14 DAY TRIAL // The music game genre is seeing a massive popularity increase this time of the year, as more and more customers are attracted to the entertainment that these titles provide. The fact that people can play with their friends or family is also a major feature that will certainly generate big sales for releases such as Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or Wii Music.
Nevertheless, even though Guitar Hero is selling more than Rock Band, the owners of the game say that actual bands prefer to bring their songs to the Harmonix-developed game. Viacom, the company that owns MTV Games, which in its turn publishes the Rock Band game, has now revealed its point of view on the very successful franchise that saw the second game launch a few months ago.
Philippe Dauman, the CEO of Viacom, expressed his opinion that the Rock Band series was a major revenue generator, and, even though it might not match in sales Activision's Guitar Hero series, the fact of the matter was that talented bands recognized the potential of this game. He went on to say that things such as the DLC (Downloadable Content) delivery system, or the peripheral instrument sales would guarantee attention for the Rock Band franchise.
“There's a strong music orientation to our company; many of our networks are ideal vehicles to promote the game, and you'll see more and more of that as we move forward. We also have the opportunity to attract talent to Rock Band in a way that our competitors have greater difficulty doing. We view this as a strong long-term franchise for us,” Dauman said.
All in all, these are some quite interesting statements that are aimed directly at Activision, and the fact that its policy of having bands come to them and be grateful that they are granted a part in Guitar Hero isn't working very good. After all, such a strategy has made the major corporation lose the contract with legendary band The Beatles, which chose Harmonix for its game.