Rock Band, watch out, Activision may be going in for the kill…

Rock Band has recently been making a name for itself with the release of Rock Band and Rock Band 2 in a time span of less than a year, however will all their hard work result in failure….?

Activision has been over selling Harmonix’s Rock Band with the Guitar Hero series ever since Rock Band and Guitar Hero have been in competition. This past October, Activision showed that they mean business with the release of Guitar Hero World Tour, a multi-instrument game that is now in direct competition with Rock Band. And its doing its job of making Rock Band look like the little kid of the music game  genre while Guitar Hero looking like the master.  Guitar Hero: World Tour’s 2 month existence in 2008 sold 3.4 million units while Rock Band 2’s 4 month existence in 2008 only sold 1.7 million units.  Guitar Hero: World Tour was able to double the sales of Rock Band 2 in half the time.  Now this is due to several reasons such as the release date, the establishment of the Guitar Hero name, and the compatibility of Rock Band’s instruments with Guitar Hero. Regardless of the issues, Guitar Hero is still outselling Rock Band and now Activision is deciding to go in for the final kill and remove Harmonix’s Rock Band from the gaming map.

Activision just announced that this fall they will be releasing: Guitar Hero 5 (the sequel to Guitar Hero: World Tour), DJ Hero, and Band Hero.  Guitar Hero 5 is an expected release, in order to keep up the competition with the Rock Band series, however it is the other two games that makes this story.  DJ Hero is a game similar to Guitar Hero, however instead of the use of a guitar, the gamer will be playing with a turn table, as can be seen to the right.  Activision announced that this game will include songs from genres Guitar Hero usually does not cover, such as Hip-Hop, Electronica, Dance, and Motown.  The other game Band Hero is said to stay with the popular band dynamic that both Guitar Hero  and Rock Band posses, however the play list available for Band Hero is comprised of popular Top 40 music rather than new and classic Rock.  Activision is making this game in order to target the younger crowd that is unfamiliar with Rock music but knows everything on Casey Kasem’s Top 40.

You may say, “Well Richard, what’s the big deal with them releasing these games, they sound pretty cool.”  The BIG DEAL is that Guitar Hero is trying to destroy the Rock Band series and if you have ever played Rock Band and Guitar Hero, you know that Rock Band is better, they are just not marketed as well as Guitar Hero, which has led to their low sale rate. Let me immerse you in Activision’s thought process.  Right now, both Rock Band and Guitar Hero attract a certain audience; most of that audience are fans of Rock music.  Realizing this, along with the knowing that they already double sales of Rock Band, Activision has decided that they are going to make products, in addition to Guitar Hero, that are marketable to every audience.  With DJ Hero, for example, Activision will then be the only music game in the Hip hop and dance genre, therefore with no competition, their sales will skyrocket.  The same idea is implemented with Band Hero.  Activision will be targeting the younger audience in order to have little to no competition in the child level music games.  With the release of these 2 games and if Guitar Hero continues to out sell Rock Band it is only a matter of time before Rock Band is out of production and we all are stuck playing a music game with creepy graphics and bad playlist.  Do not let this happen. Join me in boycotting all Activision music games and lets keep Rock Band alive.

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