. The others with their bundle (or without) have a good amount of songs (80 plus for RB2 and GH:WT) and come with a Guitar (and sometimes more) personally I think it's a good deal considering how much I've played both games. Pretty good bang for my buck.

Deltakiral

It could also be that music games can be played by pretty much any type of gamer, anywhere from casual to hardcore. Also, music games are fun for everybody, unless you suck.

Lawl01