Rock Band Developer Harmonix Put Up For Sale

[McBurks]

See, it wasn't just Guitar Hero after all. People are finally getting sick of this fad, or just sick of spending obscene amounts of cash on all the accessories.

Part of it was Guitar Hero, trying to copy Rock Band's instruments when it is clearly called Guitar Hero and another part of it is the unnecessary stand alone games like GH:Metallica/Beatles Rockband...

 

[Thunderhorse31]

I think Harmonix is capable of finding the next innovation, the music/rhythm genre isn't dead its just time for the next big change.

Well what do you call keyboards, or three-part harmony, or the pro modes that actually teach you how to play guitar/keys/drums/bass? If that isn't innovation that turns the genre on its head, I can't even imagine what will.

 

[Shale_Dirk]

Wtf? Sales cannot be that bad. Perhaps they're bad in the UK because of peripheral issues over the border, but I know for a FACT that every single copy in my city was sold out for the past two weeks, and peripherals have been a pain in the ass to find.

I call complete and utter bullshit, and Viacom has just made one of the most ridiculous decisions ever. Copies are going to sell like hotcakes during the holidays, and they have so easily forgotten that the big sell for the entire game has been the true pro guitar by Strat, which is coming out in the new year.

Selling off the franchise with one of the most critically-acclaimed titles in the whole history of music games 2 weeks into the release. Idiots.

 

[Shale_Dirk]

Please.


The game is 'Simon' with a soundtrack.

That sounds like more of a statement regarding music games as a whole, and not Rock Band specifically. You are biased against music games, and that's fine.

Us musicians and music fans will stay on this side of the "silly infantile bias" line, thank you.

 

[Madmanonfire]

returning the Guitar Hero franchise to Harmonix...

Oh god no! We don't need Harmonix messing up GH now. It has become an excellent series for the uncommon "hardcore" music gamer. They're better off sticking to their average series.
Also...

Fuck. Rock Band was inferior in every way to Guitar Hero, except in DLC.

Fixed. (almost, but good enough)

 

[Jumplion]

"I have an idea fora new game Guys. We release the exact same game with better graphics and a different sound track." It just had to work..... Maybe people are realizing that if they took the money they spent on the games and the time they spent and put it into real life, they could be a good musician with real instruments.

Yes, because buying a $300+ professional guitar, on top of money for lessons to play "Mary Had a Little Lab" is so much superior to paying $150 for a guitar, microphone, and drums to play "Bohemian Rhapsody" that is nothing like playing a real guitar in the first place. Y'know, 'cause everyone can just pick up a real guitar and be a rock god in a matter of minutes after playing Rock Band.

Seriously, People are much too serious and elitist over the music genre. [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/rock_band.png]

Hah.

Worthless one-hit wonder company.

It won't be missed.

7 games on various platforms with a couple billion profit would tell you otherwise. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Band] Don't even try to deny their impact on the industry, they've had one whether you like it or not.

Seriously, when did this hate for music games pop up? I thought we got past the "learn a real instrument!" phase, didn't we?

OT: So does this mean that the Rock Band franchise is done? This is an incredibly stupid decision by Viacom, at least wait until the holidays to see how things pan out.

 

[Jumplion]

returning the Guitar Hero franchise to Harmonix...

Oh god no! We don't need Harmonix messing up GH now. It has become an excellent series for the uncommon "hardcore" music gamer. They're better off sticking to their average series.
Also...

Fuck. Rock Band was inferior in every way to Guitar Hero, except in DLC.

Fixed. (almost, but good enough)

How so? I mean, you entitled to your opinion n' all, but don't just scurry off going "Har har, fixed!" and not explain your position. From where I stand, Rock Band is superior to Guitar Hero in terms of focus, song choices, and DLC, with little dabbles in more innovative ways to play. If you don't think so, that's fine, but don't play the hit-n-run card here.

 

[Madmanonfire]

How so? I mean, you entitled to your opinion n' all, but don't just scurry off going "Har har, fixed!" and not explain your position. From where I stand, Rock Band is superior to Guitar Hero in terms of focus, song choices, and DLC, with little dabbles in more innovative ways to play. If you don't think so, that's fine, but don't play the hit-n-run card here.

I just tire of explaining time and time again, but since you asked... (and I'll try not to comment a lot on RB3 because I haven't played it yet and can't make any real solid claims about it or in contrast.)

-It's hard to argue against song choice because RB DLC is too huge, but concerning on-disc songs, there are generally more songs I enjoy playing on GH games more than RB games. Single player on GH entertains me a lot more than on RB, which would probably be corrected by getting a lot of DLC, but I don't want to buy a whole lot of extra songs.
-RB does innovate with completely new instruments added in to the music games, but I don't notice them doing a lot with it except for chord HOPO's and 3-part vocals. I mean, GH now also has chord HOPO's, tap notes, (had) slider effects to sustains, notes during held sustains (which makes some charts much more accurate to play), open and "held" open bass notes, drum sustains commonly used for cymbal rolls, expert+, and accent drum notes, plus larger additions like being able to play with any instrument combination. (might be forgetting some) Also, I'm guessing RB now has some of these with the jump to pro mode, but I don't see pro mode as much of a game because it's almost exactly like playing a real instrument, but at a screen.
-I tend to favor GH mechanics as well, especially being able to activate starpower anytime on drums and vocals. I really don't like the idea of drum fills taking away parts of RB drum charts.
-Sadly, I only wish GH's online play was as good as RB's. But, as I stated earlier, GH entertains me enough in single player so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. (and I find some RB people online annoying because they like to quit when other people don't have similar DLC.)
Also, I skipped GH5 and TBRB because their song lists didn't appeal to me a whole lot.

Just about all I've said is based off of playing RB1 and 2, so I apologize if any of this can be easily countered by newer RB games. Once I play it, I can make better comparisons.

Edit: Also, these are not all the reasons behind my stance. I don't want to say too much.

 

[The Rascal King]

See, it wasn't just Guitar Hero after all. People are finally getting sick of this fad, or just sick of spending obscene amounts of cash on all the accessories.

Yeah, I guess consumers are. They have Kinect and Move now, beetches.

Now that they got that silly billy business with Rock Band out of the way, how about a sequel to Amplitude?

 

[Jumplion]

How so? I mean, you entitled to your opinion n' all, but don't just scurry off going "Har har, fixed!" and not explain your position. From where I stand, Rock Band is superior to Guitar Hero in terms of focus, song choices, and DLC, with little dabbles in more innovative ways to play. If you don't think so, that's fine, but don't play the hit-n-run card here.

I just tire of explaining time and time again, but since you asked... (and I'll try not to comment a lot on RB3 because I haven't played it yet and can't make any real solid claims about it or in contrast.)

-It's hard to argue against song choice because RB DLC is too huge, but concerning on-disc songs, there are generally more songs I enjoy playing on GH games more than RB games. Single player on GH entertains me a lot more than on RB, which would probably be corrected by getting a lot of DLC, but I don't want to buy a whole lot of extra songs.
-RB does innovate with completely new instruments added in to the music games, but I don't notice them doing a lot with it except for chord HOPO's and 3-part vocals. I mean, GH now also has chord HOPO's, tap notes, (had) slider effects to sustains, notes during held sustains (which makes some charts much more accurate to play), open and "held" open bass notes, drum sustains commonly used for cymbal rolls, expert+, and accent drum notes, plus larger additions like being able to play with any instrument combination. (might be forgetting some) Also, I'm guessing RB now has some of these with the jump to pro mode, but I don't see pro mode as much of a game because it's almost exactly like playing a real instrument, but at a screen.
-I tend to favor GH mechanics as well, especially being able to activate starpower anytime on drums and vocals. I really don't like the idea of drum fills taking away parts of RB drum charts.
-Sadly, I only wish GH's online play was as good as RB's. But, as I stated earlier, GH entertains me enough in single player so it doesn't bother me a whole lot. (and I find some RB people online annoying because they like to quit when other people don't have similar DLC.)
Also, I skipped GH5 and TBRB because their song lists didn't appeal to me a whole lot.

Just about all I've said is based off of playing RB1 and 2, so I apologize if any of this can be easily countered by newer RB games. Once I play it, I can make better comparisons.

Edit: Also, these are not all the reasons behind my stance. I don't want to say too much.

From what I heard, Expert+ only added extra notes that aren't even in the song, but whatever.

I'm one of those Rock Band/Guitar Hero guys that buys one of the games knowing little to none of the songs but ends up liking most of them.

But anyway, thanks for sharing that, definitely made some points in there, but overall I still prefer Rock Band as it really is a more focused experience than the Guitar Hero franchise has been recently.

 

[Madmanonfire]

From what I heard, Expert+ only added extra notes that aren't even in the song, but whatever.

That might be true for the snare drum, since it gets ghost notes apparently. I'm a tad skeptical about it. (I think it's new?)
But more importantly, it adds every bass drum note for songs that the band's drummer would use double kick pedals in. For example, Hard To See (5FDP, GH6) for the intro and chorus, and Scream (A7X, DLC) for different sections. I believe it's easy to hear the double bass notes in these two songs just casually listening to them, and I know Scream can be compared on both GH and RB, so you can see how expert+ adds in all the bass notes in GH and expert on GH and RB leaves enough out so it's possible to play with one foot.
If I had enough skill and a good pair of bass pedals, I could check for these fake extra notes in the really hard songs, but I can't...

 

[e.wlmo4]

My moneys on Microsoft who would want Dance Central to themselves or ZeniMax who is buying anything that moves.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

If nothing else, returning the Guitar Hero franchise to Harmonix would generate no small amount of interest and good will, and Activision has proven with the Blizzard [http://www.blizzard.com] acquisition that it is sometimes willing to just shut up and stay out of the way.

...Do I really need to point out what is wrong with this statement? Am I the only one who payed attention back when Vivendi Games acquired Activision?

 

[Callate]

I'm somewhat ambivalent. It sort of seems like if any game of this type should succeed, it would be Rock Band 3. The keyboard controller and the ability to learn how real music is played on real instruments are actually attractive to me, and I think make a legitimate case that Harmonix is trying to move forward with the genre and make the thing more than "Simon with a soundtrack". Also, I have a certain genuine affection for Harmonix, a company which to all reports has genuinely embraced musical culture every bit as much as video game culture, and whose employment roles are full of people who perform in bands of their own.

On the other hand, times are tight, people are tired of buying additional plastic accessories (a fact which may bode ill for the new motion controllers), and there were so many damn releases and expansion packs out there in such a short period of time that I was half expecting to see "Cubbyholes of Pop: The Captain And Tennille!" on store shelves any day.

 

[samsonguy920]

This really does smell. True early sales can be a telltale but not always. More than likely there is already paperwork being drawn up on the sale, but Black Friday will tell on whether Viacom suddenly changes its mind and then the whole thing ends up in litigation.
Don't get your hopes up on any expansions to RB3 anytime soon.

Rockband sales are tanking? I didnt know that.

Id buy the company..... but im a bit strapped for cash.

If you promise to include the trombone in the next Rock Band I will invest this one penny I found while sweeping the floor at work. Deal?

 

[Soviet Steve]

oh no, simon says with different sounds is going out of business, however will i manage to go on living knowing that there wont be 3 of these things released every year, dear god.