Yesterday at GDC in San Francisco, Harmonix officially announced Rock Band 4 is in development for next-gen consoles. Although Rock Band 3 hit shelves nearly five years ago, an epic string of DLC releases and spin-off titles ensured would be rock stars weren’t letting their plastic instruments gather dust. Sorting the span of reactions with some claiming the franchise should stay dead and others hailing it as the second coming isn't easy but I think, on balance, interest is strong. Still, the music rhythm genre isn’t the cash cow it once was and I think Harmonix should be wary of a few things if they want to rebuild their empire.
Let us keep our songs
I think that gamers will need to temper their expectations
but Harmonix needs to show a concerted effort to allow previously purchased DLC
carry forward to Rock Band 4. It’s probably inevitable that the legal framework
of some of the licensed content means that not every song from the massive Rock
Band library will port, but I think it will draw the ire of many supporters
if they learn that their hard bought and built collection is gone with the
coming of next-gen. So long as Harmonix is clear on what they are doing to
preserve previously purchased content then they will be okay even if some
favourites are lost. The absolute worst thing they could do is try to re-release
it all again and charge gamers who have already bought it a second time – the
backlash would be tremendous.
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| Please don't take these away from me! |
Only relevant peripherals please
One of the few problems with Rock Band 3 was the lacklustre
addition of the piano peripheral. Only a handful of songs made good use of it
and the overwhelming majority didn’t use it at all. There’s already enough
arguments over who gets stuck playing bass instead of guitar but at least there
the loser still gets to play the game. Being stuck on piano basically means the
rest of the group has to agree to play from a limited set of songs or you’re
relegated to being an observer. On paper, the idea of filling out the missing
link in the standard instrument line-up seemed like a good idea but in practise
its implementation was clunky. If Harmonix has any more bright ideas about filling
our living rooms with a new instrument, it better work for every (or nearly
every) song.
It’s okay if we have to buy new instruments
Seemingly in clash with the above two, I don’t think
Harmonix needs to break themselves to make our old peripherals work in Rock Band 4.
While anecdotal, pretty much every plastic instrument set I’ve played has
some quirk – the green button sticks, the kick pedal is squishy, the microphone
has a hard time picking up really loud singing… the list goes on. I
think most gamers won’t mind if they need to pay to get new instruments so long
as they are high quality. If the old stuff still works, great! If not, no
problem.
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| Guess it's time to buy a new one... |
The reasons behind the fall of the music rhythm genre aren’t
inscrutable. Simply, many companies tried to cash in and flooded the market
with more titles than it could handle. Harmonix contributed to the glut with a
bevy of special stand-alone releases (Beatles, Green Day, and Van Halen) that
really should have been worked into the base game. Eventually, consumers became
alienated by the obvious greed and fought back by closing their wallets.
Harmonix more or less acknowledged this and has already stated that they are intending
to only release the one game supported by DLC and I implore them to stand fast
to this commitment.
Personally, I’m excited at the prospect of a new Rock Band.
Fulfilling the rock god fantasy never gets old and I have a lot of fond
memories of jamming with friends at parties. That said, just because Harmonix
has my attention doesn’t mean they’ve got my money. If they want that all
important sale they’re going to have to be careful not to alienate their fans.