Guitar Hero, Rock Band sales slide reminiscent of DDR

by Andrew Yoon on Jul 22nd 2009 6:00PM

Before Guitar Hero and Rock Band was another phenomenon of the music gaming genre: Dance Dance Revolution. Konami's "dancing" game bundled a peripheral and captured the media's attention with its kinetic "exergaming" play. Over the years, the franchise has dwindled in relevance, as gamers got tired of stomping their feet to moving arrows. Each iteration of the series brought new songs, but the gameplay turned stale, and gamers eventually put their peripherals in the closet.

The same might be happening to the current slate of music games. NPD reports (via Gamasutra) that revenue for the Guitar Hero franchise have dropped 34% year over year. Even worse, the Rock Band franchise has dropped 67%. (Although, it should be noted that the Rock Band series has not had a major console release this year.)

Jesse Divnich of EEDAR argues that "the music and rhythm genre is being monetized more closely in terms of a pop-culture fad," which explains the increasing number of releases we see from the Guitar Hero franchise. He argues that the window of opportunity for making money is limited and that both Activision and MTV Games are "[striking] when the iron is hot." The upcoming The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 may make a big splash this holiday season, but it might not be long until gamers put away the plastic instruments and look for the next big thing.

Source - Analysis: Guitar Hero / Rock Band retail sales down by half
Source - The Divnich Debrief: Roadblocks in the Music Genre

Tags: dance-dance-revolution, ddr, guitar-hero, Microsoft, music, Nintendo, rhythm, rock-band, sales, Wii, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (79)

I don't get why people need new gameplay, as long as there is new content every once in a while I'll be satisfied. Heck it takes me months to master any of these games, but even that requires almost daily play. People just get bored way too easily these days. I remember playing the original Mario on NES every single day. Back then, you couldn't even save your progress, and so I had to start over each time. I was playing the same EXACT thing every single day, but it was still fun. These days you have a lot better replay value (beating your own score, rising in ranks etc) and people are still complaining. I just don't get it. I've always felt that games that make you want to do better each time have much more replay value than games you simply beat and they're over, or where you have to collect a bunch of items or unlock things. Sometimes those can just get a little boring after a while, while I never get tired of these type of games.

DDR would still be going strong if they hadn't tried to Americanize it. If they kept writing original songs (read: didn't drop Naoki) instead of picking mainstream songs that weren't steppable, the game would still be fun.

Also, the whole suing RoXoR into oblivion and not learning from them what the players wanted thing. That might be a piece of it.

Except in Guitar Hero's case when DLC isn't cross compatiable.

Rock Band 1 & 2 + DLC really is the best way to go.

Didn't stop activision, or harmonix when they had the guitar hero series.

ahhh memories of donkey conga spring to mind!

Overpriced lumps of plastic if you ask me, but if you have any friends willing to burn their cash on the stuff then it's worth a laugh when hanging out.

Doesn't surprise me that sales are slipping though - how many iterations of the same thing do people need to own?

Actually, the difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero is pure value of the product. You get a new Guitar Hero game, you only get what the game comes with (though their DLC compatibility is getting better). Rock Band on the other hand, if you are going Game Only, you get the newest game, you get a HUGE discount on all the tracks, updated features, backwards compatibility with Songs on the previous Rock Band title, and all previous DLC functional with the new product. At $60 for what you get to use on one game, I'd call that a steal.

Further prove my point regarding the tracks. Since virtually all RB1 tracks could be carried over to RB2, the RB2 disc was a glorified track pack with improved features and gameplay. If all 84 tracks had been released as DLC as just single tracks, that's $168 for all the tracks, we got them for $60. Whether you like all the tracks or not, the value is there.

I don't need graphs and statistics to tell me that consumers don't like buying the same game multiple times. A big "durr" to this story.

tell that to people who always buy the latest and greatest version of any given given sports franchise...

What's an EEDAR quality score?

nvm the question, I just checked. It's like a metacritic score, the difference is that they only consider 3 reviews.

I just wanted to say that the graphs in the article have nothing to do with sales and it's pretty obvious that as the freshness of a genre goes away the reviews tend go down too just because it's just more of the same.

Stupid Guitar Hero. It was cool and all with 1, 2, and Rocks the 80's. Then Activision went all Tony Hawk Pro Skater on it and made it their little pretty whore, covered in advertising and celebrity sell-outs. Then they make them as fast as they can, using the same formula over and over, changing only the paint job, just for the purpose of making Rock Band look like it's a weak competitor, when in reality, Rock Band is superior because they make every addition a fun experience and the work they put into it actually shows, rather than just redressing the same bastard child over and over. Not to mention Guitar Hero just makes kids want to be a rock star in their colorful fun little "skulls and snakes and flames and devil horns" world, while Rock Band, with it's more eclectic setlist, actually broadens musical taste for many people, going beyond all the "popular songs" and giving a real taste of the genres and times. I know none of this is really news to anyone. I just had to rant...: /

Don't worry Harmonix, I just dropped 1600 points on songs today. Will spend more but first release more full albums!

I wish they released a Strokes album :(

Man there was no major release for Rock Band this year on the Wii. At least for us in the PAL region. Rock Band 2 was NOT released yet in Europe!
25 Sep 2009 is the date!

I am still waiting for this bloody release. And guess what, no DLC in Rock Band 1 for Wii!!!!

Wow I can't believe just how blind most are.
This "article" MEANS NOTHING!
It does mean that the music game "trend" is over and that people are sick of it.

For the video game industry the whole year of 2009 has been much lower in sale for ALL GENRE of video games compared to 2008. Why?

The economy isnt as good, people arent spending as much. And there arent as many good new games this year as there was last year. Last year some extremely popular series came out with new titles like GRAND THEFT AUTO, SUPER SMASH BROS. and so on.

This isnt about Activision supposedly killing the Guitar Hero franchise or the so-called fad of music games dying.

Seriously Joystiq shouldnt drop to the same level of stupidity then other sites do just to have people read them, sad...

The problem that's fueling this bullsh*t is 13 year old kids. They keep buying GH unrelentingly and that's how Activision is getting away with it. I've noticed that kids buy GH and adults seem to more the RB demographic. I know that's not always the case, but it's what happens most of the time.

Talk about "oversaturation". The frequency at which Acti is puking out -heroes is getting totally out of whack, and it shows, especially in the controller quality. I still play with my old GH2 axe, since I utterly HATE that Les Paul thing that came with GH3.

Rock Band will be doing better than the figures show with DLC and less development costs. Plus later this year they have 2 more titles in Rock Band PSP which should hopefully sell enough to cover costs and Beatles Rock Band which will sell big mainly because of the name attached to it. There is no bigger name in music really, it also helps that the game looks awesome. Activision are selling out while they can although i am still waiting for GH: Hendrix which will rule again cos of the songs of Hendrix, he was the best bit of GH world Tour. Just a shame that Activision hold the rights to Hendrix, a Rock Band Hendrix would own

I'll avoid the party until such times as we hear of a Blues and Jazz based rhythm game.

you need a analyst to tell you people get tired of the same shit?

Yes. It's the American way to have studies compiled for the obvious.

Activision did this shit with tony hawk games before...

It means they dont learned with their errors =(

All this "stuff" just makes me want to hunt down the Miracle Piano for the SNES.

Now there was a teaching tool.

What did they expect? The flooded the market with these games. Activision releases a new Guitar Hero every month. And they expect consumers to run out and buy new plastic instruments for a few hundred dollars every month? These games need to die a death.

I got DDR Hottest Party 2 last year and it's pretty good, but it's not amazing. My personal favorite DDR is Mario Mix.

In any case, Guitar Hero and Rock Band will fade away someday, too. It will always happen.

Also, Elite Beat Agents is the best rhythm game ever (Rhythm Heaven is close).

Thanks Activision. Thanks for ruining my music games. Harmonix was doing just fine on their own.

BTW, does this measure DLC sales? Because Rock Band DLC has kicked ASS this year.

Rock Band is way better, especially for the 360. http://www.gamesncs.com/rd_p?p=186122&t=9528&a=28751-joystiq&gift=28751 You have more options for gameplay.

hahaha I'd like my 24 yr old friend to read your comment

Seriously. this comment system needs work.

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Guitar Hero, Rock Band sales slide reminiscent of DDR

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