Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello on Wednesday commented on two once-booming video game genres -- music and skateboarding -- and predicts one is past its prime, while the other still has chance for a revival.
"I think the music genre is going to recover," Riccitiello told Kotaku in an interview. "I don't know exactly how. It could be based on some new innovation. Maybe it all becomes dance-based."
EA distributes MTV Networks' and Harmonix's Rock Band franchise through its EA Partners arm. The most recent installment, Rock Band 3, released in October this year to strong reviews.
But the music category has seen revenue declines and waning popularity, leading Harmonix parent Viacom to put the Cambridge, MA studio up for sale earlier this year. Hamonix's most recent release is Dance Central, a dancing and rhythm game for Xbox 360's Kinect sensor.
Riccitiello recently commented that buying Harmonix would be like trying to "catch a falling knife," a reference to the risk involved in investing in the studio and its area of expertise.
In the same interview, the executive wasn't as optimistic on the skateboarding genre, which EA has explored with its Skate series. Rival Activision still has the Tony Hawk franchise, and recently released Tony Hawk Shred, which was aimed at a younger audience. Once a unique money-maker in Activision's stable, the series has commercially stagnated since its heyday.
"When it comes to action sports, I think that's going to be an an ongoing exciting genre," he said, pinning skateboarding games in a larger category. "But at least for the level of excitement out there, skateboarding seems to have run its course as the representative example in that broader genre."
To me, a big part of the joy of early Tony Hawk and "Plastic Guitar" games was the illusion that I could pull of big stunts/concerts with some effort. But that kind of gets boring after a while. "Hold Y+X to pull off the 900" a stunt that, in the real world, many people devote years of their life to and still can't master.
But, by making things more difficult, you run the risk of frustrating the majority of your players.
I got burned on on skateboard games after I played three version of Tony Hawk. Every Tony Hawk game seemed the same. I find FPS a lot more fun and challenging now.
I think it's a wate and see, but there is a chance that the Crypton's Volaloid stuff that SAGA is playing with in Japan (notably in Project DEVA), might cach on here in the U.S.!
What I would like to see if a skate/snowboard game on kinect. That would be awesome. Actually Sking as well. Nothing too energetic but enough to get these old bones moving left and right with the odd jump.
Okay, on a more serious note, I think this is far more fundamental than a simple question of genres dying. When several games offer essentially the same experience, people buy one or two and are fully satisfied. Sports games manage to bypass this with the updated roster, but no matter how much you like music games, I don't really see any reason to own 3 versions each of guitar hero and rock band.
On the flip side, I would suspect that when these games are one-of-a-kind, they tend to have a much longer sales lifespan than the latest play-and-pass third person action adventure. Dance Central may not have sold as many up front as they hoped, but it will probably hold strong sales until somebody comes out with something a lot better, even if it takes years.
Mostly the decline of music game sales simply shows that it's not a "yearly sequel" exploitable market. I see people playing these games as much as ever. They just generally aren't motivated to buy the latest and greatest.
They are both dying because of the over saturation--if they stop making one or two each year than you might see better results--how much different are the games going to be in the multiple iterations--
The problem with these games is that there is nothing to bring people back to the next iteration like Josh noted---Sports games get a new roster---FPS/RPGs/Action games generally get a continuation of story or a new story all together---action sports are just..action sports--music is just...music.
With music games I would say they should come up with a comprehesive version and just keep offering DLC to expand the music library--don't opt for the completely new version of the game.
As for the action sports--they could potentially do a story based game--or even customizable characters--or make it a multi-sport game--kinda like California Games.---until the genre is less saturated they need to offer these action sport games in a different way--not must more Tony Hawk(1,2,3,4,5) or Skate (1,2...) The experiences are limited in their scope--expand the scope and you might beable to pull people back---or even try doing a 2d game like Skate or Die or T&C Surf Design---try a Tony Hawk 2-D--it would definitely hit on the old school/reminiscence string that Nintendo has been chiming into lately.
I'll do that now...I always have typed like this...its kind of my way...my parents and grand mother hate that i dont use paragraphs...just the triple dot.
To me, a big part of the joy of early Tony Hawk and "Plastic Guitar" games was the illusion that I could pull of big stunts/concerts with some effort. But that kind of gets boring after a while. "Hold Y+X to pull off the 900" a stunt that, in the real world, many people devote years of their life to and still can't master.
But, by making things more difficult, you run the risk of frustrating the majority of your players.
D Glenn
Okay, on a more serious note, I think this is far more fundamental than a simple question of genres dying. When several games offer essentially the same experience, people buy one or two and are fully satisfied. Sports games manage to bypass this with the updated roster, but no matter how much you like music games, I don't really see any reason to own 3 versions each of guitar hero and rock band.
On the flip side, I would suspect that when these games are one-of-a-kind, they tend to have a much longer sales lifespan than the latest play-and-pass third person action adventure. Dance Central may not have sold as many up front as they hoped, but it will probably hold strong sales until somebody comes out with something a lot better, even if it takes years.
Mostly the decline of music game sales simply shows that it's not a "yearly sequel" exploitable market. I see people playing these games as much as ever. They just generally aren't motivated to buy the latest and greatest.
The problem with these games is that there is nothing to bring people back to the next iteration like Josh noted---Sports games get a new roster---FPS/RPGs/Action games generally get a continuation of story or a new story all together---action sports are just..action sports--music is just...music.
With music games I would say they should come up with a comprehesive version and just keep offering DLC to expand the music library--don't opt for the completely new version of the game.
As for the action sports--they could potentially do a story based game--or even customizable characters--or make it a multi-sport game--kinda like California Games.---until the genre is less saturated they need to offer these action sport games in a different way--not must more Tony Hawk(1,2,3,4,5) or Skate (1,2...) The experiences are limited in their scope--expand the scope and you might beable to pull people back---or even try doing a 2d game like Skate or Die or T&C Surf Design---try a Tony Hawk 2-D--it would definitely hit on the old school/reminiscence string that Nintendo has been chiming into lately.