XbhaskarX

You do realize you're not talking about "Duke Journal of Influential People" here, right? You're talking about Time magazine. The magazine whose editors chose "You" as person of the year a couple years ago.

No offense if you're one of them, but they're fucking morons.

sxp151, the happy-headed nose

TheKat

[en.wikipedia.org]
[en.wikipedia.org]

Those came BEFORE Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Americo

rock band isn't some sort of music savior, if this is the only way people got exposed to some of the all time greats, well, that's because those people are....well, that much is up to the reader to decide. but thanks to harmonix for exposing that group to true greatness.

HAGE

Great game? Or greatest game?

It's one of those things where it's cool that Rock Band is exposing people to all kinds of classic songs, but it's also disappointing that it takes a video game for this to happen.

Because lord knows that music knowledge was something you used to be able to pull from a radio or certain television network (which ironically enough is one of the companies invested in this game)

I'm still waiting for MTV to spin the success of Rock Band into an excuse to make a "MTV4" which will feature 24-hour classic music...for about a month. At which point it will be taken over by Real World reruns and random episodes of Next.

TRT-X

Really, the list and write-ups were done mostly by peers. Of course academic integrity and review are foreign concepts to quite a few of you.

RPGr

HAGE

If you somehow think there was no innovation or risk with Guitar Hero, think back on how many expensive custom-peripheral games have been million sellers in the US market. Singstar was a proven success over here in Europe but that thing just comes with a free crappy mic; DDR and ITG are primarily arcade games with cheap home ports that come with £5 soft mats.

randomnine

RPGr

Is Watt's credit undeserved just because it built on the prior work of others? No, because it was still revolutionary in what his version of it did for the world. In the same way, Harmonix can deservedly take the credit for truly popularising rhythm games with their special brand of them.

freakout

It is a mystery.

Channing

More like creating a bunch of bandwagoners.

Ping5000

The developers of Rock Band expanded slightly upon the Guitar Hero formula. They took Guitar Hero, Singstar, and the generic drumming game that's been appearing in every rhythm game for years, and combined them. What a shocker: that the same formula they took a chance on for Guitar Hero (that licensed music and silly peripherals would turn a niche game into a mainstream game) would work if they charged even more for it.

Indeed, that's innovation. Or you could try something totally different, like Miyamoto did with Wii Fit, and actually risk all the internet nerdcore trashing it without ever trying anything like it. But why should anyone reward actual experimentation? "Innovation" should be defined as doing the exact same thing you've been doing, and getting it to not suck.

sxp151, the happy-headed nose

Struct09

:<

buzz_kirkwood

Madnoir

ZombiePuppy

akashhhhh

Tell me you were being ironic (Wii Fit allusion) and you're my New Friend.

In case you weren't being ironic: I am eating a delicious bowl of soup. Chickpea and garlic base, with diced red onions and chunky tofu and many other vegetables. It's my own recipe. I'm sure someone has made a soup like it before, though I can't find cans of it anywhere. I'm sure hundreds of thousands of people would love it. Though getting it out on the market and making millions of dollars with it in the profoundly frustrating modern business world is more of a challenge than I'm willing to face at this very moment.

@Mikintosh: "the only reason Rock Band's gotten recognition is because it uses a whole band, not just the guitar. If they had just done another guitar game, you never would have heard of Harmonix again."

Yes, though you have to admit, it's a pretty fuckin' great idea. Me personally, I hate music games; I prefer to attempt to play a real guitar very loudly with my drum-banging friend a couple times a week.

Still! Hell of a business move! The first Guitar Hero was a proof of concept -- that Americans The World Over could love Japanese Guitar Freaks-style rhythm games. The second one got real songs, not just shitty covers. Et cetera.

What strikes me most is not that Guitar Hero "ripped off" Guitar Freaks -- it's that Guitar Freaks never bothered to come to America, despite the stealthily growing DDR fanbase. Then again, Konami's marketing as it exists outside Kojima P has been absolute shit pretty much forever.

Japanese game companies, for the longest time, have shunned the idea that Japanese people might play videogames together, at home. Witness Sony Japan scoffing at the potential EyeToy. Their argument was always "Japanese people are different from foreigners". Someone like Kojima was able to achieve greater success overseas than at home; why didn't the BeatMania marketers, with their full range of music games, consider taking the initiative, putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and releasing a Rock-Band-game in America?

So yeah, cheers to these guys for having the crazy fortitude to go through and get this thing out on the street. They deserve to be in TIME at least as much as Miyamoto does.

Not even going to look over this before posting it!

108

RickyTV

*could you be

Damn a no edit function

NeoAkira

Palladium

geoffcbassett

Oh, and obligatory "that's how you really do it Neversoft".

JarenFace

If It wasn't for these games, I would've never listened to rock.

Now I'm proud to be listening to my dad's music.. hahah

Ruzzel26

geoffcbassett

MTV ripped away Guitar Hero's developer (Harmonix) from its publisher (Activision) in order to create its own version; the only reason Rock Band's gotten recognition is because it uses a whole band, not just the guitar. If they had just done another guitar game, you never would have heard of Harmonix again.

Mikintosh

I'm not sure making a music game is innovative, considering it was done before...what? what's that you say? the over-priced plastic rod with 5 buttons on it makes it innovative? well who knew...

NeoAkira

+ Watch video

Palladium

Mandes

Mikintosh

One of these days, I'm going to remember to read the Wikipedia article about Rock Band / Guitar Hero to learn how it came to be that they're two different games, and not one big money-owning conglomerate.

I'm pretty sure it'll be summarized in one sentence featuring the word "copyright" or something ridiculous like that.

108

PatMan33