The Armchair Game Designer

Welcome to “Things That Need To Die”, in which I thoroughly ream the gaming industry for its perennial laziness.

Unnecessary Musical Game Peripherals

With the recent showings of Beatles Rock Band, complete with custom instruments, and various rhythm/DJ games at E3, I found myself in awe at the cash grab currently taking place in the musical fantasy game market.

While it was a bit annoying seeing two separate guitar-based games out on the market with Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, it did seem to foster design innovation and improvements in the quality of the instrument, the number of instruments (though I’m still not convinced that the drums have nearly the same fun-factor as the guitar), and the way the instruments are configured (such as separate buttons for smaller hands and solos).

Yet, guitar peripherals, by their nature, have a hard ceiling built into them. Try to add too much and it just turns into a real fucking guitar, except this one doesn’t let you have jam sessions or actually practice, just strum along with a photorealistic Slash to the latest DLC guitar tabs. 24 time of getting “Song Failed” on “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” later, and Little Billy Gamerkid has smashed the guitar in frustration, and not in the cool end-of-gig sort of way.

Realizing (like so many other industries) that the room for design change is limited, they instead seek to dangle what amounts to shiny reskins of current peripherals, as well as more esoteric, far-flung, sometimes batshit-ass-crazy “instruments”. Not to mention Tony Hawk and Co. getting in on things, turning the virtual skateboard into its own “instrument”, as in “instrument of throwing out your back”. This constant repackaging and whittling down to more esoteric audiences will spell oversaturation, which will cause interest in the genre to wane.

But instruments are not the only problem. “Hero” type music games exist in the same cesspool of once-clever, now-pandering, capitalizing, non-genre-specific names like,  “Sim X”, “Y Tycoon”,  or “Halo Z”

Let’s face facts. Guitar Hero is an infinitely dumb name to begin with, when you actually stop and think about it. Come on.

Here’s what they’re trying to evoke: “If you buy this game, you will deliver legendary – nay, HEROIC – guitar performances.”

What is implied:

• If you buy this game, you will somehow use the guitar in the rescue of damsels in varying levels of distress, and to possibly fight mutants.
• If you buy this game, you will spend the game repairing rock stars’ guitars minutes before the gig and are, like, totally a hero, dude. Seriously, you did us a solid.
• If you buy this game, you will roleplay as a stereotyped Japanese man who greets guitars for a living.

What else can Guitar/DJ Hero milk out of their franchise? Trumpet Hero: featuring a realistic, wireless brass peripheral, three (THREE!) colored buttons, and a functioning Uber-Slide. It even includes its own mouthpiece: rather than being blown, it delivers sweet and refreshing Mountain Dew with every correctly-hit note!

Wait, that already exists?!? Holy shit.

The name “Rock Band” is more inherently limiting in where the franchise can be taken without some serious rebranding…

Coming soon? “Smooth Jazz Band”, “Post-Hardcore Sludge Metal Band”, “Big Band… Band”?

The future of this industry is, ultimately, in DLC songs and themed song-packs for hardcore fans. I envision a time in which big-name bands simultaneously release an album alongside the playable version of the album, perhaps packaging a credit for the DLC inside the album itself. In the future, independent artists and casual jammers can easily upload, tweak (or have automatically adjusted), and release their own songs for free through a marketplace, removing the limitations of simply crafting a song from scratch to share.