September 24, 2009

Hey, how about customized track lists?
By Michael Lafferty 

Could a voucher system allow players to create own song lists for rhythm-genre games?

Whether you are a Rock Band fan, or one of the Guitar Hero faithful, you know that at the heart and soul of the games are the song lists. After all, the game mechanics are quite similar (discounting the three-part harmonies brought in by The Beatles: Rock Band) and someone who has played one certainly will not have to fumble to understand the other.

The note highways are the same, the fundamental game modes are similar and while there are minor differences, the games are much like any other game in a particular genre. First-person shooters, for example, are more or less the same mechanics. There are some innovations, but the core elements are the same. What sets those apart are the story arcs, for the most part – which are designed to draw a player into the world and give him or her a reason for moving forward.

Which brings us back to the music-rhythm genre, and Rock Band and Guitar Hero in particular. If the track list does not resonant with gamers, chances are they will not care much about the game. And with so many releases now coming down the pipe, focusing on bands, there is a chance that the genre may become saturated to the point that gamers stop rushing out to buy the next iteration. After all, why buy game 7 in the series when chunks of the song list have appeared in games 1, 2 and 4.

And there is little doubt that when the developers are creating the track lists for the game that they are trying to appeal to as broad a range of people as possible – with both demographics and geographical location coming into play. Something that is well received in Southern California might be a total miss in Montana. Gamers in Topeka might not care about emulating the Seattle grunge sound in a game.

So what is the solution?

Well, here’s a thought … Instead of developers trying to find common appeal, why don’t they focus on improving game mechanics, moving it forward and coming up with new ideas to propel the game play. Certainly they have to consider songs and chart the songs for the game, but rather than go with 45 songs (like the recent Beatles’ release – and you can bet that the catalogue of songs recorded by the band, which is quite a few more than 45, will be revisited often in the form of purchased downloads), or 75 tracks, why not put together a song list of 200 or so songs, including songs from previous iterations of a certain franchise. But instead of putting those songs in the actual game release for the PlayStation 2 or Xbox 360, put the songs into the marketplace via PSN or LIVE. Then allow players to use a voucher code contained in the purchase of the game to choose the tracks they want from the available library.

Say you pick up GH 7 or RB 4 and the voucher is for 50-60 songs from a catalogue of more than 300 songs – which runs the gamut from classic rock to modern rock, country to punk, from one-hit wonders or from a mini-catalogue by the band (say five songs from The Who, or the latest album by The Killers). Allow players to customize their song list to suit their personal tastes in music.

If they dip into the catalogue and snag three songs, from eight offered (hypothetical), for the Rolling Stones, or Arctic Monkeys, and fill out their song list, it would seem reasonable that after that voucher is used that additional songs can be purchased independently for a set price. Chances are that you might not find two track lists that are the same.

What would that mean to online multiplayer? Quite a lot, actually – because you couldn’t just log in and join a band or battle against someone who didn’t have the same songs as you, but that might be where a more detailed match-making system comes into play, or the whole idea of multiplayer is revised.

If you have paid attention to forums of late, you will see that some people are very happy to buy a game that contains a couple of songs they really wanted to play. How many more would buy a game if the track list was completely customizable and they could tailor the game markedly.

There are other logistics to iron out, and this is merely tossing a notion out there. Still, stagnation will kill the genre quickly and if a game wants to ring true with as broad a demographic as possible, then the developers have to start to think outside of the box (figuratively and literally).
 

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