Music Games; Delete? or just hitting “pause”
Creative Commons Attribution license; http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/3400039653/
(Top photo represents”The Golden Egg”, from The goose that laid the golden egg.)
This is a two-part post. Whenever I’m writing about Music Games, my first thought is: how can I find enough to make this interesting. Second thought: How can I limit the length of this, to KEEP it interesting. First part: Is the Music game genre dying; and then the second part: the negotations to launch, and possible future of band-specific games.
(By the way, if you’re a band looking to do your own video game, or just looking to have some tracks as a secondary income stream: contact me. When you email me I’ll give you my private number… I’ve had to change numbers because of spammers before… that’s why the firm info is not prominent)
(Can Rock Band Save Music Games?), From Eurogamer magazine. Continue reading after the jump…
Somewhat dated, 2009, but still useful article about the history of music games, and how the licensing is accomplished; From Armchair Empire.
Basic, yet well-done podcast by former Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson about how royalties work; (Yeah, I just wanted to link to something by Megadeth). It’s a good primer, and that gives you a good start to understand how royalties work in Rock Band Network or Guitar Hero.
Sun-Sentinel story about Viacom perhaps purchasing Harmonix (there’s also denials of this). Has great information about the dropping sales of games of this genre.
(From the Jazz Lawyer: Composer writes for Video Games) A great barnyard-to-the-frying-pan methodology of how writing a score for a video game works. (I’m sorry, is that expression too Southern?)
(From Kotaku): Activision chief regrets not making Guitar Hero with Harmonix)
Current news, from Videogamer; Harmonix continues support for Rock Band)
(Songs in Both games, why?) From MTV blog. My personal theory is that the older songs, obviously, are trying for a secondary stream of income. The newer songs, for the most part are bands that have broken up… perhaps the record companies are more “open” to promoting those knowing the members have moved on. If any musicians or lawyers have any other theories or anecdotal information, I’d love to hear it.
Related stories specifically about Band-specific games
2008 WSJ story about Guitar Hero Aerosmith and the large payment for the rights.
2009 Billboard story about the negotiating and technical hurdles of Rock Band Beatles
Forbes has a sardonic look at the Beatles Rock Band. Talks about the technology, but also about the process.
Listing of Band-titled Rock games and how they did, and what they’re like. (From Co-Optimus blog)
In case “the suits” are looking for ideas on the next game. Includes sales projections. (Second part from the Co-Optimus blog)
Purely for reference purposes; from the always-great Rock game resource Plastic Axe: (You can actually see an alphabetical list of songs and which game it is included within)
Final thoughts and commentary: I think the term “too much of a good thing” might be applicable here. And also the negotiation articles talk about how the gradual increase of demands for payments for the rights, have created a more economically difficult environment. The crass way to put it is “not enough money to go around”. I look forward to the excellent comments by my devoted followers and also those who were lost, and ending up here after looking for MP3 blogs.
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Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.
Tags: Beatles, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Music games, Music royalties, Rock Band
(I’m sorry, is that expression too Southern?)
First time I’ve heard of it as a non-Southerner. I like it, though.
Anyway, I suspect this is just a pause. Same thing has happened with a lot of gameplay genres. Witness what happened with RPGs in the late 80s and early 90s, where a glut made them unappealing. Then Diablo comes along to reinvigorate RPGs with action type gameplay. This lead to a small renaissance that gave us things like Planescape:Torment. Now we see a lot of indies making RPGs for the love of the medium instead of what will maximize profits.
I expect we’ll see a dearth of music game sfor a bit, until someone comes along with something new to add to the mix and respark the passion.