The Next Step for Music Games

At this point, how you play music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band—with note tracks/peripherals—won’t be changing anytime soon. These mechanics work well without being too complex. The differences between the two will come down to is auxiliary features, presentation and most of all, track listings. The enjoyment of these types of games can be directly related to how much you enjoy the music within them. And as a fan of independent music, this has been a drawback for me—there is isn’t that many bands in these games I enjoy listening to outside of the game.

One thing that I hope might change this is Harmonix’s development platform, Rock Band Network. It allows anyone who owns the rights to a song to publish that song on Rock Band. The owner of the song will be given all the tools necessary to do things like note tracking and character animation. This means Rock Band content isn’t limited to the amount of resources Harmonix has, thus we should see an exponential growth in the music library, given there is enough support. Early signs show there will be support, with one of the biggest indie labels out there, Sub Pop, planning to bring all of their music to Rock Band.

Rock Band Network looks to be a very powerful way for anyone to get their music into Rock Band and it seems to be the next step for the music game genre. Click read more to see some of the tools demoed.


Ben says:

Ben