It’s all but official — GameSpot has a report that a recent SEC filing by Activision has revealed a new entry in the Guitar Hero franchise; namely, Guitar Hero: Metallica. Details are scarce with the official announcement not yet having arrived, but it’s not much of a stretch to assume the game’s pitch will read something like this:
“We are extremely excited that Metallica chose to team up with Guitar Hero, bringing one of the most commercially successful and influential heavy metal acts together with one of the biggest video game brands, to deliver a new and unique interactive way for our customers to connect with artists and their music,” said Activision/RedOctane. “This partnership will give Metallica, a band that has sold more than 95 million records worldwide, a powerful and innovative platform to reach their fans and new audiences.
Guitar Hero: Metallica brings these quintessential metal legends to the interactive realm to create the ultimate gaming experience. As fans progress through their careers in the game, they can rock out to scores of Metallica’s greatest hits, as well as songs from celebrated artists that the band has either performed with or has been inspired by in some way. Venues from historical moments during the band’s illustrious career offer the experience of being the “master of puppets” and further capture the essence of the band’s rise to fame.”
If you’re curious, yes, that’s the announcement from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, with a few words changed here and there. GH: Aerosmith isn’t even out yet at this point, and Activision is already making another band-specific spinoff. It’s Sad but True; my skepticism is only growing as I start to get the feeling Activision is Bleeding Me.
The SEC filing, specifically, says that Activision plans to “publish Guitar Hero: On Tour for the NDS; Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica, and Guitar Hero IV across multiple platforms.” Guitar Hero is unquestionably a powerhouse franchise, but is it strong enough to resist being diluted? How far can the game be spread before it starts to thin out? Even setting aside “On Tour” and its baffling trailer, which is less of a new entry and more of an adaptation, that still leaves three GH games for fiscal 2009, each of which represents a full-priced dent in gamers’ wallets. In the case of Guitar Hero IV, AKA Guitar Hero: World Tour, it represents an investment in an all-new set of peripherals to boot, already a difficult $189 pill to swallow for living room rockers who just dropped a comparable amount on their likely-to-be-incompatible Rock Band gear. Assuming one doesn’t purchase any of the hardware being sold in bundles with GH: Aerosmith (and likely to be sold with GH: Metallica), buying all three games already surpasses the $300 mark, pre-tax. (Buying all three in hardware-bundle form reaches nearly $400, but there’s few logical reason to buy three guitar peripherals, apart from saving one for a Pete Townshend moment.)
It can be easily argued, of course, that many of us will spend that much, and more, on games in the near future, and many of the same high-price complaints arose when Rock Band’s initial price tag was announced — which, I needn’t remind you, gamers still eagerly paid. Also, from a purely enthusiastic standpoint, one might say that more variety and music can never be a bad thing. More song selections means more for the fans, and everyone wins, right?
Except, I thought, that was supposed to be the point of the expanded DLC support for Guitar Hero: World Tour. GH3 has been criticized for its half-hearted DLC updates, especially when compared to Rock Band’s consistent weekly offerings. One of the major improvements in GH:WT, as such, is the promise of “significantly more localized downloadable music than ever before on all of the next-generation consoles,” even going so far as to promise a full DLC library for the short-on-storage Wii. This seems, then, to run somewhat counter to this new philosophy; GH: Aerosmith and GH: Metallica can be expected to play like discs full of extra music with no actual changes to the GH formula. Unless there are some significant unannounced features to these games, one can expect them to be cosmetic GH re-releases, akin to the ill-received Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s. Granted, the games do promise enough music to counteract the primary complaint about GH:80s’ price-to-content ratio, but they still seem to undermine the DLC plan — perhaps moreso because of their large tracklists.
Shacknews asked an excellent question of Activision and Neversoft: Why not release the Aerosmith (and later, Metallica) tracks as DLC for a “regular” Guitar Hero game, rather than selling it separately as a spinoff? Neversoft senior producer Chris Parise had this to say:
“I think DLC limits what you can do,” Parise told Shacknews. “I think DLC means you have to have Xbox Live [on Xbox 360] or PlayStation Network [on PlayStation 3] Whereas I think your install base is still [mostly] PS2, they don’t get [DLC].”
When asked about competitor Harmonix’s strategy with Rock Band, which has the studio providing weekly PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 tracks as DLC and releasing a separate retail expansion for PlayStation 2 and Wii, Parise said that approach “gives you the song, but we’re giving you the experience.”
Where to begin? How many gamers, given the option, would like to pay for an Aerosmith “experience” as opposed to not having to load an entirely new game every time they want to play what could have been part of their overall song library? How many Aerosmith and Metallica fans might have bought the higher-priced GH4 when presented with the opportunity to play their favorite songs as DLC, but will now just be sticking to the spinoffs? How many buyers of the $189 GH4 will gnash their teeth that they can’t just spend an extra $10 or so to play the select few Aerosmith or Metallica songs they actually want — since one assumes that Activision won’t be offering the spinoff playlists as DLC?
Activision is missing out on hundreds, if not thousands, of incidental DLC sales, and is setting themselves up for a self-fulfilling prophecy with their PS2 install base. GH4 ought to be ushering in a new wave of 360 and PS3 players into the Guitar Hero fold, due in large part to the game’s DLC options, online gameplay, etc. Instead, by catering so fervently to the PS2 base, Activision is providing precious little incentive to make the jump to the next generation, thus assuring that the PS2 install base remains the largest.
In addition, Activision is relegating GH: Aerosmith and GH: Metallica to niche status, designing the games to appeal to fans of the band(s) and few others. The games are a step backwards from the new features included in GH4 — even from GH3, for that matter, with the exclusion of a co-op career mode. Imagine, if you will, for the sake of argument, that Activision were to release the playlist from GH: Aerosmith as DLC for GH4 or even GH3, and that the price point remained the same. One could buy the full set of Aerosmith songs for the same price as the standalone game, or purchase individual selections for a proportionately smaller price. Diehard Aerosmith fans would likely still buy the full set, and players who just enjoy some of the band’s bigger hits would buy one or two. There might even be a gateway effect; non-fans might discover a new enthusiasm for the band, which would translate to additional purchases. Instead, by keeping the playlist an entirely separate entity, Activision is eliminating the entire latter portion of that audience. Aerosmith fans will likely buy GH: Aerosmith, but non-fans aren’t going to shell out $60 to get just the half-dozen or so songs that they know and like. And don’t try to tell me it’s “not only Aerosmith” on the disc; yes, there’s bands “inspired by” Aerosmith, but nobody is buying the game to get that one Joan Jett track. GH: Aerosmith is for Aerosmith fans, period.
I was skeptical when it was just Aerosmith on the horizon, but with the Metallica title now revealed, I’m worried this is the beginning of a larger pattern. One can argue back and forth about the merits of “nickel and diming” gamers through DLC, but I’m hard-pressed to see the good in sixty-dollaring us instead.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Damn straight.
Honestly, if I were Sony or Microsoft, I’d be on the horn to Activision right now. Like you said, the titles tell the 130 million PS2 install base that it’s okay not to upgrade, and that can’t be helping current-gen console manufacturers.
Sadly, from Activision’s viewpoint it probably still makes sense to focus on the PS2 as least-common-denominator, because PS2 software counted for a full 1/3 of their sales last year — more than that of the PS3 and Nintendo Wii combined.
http://www.gamecyte.com/2008/05/09/activision-rocks-2007-profits-practically-double-shares-jump-announcements-for-top-franchises/1244