News and announcements from That Authoring Group

[ShoTTySLanKiN]

in my opinion, it's because Rock Band 3 has far too little to enjoy.

Really dude, there isn't anything in the previous editions that's drastically different for RB3. I prefer RB3 all the way!!!

[wafflerevolution]

well, RB3 has the shortest most un-involved story. almost all the challenges revolve around the on-disc tracks which personally I like less than 25% of. the "all instrument mode" has completely stopped my family from playing together. (it REALLY should be optional) the vocals were all but ruined by removing the sensitivity options... HMX even admits to that one to a point. for some reason "they didn't think people would play the game loud or in loud places". most of the VS modes for online play were removed. most of the backgrounds are far too distracting and/or flashy. the animations are cheesy and only make sense when playing happy pop songs. really, there's no real motivation to buy or play DLC at all... with the exception of a few Queen songs, Dave Grohl songs and a few others that have unique challenges, achievements and trophies... so really, other than casual "pick-up-and-play a song or two" people, RB3 left a lot of people in the cold. I know many, many people who've given up or rock band because of one or two of those things... I only stay playing because of how much cash I already sank into the first two games... RB3 became boring to me after the first day I had it due to lack of anything interesting to do after the story was done... which only took me, my wife and my kids about five and a half hours. I spent more time in the story of Guitar Hero 1 and 2 than that... and they didn't even have a story...

if you love RB3 so much, I'll assume you are a "pick-up-and-play a song or two" person. There's just no justification for MOST people... most GAMERS to play RB3. I realize people in this forum HATE that opinion but I've come to expect it. fact is, it's true. I know more people who quit RB3 with less time spent in it than any other music game ever. it gets stale too fast for most gamers... that just happens to be a fact. regardless of how anyone feels about the game one way or the other.

Even with how much I enjoy playing, I can't bring myself to play most songs more than one or two times... and if it wasn't for new DLC that I like, I would probably just stop playing RB3 all together.
In my personal opinion, for every new feature added, a handful of old features were removed. and that doesn't make for a good game... other companies do that all the time... and it's what I hate about the industry now... going for "innovation" over functionality or even consistency. RB1 was good, RB2 was great but RB3 is a step backwards to mediocre.

the argument for "the music game genre getting over-saturated" is complete fanboy bull****. do you realize how many FPS games come out a year? how many sports games? how many 3rd person sandbox games? how many racing games? how many movie tie-in games? those genres are out of control. and no one complains about them being over-saturated. Music games only got that rap because of all the bias hate from all sides. in reality, the fanboy hate killed the genre. that's the thing about civil war, no one wins.

I would have chosen RB1 or 2 over ANY GH game but 3, I cannot. at least WoR rewards you for EVERY DLC played. so even the ever-so-popular "quickplay" crowd (of which I'm not affiliated in case you haven't noticed) would be rewarded for DLC purchases. HMX stopped rewarding for DLC purchases after RB3 was launched... they COULD add achievements, Trophies and challenges with every DLC like they used to in RB2 (new and extended challenges and Battle of the Bands for example) but they don't. it's all about pleasing their quickplay crowd... and I only know 1 person in real life who I could count in that crowd and he refuses to buy RB3. everyone else I know has just given up on RB3 or only plays occasionally when DLC they REALLY like comes out.


in short, RB3 is loved by a few people. most of those people hang out in these forums. more of them hang out of facebook. and they are a more vocal bunch. they are not however, the majority.


thank you and good night.

[Oscarvarium]

RB3 has the shortest most un-involved story.

What exactly was the story of RB1/2? You're in a band, you play some songs, you get some points, you unlock some more songs. Is that such a great loss?

the "all instrument mode" has completely stopped my family from playing together. (it REALLY should be optional)

Huh? As has been explained numerous times, AIM is required due to the engine only allowing four different players to be logged in at once. It's only required if you want to have guitar/bass/keyboard playing at once, something which no other music game allows anyway so what's the problem with RB3 in that case?

really, there's no real motivation to buy or play DLC at all... with the exception of a few Queen songs, Dave Grohl songs and a few others that have unique challenges, achievements and trophies...

I don't understand this, is liking a song and wanting to play/sing it in Rock Band not enough? Do you want achievements/trophies/goals for every single song in the library?

they are not however, the majority.

Are you and your family/friends the majority instead? Can you really argue that hardcore gamers are in the majority over casual gamers? Even if they're not now, that's the direction in which pretty much all Rock Band's potential new customers lie.


You do make a few good points, and there are things about RB3 that people don't like and that's fair enough, but most of your argument is more or less nonsensical and/or based on a very specific point of view (your own, presumably centred on achievement/progression which not everybody wants). You also didn't mention the pro modes once that I saw, which are the biggest step forward in mainstream rhythm gaming since Rock Band 1.

[Skode]

Oh they have dropped.

For instance when RBN first started songs hit 10,000 downloads. When we (TAG) first started it wasn't uncommon for a song to hit 5000 downloads.

Now if it hits 1000 it's doing insanely well.

For most established labels/bands that's just no longer worth their time, unfortunately.

The problem is the bigger bands were a real added incentive for others to check out RBN when they normally would never touch it with a bargepole... Finger Eleven, Evanescence, Drowning Pool etc all bring in people for a nosey. Would have been more ideal to also have big tracks to pull in punters with the likes of Wheatus, Blondie and Dandy Warhals all at one time having interesting potential RBN songs but fell through.

As such its a lose lose situation - no bigger bands means less non-hardcore visitors to the RBN marketplace and no chance to bringing them back either as at the end of the day 1000 downloads is hee haw financially... especially when people need to remember the bands/labels only get 30% MAX from those sales and thats discounting the fact the authors need their cut. There is no money to be made for established artists anymore from RBN as far as i can see and as such RBN is no longer exciting for me.

[Bront20]

Oh they have dropped.

For instance when RBN first started songs hit 10,000 downloads. When we (TAG) first started it wasn't uncommon for a song to hit 5000 downloads.

Now if it hits 1000 it's doing insanely well.

For most established labels/bands that's just no longer worth their time, unfortunately.

Sadly, some of this is from the lack of big bands in RBN lately. Early days had Creed, Seether, Finger Eleven, Evanescence, etc. Songs that not only sold well in RBN, so sold well compared to regular DLC (Higher and Bodies I think are in the top 1000 DLC sales despite being in RBN, which is pretty impressive). That of course was good for the game in general.

Sadly, I'm sure DLC sales have declined as well, as people move on, and some folks never got to adopt RB3. But it's a two way street. Bands pulling out because of lack of sales will garner lack of sales, which will garner less bands, which will garner less sales, etc...

It'll probably take a new RB game to spur interest again at this point, and even then, it's not likely to have a huge market, as the times have changed.

[TheStuddz]

Yeah. To add to the big bands that early RBN had: Ok Go, The Shins, Iron & Wine and Band of Horses, all of whom are some of my favorite artists, were all features in the earlier days of RBN. I was hoping to be able to play more of their songs as RBN 2.0 tracks, with the added keys and harmonies support. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as if they're coming back.

The only artists to come to the RBN in the last year who I had heard of prior were The Trews and Ra Ra Riot. It looks like, for now, the days of big artists are gone.

[CloudWolf]

the "all instrument mode" has completely stopped my family from playing together.

Serious question: Why?

It's just a press of the button, why would that stop your family from enjoying the game? Do vocal scores really matter that much to them? When I play with friends and we need to put on AIM, no one cares, because we're having fun. Sure, I had to explain why harmony vocals were always on the first time, but after that it didn't matter.

[SeymourDuncan17]

I'm just gonna say it's mostly because of lack of advertising. Only recently has HMX been putting a little more effort into advertising the weekly RBN content. The RBN was hyped up so much before it was released and that must've contributed at least some to the much higher sales to even the more obscure stuff.

[SirDavidTLynch]

really, there's no real motivation to buy or play DLC at all... with the exception of a few Queen songs, Dave Grohl songs and a few others that have unique challenges, achievements and trophies...

[...]

HMX stopped rewarding for DLC purchases after RB3 was launched... they COULD add achievements, Trophies and challenges with every DLC like they used to in RB2 (new and extended challenges and Battle of the Bands for example) but they don't.

By that logic there was never any reason to buy RBN songs (the whole reason this discussion is happening in this thread). In fact, Battles never went anywhere, it's much easier to submit Battles than the RB2 method of posting in a forum thread and hoping your battle gets picked, and they can now include RBN songs.

[ShoTTySLanKiN]

"if you love RB3 so much, I'll assume you are a "pick-up-and-play a song or two" person. There's just no justification for MOST people... most GAMERS to play RB3."

This makes me laugh, I've had multiple parties as well as how you call it "Pick up and play" some people just don't have time to play for hours on end everyday to qualify for your "GAMER" status. Plus, if the story was so important to gamers than GHWOR would have been a HUGE success.

Back on topic, I think that Big Artists are a big part of continued success for the RBN as far as revenue but as long as RBN is getting people to discover new music is playing to it's original vision. Problem with that is not everyone goes and looks thru every RBN song looking for that hidden gem.