Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Two big games have hit the shelves within the past months that have been riveting millions of gamers - Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. So-called “rhythm games” have been becoming very popular since the initial outbreak (yes, it has spread like a virus) of Dance Dance Revolution. Once this event came to pass it was only logical that instruments were the next great controller concept for these types of games. I’d like to say that bringing the guitar into the fold was a stroke of genius, but in reality it was the next logical move. Any fan of music at one point in their life is a stone cold liar if they claim they never played the air guitar.

With the release of Rock Band we now have a microphone and a drum set - the other two major components of any relevant air band. Harmonix has been central to getting these games to where they are today. They were behind Guitar Hero 1 and 2 and used MTV as a publisher to get Rock Band out the door. While these games, and all rhythm games suffer from this, make you look completely ridiculous when outside viewers happen to see you (including the government through their spy satellites, which is probably why they’re in existence in the first place), I do admit they are a lot of fun.

The concern with these games are two-fold: price and repair. It is usually quite simple to replace broken controllers for most games, but sending out a guitar or drum set for repair is by no means trivial or quick. Guitar Hero games are a little more expensive than most current console games, but Rock Band chimes it at $170. In other words, if you have any interest in the latter it is best to find a group of people that want to play the game and pool money for it.

My overall concern isn’t even with the games, however. Instead, I am concerned that companies besides EA are working hard to become the most hated company in the industry. I mention this because of the guitar compatibility with these games. Red Octane makes the guitars for both games- and an interesting side effect of this is that if you have one game your guitar should work with the other game.

Aaaah… note the keyword “should.” Once it became known that there were some problems with guitar compatibility in Rock Band for the PS3 the good people at Red Octane got to work on the problem, only Activision has decided to not move forward with the update yet. It has been noted by several people that Activision is the publisher for Guitar Hero 3 and bought Red Octane. MTV is the publisher for Rock Band. At this point you should not need a road map to see what’s going on. In short, everyone looking at playing both of these games now has an axe to grind.

(Double-puns are so hard to resist)

Given our current corporate culture it should not surprise anyone that Activision sees no reason to issue a patch for a competing product. Logically, why should they provide a service for a competing product? That is counter-productive to their business, but at the same time there is a huge conflict of interest. Red Octane does the hardware for both games, so my only question is why is this type of devious behavior allowed by companies? Clearly it was design intent that the guitars work for both games.

Rumors or not, it disturbs me that this type of behavior can happen. What’s more is that there is not much customers can do about it. I don’t expect corporate or even personal self-interest to disappear from our culture any time soon as a central focus. Companies need to work on their bottom line before anything else. What troubles me is that so many businesses, in and outside of the video game industry, almost seem to rely on self-interest as a business model instead of providing a product and great service for it. That type of thought process almost requires all companies to work from that standpoint, effectively draining goodwill out of industries as a whole.

Given my tendencies to be an alarmist you may want to take what I’ve written here with a grain of salt, but I urge you to at least look at how video game publishers respond to customer problems to get an idea of where the next great gaming experiences might come from. If Activision is acting in the way they appear to be in this case you may be waiting a long time before they provide something a gamer will really want to have.

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