Music game revenue down 36% so far this year

Music games off 36% this year, EA expects Rock Band sales down $400 million

Rock-band-2-box-1 Buried in today's Elecrtonic Arts earnings call (which I won't have time to fully report on for reasons that will be apparent soon; I recommend the Gamasutra write-up) was this amazing revelation from COO John Pleasants: Revenue for music/rhythm games was down 36% during the first quarter of the year and 42% in March, per NPD. As a result, EA has cut the gross sales revenue it expects from its EA Partner division, which distributes "Rock Band" for Viacom.

That's a huge decline. And keep in mind that there weren't any major music game releases during the first quarter of last year, while 2009 saw "Guitar Hero: Metallica" (albeit at the very end of March). As we started to see in late 2008, sales of "Rock Band 2" and "Guitar Hero: World Tour" must be down massively from the original "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero III."

And while EA CEO John Riccitiello said he feels "really bullish" about "Rock Band: Beatles Edition," the fact that the company is expecting $400 million less in sales indicates just how big an impact continued sales of "Rock Band" through last year mattered, and how far "Rock Band 2" is lagging.

No wonder Viacom blamed a "challenging comparison to the particularly strong initial sales of the music video game Rock Band in the first quarter 2008," to put it mildly, for the 37% drop in its ancillary revenues (mainly "Rock Band") in its earnings for last quarter. And this comes after the revelation that even when it was selling well, "Rock Band" lost money for Viacom due to hardware manufacturing costs.

And no wonder Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick recently brought in a heavy hitter, former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig, to oversee its critical "Guitar Hero" business.

Given the high price of music games, of course, it's hard to know how much of the decline is recession-driven. But with declines that dramatic, there's clearly something bigger going on. Consumers are getting tired of the slew of new music games. And/or they're happy with the ones they already have. And/or everybody who wants "Rock Band" or "Guitar Hero" has it. The market may not expand as broadly as many in the industry have been better.

http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scen ... llion.html

Oh no, what will they do now not having all those extra millions to roll around in while they pump out crap tie-in number 2876?

The music bubble has strawberry floating burst or will do so soon :lol:

Only about twenty or so more years to go before gaming is fully accepted by the masses like television and cinema is. Hopefully by then we'll stop getting such gooseberry fool 'casual' games.

$ilva $hadow wrote:Hopefully by then we'll stop getting such gooseberry fool 'casual' games.

Rock Band is only gooseberry fool to people who are beyond salvation.

Eighthours wrote:
$ilva $hadow wrote:Hopefully by then we'll stop getting such gooseberry fool 'casual' games.

Rock Band is only gooseberry fool to people who are beyond salvation.

Bigerich wrote:
Eighthours wrote:
$ilva $hadow wrote:Hopefully by then we'll stop getting such gooseberry fool 'casual' games.

Rock Band is only gooseberry fool to people who are beyond salvation.

Guitar hero on the other hand...

Just what is the point in BAND hero? Isnt it the same strawberry floating game?

Eighthours wrote:
$ilva $hadow wrote:Hopefully by then we'll stop getting such gooseberry fool 'casual' games.

Rock Band is only gooseberry fool to people who are beyond salvation.

I was well beyond salvation before Rock Band, thank you very much.

With so many perhipherals it is a genre that is going to his saturation faster than others. Played the first GH on the PS2 years ago and that was enough for me. The idea of having loads of plastic instruments cluttering up my flat is a no no.

There is still plenty of money to be made, but they need to focus on downloads and retail song packs. People no longer want bundles instruments as they are happy with the ones they have.

As cool as big plastic instruments are, BEATS on the PSP represents the best in the genre for me at the minute due to the fact I can load ANY MP3 off a memory stick and thrash it out. Its as hard as the song I use and throwing in a 15-minute trance epic (or Lightning Strikes by Snow Patrol) on hard and it soon sorts the men from the boys.

I don't actually know what the market for these games are, but I imagine they've enticed a fair share of people who did not play video games before to actually take a stab at gaming. I've heard of girls playing these games, apart from DS games and Wii sports games, I've never heard of any other games that girls play. That's pretty damn awesome.

If a girl ever takes a stab at my gaming taste, I can finally take throw a haymaker with Rock Band and other games as such.

I'm still waiting for Classical Hero.

Not at all surprising considering Guitar Hero 3 was so ubiquitous (8 or 9 million in the US alone).

A large proportion of the people who bought GH3 will be happy with just that game for the rest of the generation.

abcd wrote:I'm still waiting for Classical Hero.

Me too.

I just want one of the games to have a Telecaster peripheral

I'd give Opera Hero a go.

I'd break out Red Alert and perform Hell March in the morning. I'd raid the Total Annihlation soundtrack and freak the neighbours out, they'd think I was waging war. I'd probably start a revolution in my living room with The March Unto Death:

Not saying I'd buy it though, just that I'd give it a go.

It's their own fault. Like everything in this world, once you get onto a good thing (a horse, say), you ride it for all its worth & then the wheels fall off (or the legs if you're on a horse).

Possibly the worst analogy ever posted on this forum, but you get the point. banana splits. Ect.

$ilva $hadow wrote:I'd give Opera Hero a go.

I'd break out Red Alert and perform Hell March in the morning. I'd raid the Total Annihlation soundtrack and freak the neighbours out, they'd think I was waging war. I'd probably start a revolution in my living room with The March Unto Death:

Not saying I'd buy it though, just that I'd give it a go.

Total Annihilation, in my opinion in leagues with Starcraft as one of the best RTS games ever made.

About strawberry floating time we saw a dip in the plastic instrument cash cow genre.

Does this mean DJ Hero is canned?

Oh noes.

$ilva $hadow wrote:If a girl ever takes a stab at my gaming taste, I can finally take throw a haymaker with Rock Band and other games as such.

You sound like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

Did anyone really think they would be able to sustain those sales levels?

Music game revenue down 36% so far this year

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