There’s no denying that music games are over-saturating the market. Every other week there is a new Guitar Hero being announced, but no-one seems to be buying them. Both The Beatles Rock Band and DJ Hero did pretty poorly in sales but why is this?
Michael Pachter, one of the most prominent analysts in the industry, puts it down to the fact that each game gives us way too much content.
“(Game) publishers have probably done themselves a disservice by giving us way too much value for our money with each of these games. You just get way too much content. The installed base has a lot of music, and they don’t really need a lot more. It’s sort of like buying more books when you have a stack of books left to read. You just don’t.”
I’m still playing Rock Band 2 almost a year or so on but I did still buy The Beatles Rock Band and I’m even considering DJ Hero. For me, the reason why I don’t buy certain music games now is because of the setlists. If a game has an average setlist *cough*GuitarHero5*cough* I’m not going to buy it. Sure, having loads of plastic instruments is a pain but I don’t mind having them around. I can see where Pachter is coming from but other factors definitely are in play.