Ben-DutkaIt was and still is a legitimate phenomenon, but as we roll on into the latter part of this year, our heads are starting to spin. DJ Hero . Guitar Hero 5 . Guitar Hero: Van Halen . And let's not forget the competition in the form of another Rock Band ; The Beatles: Rock Band . I know the music-based genre has become a major cash cow but are we overdoing it?
Really, how many of these games can we have? Will the fans always faithfully respond to multiple releases, even those that release very close to one another? Thing is, I know a lot of Guitar Hero fans but not a one of them plans to buy all three GH titles that are on their way to store shelves before 2009 is out. They'll certainly get one of them, but is that enough? Perhaps what I'm really asking is, "how much does it cost the developers and publishers to pump out these titles?" Maybe this is like "Grease;" a tiny overhead followed by truckloads of money that translates to insane profit. After all, we're not talking about cutting-edge technology in terms of graphics, and let's face it, the mechanical foundation was set in place a long time ago. We've got new instruments and new music, but how we play these games is always the same (essentially). There's no doubt it was a fantastic idea to start with, but really…this is starting to feel like Pokemon, or something.
Up until this point, the barrage wasn't really evident; the launches weren't so close together. But now, it's really obvious that there are more than a few titles scheduled for the next few months, and I'm not sure that even the fans are appreciative. Everyone else is just rolling their eyes. It makes perfect business sense to build on a clearly lucrative concept but there always seems to come a time when we all just have to say, "okay, enough ." Either spread these out a little more or just take a break for a while. We have to assume that even the most ardent Hero fan has to work every now and then.
