Sales Are In

[drgnrbrn316]

On the bright side, it seems to be getting some advertising now, on a variety of stations. Not sure why they'd wait for two weeks after the release, but hey, it's there now.

[davidshek]

Is there anything actually "new" about the drums aside from "The cymbals are round instead of triangles?"

A few things, but nothing major. There was a slight redesign of the drum pads, so they're a bit quieter and bouncier, and the controller box clips on and off the drum kit. That's about it though.

[Bullseye]

Not too surprising. Both LRB and BH are both pretty much glorified track packs. And they are marketed towards such a small part of the market. I don't see tweens and younger being the main buyers of video games and the setlists on both are very much geared towards younger audiences. Activision has completely over saturated it's GH genre (to the point that they sacrificed GHVH as a freebie for buying GH5). And LRB is suffering from the September release of TB:RB, which is clearly the game of choice for the casual RB crowd. Well, the good news is this might prevent both companies from making more watered down (although BH is pretty much a full featured game, just a watered down setlist) music games.

[MooTrain]

Also not overly surprised. Most people I know who are into Rock Band didn't know about Lego Rock Band. When they saw the track list they were like - 'that's it?'

A number of things led to the low sales numbers - none of which are to be blamed on the "recession".

1. An oversaturation of music games available on the marketplace. Thanks to there being about 10 guitar hero / rock band releases this year, a few of them are bound to fail. It also means that savvy consumers realize they'll be able to get the games for cheaper - if they wait six months most of these games will be found on sale. It also reduces the desireability since there is definitely a 'been there done that' feel to it.

2. A bad time to release a game. If you're a hardcore gamer like me, you know that in November, each week at least one A+++ title is being released: Dragon Age, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left for Dead 2, Assassin's Creed 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii... There's far too much to keep up with, so you look for reasons to wait on a title rather than jump in right away. I think LRB would have been wise to release in Q1 2010, since it's partially been lost in a sea of releases. On top of the swarm of games I want, I also have to put aside money for christmas gifts, which makes it impossible to buy most of the titles I'm interested in until after Christmas.

3. LRB is not amazing. Yes, it's very very good. There are some amazing moments when you play it (pretty much every specialized stage is awesome to play on - watching a video of the Ghostbusters stage is what sold me on the title). But there are some serious design oversights that a lot of people who did buy have legitimate gripes about. When you look at the track list - which is short in comparison to other mixed-band music games released in the past year (RB2, GH4&5, Band Hero) - it's just not that inspiring.

4. Lack of word of mouth. On other video game forums I visit, one of which has a thousand+ page post about Rock Band DLC, the Lego Rock Band thread is under 100 posts - and only a handful of gamers on that site purchased the game. The forum effect tends to sell titles - one of the top reasons people buy games, in my experience, is because they can share that experience with others.

5. Lack of Advertising. Probably related to #4.

6. Poorly reviewed. I can't believe we live in a world where 75% is considered a bad review - it's like 3 of 4 stars; that's what it would be if it was a movie - but in the video game industry, anything less than 90% is often considered a poor review by the general public (or raving lunatic fanboys), and a lot of games that meta in the 75% range end up being mostly ignored. Reviews do tend to drive sales to a degree.

At least things aren't as bad as Rock Revolution. I suspect Lego Rock Band will have a decent number of sales leading through the holiday season and not be a front-heavy sales game.

[Quaszar]

). And LRB is suffering from the September release of TB:RB, which is clearly the game of choice for the casual RB crowd. .

Rockband is not a "kids" game even though that is the market they were going after with LRB which is why the sales aren't very good. On the other hand TBRB sales aren't where Harmonix wants them to be either. A classic rock station DJ recently said that TBRB will be LUCKY to break even by the end of the year. Even with upcoming DLC they won't be making money on TBRB by Jan 1st. Just how much did it cost to make TBRB? Was the license fee that HIGH? Did they underestimate how many people would buy TBRB? Not here to bash the Beatles but I find it very hard to believe that The Beatles were RB's 1st choice for a stand alone music game. I know of only 1 person (friend of a friend) that bought TBRB and I am told he hardly plays it now. Big picture- RB has only scratched the surface of bands (new or old) to be available for DLC/stand alone game and with new music always coming out the future is pretty bright even with the misses (LRB)....

[T-Hybrid]

Both LRB and BH are both pretty much glorified track packs...

You...haven't actually played LEGO have you?

[MooTrain]

You...haven't actually played LEGO have you?

Unfortunately, the 'glorified track pack' is a part of the perception of the general public when it comes to Lego Rock Band. The general public sees it as just another rock band game with lego skins tacked on. Additionally, anyone who has tried to play the game and found that 50% of their DLC does not work - who you personally have told to 'just put in Rock Band 2' - see this as pretty much that.

It goes back to the word of mouth point I have as #4 in my list above. Discussion about L:RB off of these forums is ... well - ranging from Quiet to Non-Existent.

For example: Over on gamingtrend, which is a pretty popular general console gaming forum
http://www.gamingtrend.com/forums/in...topic=32754.40

Only about fifteen posts regarding the game since it was released - most of them negative, hitting up the same three tired points that are mentioned here. (Why is 50% of my DLC missing; Why are the Queen songs in the DLC not available to play; Can't delete songs from the export; The songlist is too small; The export costs more money?!?) There's definitely a community there that plays Rock Band (the thread about DLC news is 2,240 posts) but they most certainly don't have an interest in Lego Rock Band.

Sadly, gamers are fickle. Makes sense - there's only so much free time in the day. So why invest time in a less than stellar game? When you take options away from gamers, all you're doing is causing players to focus on the negatives, and it hurts the end product as a result.

[kingtonyx]

Like I said, LEGO would be better (I assume, I mean I'm enjoying it?) but Band Hero would be the better seller.

Although I did expect better sales overall for both.

[XacharyCross]

Yeah, Lego RB wasn't really advertised a lot, and if you tell someone it exists, they usually get the "HuH?" response that went with most of the early rumors on here.

Add in a low track count (though I'd say that's more that RB2 and the newer GH's have kind of overblown that thing, remember the first GH had what, 15 songs of which 14 were covers, or so) and it's gonna be more of an afterthought, especially with all the video game competition this time of year and even moreso, the general economic state and christmas pressure on folks budgets.

[Cliphead]

Not here to bash the Beatles but I find it very hard to believe that The Beatles were RB's 1st choice for a stand alone music game. I know of only 1 person (friend of a friend) that bought TBRB and I am told he hardly plays it now

They must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel to get the most popular band in history, and as of September, the second best-selling artist of this decade. Who would want to buy a game based on them?