IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

The Divnich Debrief: Roadblocks in the Music Genre

Posted July 20, 2009 by Jesse Divnich

I will preface this article by stating that I am far from being a critic of the music genre.  In fact, I am quite a fan of the music category and have much respect for developers like Harmonix and Red Octane, the architects behind what is currently a billion dollar piece of the business.  However, looking deeper into what has made the music category successful, I foresee potential problems in the near future for the music genre in sustaining the growth it has experienced to date. 

When one looks at the history of any genre or game that has experienced sustained growth over the last 20 years, it tends to correlate directly with the evolution of its features.  Anytime one sees explosive growth, however, it is likely due to a very large evolutionary jump in a game's feature set over its predecessors (or in some cases the creation of an entire new genre like what we've seen with Wii Fit).  Examples of explosive growth motivated by revolutionary change in a genre include franchises such  as Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy and Rock Band/Guitar Hero. 

The history of the First-Person Shooter (FPS) genre provides an exemplary case study on how feature evolution and commercial success go hand-in-hand.  

For argument’s sake, let us label Wolfenstein 3D as the first widely popular FPS – simple by design but revolutionary at its time.  Doom, released a year later, evolved from its predecessor.  From Doom, Quake and Half-Life emerged, which pushed the boundaries of online play and integrated new features such as environmental puzzles into the FPS genre.  At the same time and beyond, FPS began to evolve on home consoles with Golden Eye 007, Medal of Honor, and Halo.

Since Halo, the FPS genre has continued to evolve by altering features such as “health bars,” revamping the “crosshair,” the replication of real-world events (e.g. World War II),  the advancement of tactical shooters, adding progressive role-playing features, and the continued feature evolution in online play.  To keep this digression short, each new successful FPS somehow evolved the genre over its predecessors ever so slightly, with no one game making a “giant leap,” and therefore sustained growth occurs.  

The music genre has evolved similarly over the last 15 years, but with much more volatility in the evolution of its features as well as its commercial success.  PaRappa the Rapper and Space Channel 5 were some of the first music titles to bust on to the scene (from a mainstream perspective).  Harmonix evolved the genre farther with games like Frequency and Amplitude, which laid the foundation for the giant leap in features and gameplay that Guitar Hero and Rock Band brought us.  However, this is where the roadblocks begin. 

First, Guitar Hero and Rock Band both face a ceiling in feature evolution due to their strong reliance on imitating a real world experience, playing the guitar, drums, singing, or using a turntable.  It is tough to evolve a guitar-like peripheral when the guitar itself has not seen a major feature upgrade in nearly 50 years.  Further, evolving a peripheral will undoubtedly run into the “backwards compatible” problem that many peripheral-based games face. 

Second, consumers bear witness to a vast amount of releases in the music genre each year, especially Guitar Hero.  In 2005 there was one major Guitar Hero title; 2006 had Guitar Hero II; 2007 had Guitar Hero III; 2008 had four titles: Aerosmith, World Tour,  On Tour, and On Tour Decades; and 2009 will have seven: Guitar Hero V, Metallica, Smash Hits, DJ Hero, Band Hero, Van Halen, and On Tour Modern Hits.  In latter cases, development time on some sequential releases is happening in less than six months, not nearly enough time to implement any worthwhile feature upgrades.   

While the success of the Guitar Hero franchise certainly warrants the plethora of releases, many are misled that this new billion-dollar genre will somehow sustain its unprecedented growth.  Yet many fail to realize that the simplistic – yet revolutionary – game features that have allowed Guitar Hero and Rock Band to become an overwhelming success in the first place will be the same features that hinder sales going forward. 

To peer deeper into this analysis, one should look at a perfect historical example that provides additional context on the troubles that may lie ahead for the current generation of music titles.

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), a game that put the rhythm into the “music and rhythm” genre, is an extremely successful franchise, one that has been around for over 10 years.  However, DDR encountered the same feature ceiling that the music genre franchises are facing today.  This ceiling is evident when you graph the quality scores of each DDR title since 2002.  

What is the difference between DDRmax: Dance Dance Revolution (2002) and Dance Dance Revolution: Universe 3 (2008)? Virtually nothing, but review scores have declined by 16 points between the respective titles because they have failed to evolve the franchise feature sets effectively over time. In addition, the fact that DDR is linked to a peripheral limits its feature growth, as newer titles must be compatible with older versions if the publisher wants to monetize their peripheral footprint effectively for content SKUs – and this is where the money is at.  As with Guitar Hero, DDR demonstrates the difficulty in evolving a game when you have a development team cranking out expansion packs with a cookie dough cutter in order to maximize franchise revenue and maintain mind-share position in the target market. 

Jesse Divnich is the VP of Analyst Services at Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR). He's been an industry analyst for over 7 years.  All views and opinions are that of Mr. Divnich and not necessarily the views of EEDAR or its clients.