http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117982251.html?categoryid=20&cs=1
Viacom-owned Harmonix Music Systems, the developer of the first two “Guitar Hero” games and “Rock Band,” on Monday filed a lawsuit alleging that Activision owes it royalties of more than $14.5 million for “Guitar Hero III” and other spinoff products from the hit franchise

Spin off titles are a bad idea, even if they do export to the main platform the way Rock Band is going about things.

It saturates the market. It caters to the artists’ ego so they will no longer accept releasing songs as mere DLC. Most importantly, it takes the choice away from the customer, who might just want a few tracks but now has to get the full game or none of the songs they wanted.

There is also a lot of talk about appealing to the casual consumer, which is fine but Rock Band seems to have alienated their hardcore player base (by softening the competitive aspect) and I think that’s hurt them. Believe it or not, star players are more inspiring than intimidating to the “newbies” so it’s a bad idea to demotivate them.

The Beatles game was not a victim of a bad economy. It was just a bad idea. The Beatles made a huge impact on popular music but they really don’t translate into good rhythm gameplay. And who was the demographic target for this game? I don’t think of console gamers when I think of Beatles fans. What could go wrong with a game that features only one band, super easy charts, and no export? It will sell because “It’s the Beatles!” No, it didn’t, because it really isn’t that simple.

Lastly, the DLC choices have been kind of bad. There have been some good releases but not enough. If it’s not the wrong artist, it’s the right artist but the wrong songs. Or too much of one artist. People say that Harmonix is giving filler to keep good songs for other releases but this is a terrible strategy. Strike while the iron is hot! Putting out DLC should be looked a lot like DJing a dance party. You want to excite the crowd and keep the floor moving. Give them a breather once in awhile but don’t play too much filler or you’ll lose momemtum and the crowd will leave for good.

One mistake occurred when Nintendo saturated the market will ill-conceived Mario games that gave Nintendo the reputation of being an educational company that offered games for small children. By this time, the demographic had matured and Sega was able to capitalize on it with Sonic the Hedgehog.

George Harrison, Nintendo’s marketing director at the time, recognized the problem in 1994 when he said, “We got stuck with the reputation that we were the brand parents wanted their kids to have, which is the kiss of death.”

UPDATE: I recently posted an article that provides a more detailed discussion of this topic. See:

The Decline of Mario: How Nintendo Mismanaged Its Top Franchise

Too much of a good thing? Try asking Konami about that, where in Japan they’ve done a DJ simulation, a colorful music-based button-pressing game, a guitar sim, a drum sim, a dancing sim, and a keyboard sim, and two different hand-motion music games. And all but the keyboard sim and the hand-motion games are still being made.

I hate sounding like an elitist but for the past 2 years blogs and gaming sites have been all over Guitar Hero and Rock Band like it’s something revolutionary, when this stype of stuff has been around for literally a decade overseas. America does what it does best: Takes an idea and commercializes it into oblivion.

Get your game engine where you want it, then your money is made by DLC. New periphs will also sell (due to breakage mostly) but don’t underestimate the appeal for really nice fake instruments.