Analysts consider dance genre 'bubble,' Ubisoft says more 'The Experience' games possible

Ubisoft's Just Dance and its successful clones like Michael Jackson: The Experience, along with Harmonix's Dance Central, have established the dance genre as a viable market for milking. Now the industry must play the delicate game of sucking the marrow dry without creating a zombie.

Gamasutra hit up go-to industry analysts Michael Pachter and Jesse Divnich for their takes on the sustainability of the genre. Both analysts essentially characterized dance games as part of a bubble that is largely unaffected by critical reception (UK hit Zumba Fitness has a 43 on Metacritic). "In short, yes, the dance category is a bubble," said Divnich, "much like most things in entertainment."

That doesn't mean that the bubble is about to burst -- or that the bottle of suds is close to empty. At least, Ubisoft is planning to keep on dipping in. The publisher's Tony Key teased that Michael Jackson: The Experience is "just the first 'The Experience' brand." He added that there's no reason why "another artist can't make a great dance game under 'The Experience brand,'" but didn't pitch any bright ideas. The Smurfs, anyone?

Reader Comments (17)

inb4Dance Hero

Of course it's a bubble. Most game fads are. Especially ones relying on gimmicks. See also: Guitar Hero. Remember how that bubble turned out?

@lSpam My question is, were is activion. They have the biggest needle.

Its make it or break it, fellows.

Ubisoft, for the love of all that's (un)holy, please add more charts for the harder difficulties and allow them to be PRACTICED! It really says something when BEATMANIA has more another charts than MJTE has in Master Performance mode.

Tap Tap Revolution with Gregory Hines and Fred Astaire?

@RupanIII
That would run into naming rights issues with the Tap Tap on mobile phones. They'd have to call it "Clack Clack" or something. Or maybe "Tappity Tap". Or maybe they could just call it White Nights and be the real bad*sses.

I think it's not popping yet, if for no other reason than it hasn't sucked me in yet. I sometimes show up late for gaming bubbles, but I don't think I've ever missed one entirely.

Dance games before the Kinect were not really dance games. They were either jumping games, or "hold a remote control in vague positions" games. The way I see it, real dance games are still in their infancy.

The question is: do people want real dance games? The Rock Band "expert mode" guitar is proving to be a hard sell. Turns out most people don't really want to, like, learn anything. Then again, real guitar playing is a highly technical skill. Five button guitar is much easier. Is "real" dance too technical, too? My hunch is more people would get into "real dancing" than would get into "real guitar playing", which would imply there's still plenty of life left in the dancing genre.. but I guess we'll see.

@sigma8 rock band expert mode has a 400 dollar price of admission. That's where it's falling short.

@MDizzy
Yeah, it's expensive. Some people will luck out if they have midi keyboard synths laying around, but most will have to shell out the clams. However, Kinect, while cheapER, is not exactly cheap. You're looking at $200 if you want to pick up the Kinect + dance central. That's nothing to sneeze at, in terms of entry barriers.

So will Konami be late to another party they started with Dance Dance Revolution?

@kyte420 They already released a Kinect dancing game called Dance Masters. Like a month after Dance Central came out, so they did the inverse when DDR 1st Mix and Pump it Up's first version came out (PIU came out a month after DDR 1st Mix did in japan)

I was scrolling past this story, and the colors were so loud I stopped. For a split second I was convinced the image is that of the Might Morphin Power Rangers. For a split second.

@RudyHuxtable
I was JUST about to post this same comment

@RudyHuxtable you know you're the only cosby kid who grew up to be HAWT, right?

I wouldn't call Dance Central a clone of Just Dance. It's a dance game, so it's in the same genre, but DC is much better than Just Dance, from interface to actually dancing.

Make it rain?

Michael Jackson: The Experience

Analysts consider dance genre 'bubble,' Ubisoft says more 'The Experience' games possible

Reader Comments (17)

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 5:40PM MEMgrizzlies7 said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 5:49PM lSpam said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:10PM bxgt said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 5:41PM The Only Girl said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:03PM LOMDR said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:09PM RupanIII said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:29PM sigma8 said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:27PM sigma8 said

Posted: Apr 26th 2011 9:57PM MDizzy said

Posted: Apr 26th 2011 10:05PM sigma8 said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:50PM kyte420 said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 8:35PM LOMDR said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 6:57PM RudyHuxtable said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 7:04PM HybridPara said

Posted: Apr 26th 2011 9:58PM MDizzy said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 7:44PM MGTrey said

Posted: Apr 25th 2011 8:15PM zero2dash said

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