Lego Rockband was rumored a few weeks ago and many fans have been taking this as a full on attack on against them, the “core gamers”. These core gamers should only be the fans Rock Band, but I am betting many people who have not even played Rock Band are upset because they take this as an attack from the invading casual gamers. Is the hate towards Lego Rock Band a result of the Wii hate out there? I think so and here is why. There have always been causal games on all game systems without question. Let’s not forget the huge mistake Atari made with ET. It did not start from the ET it started the very second gaming companies were aware a quick dollar could be made from causal gaming. It does not mean causal games are bad either. There are a number of good casual games out there. Who does not play games like Tetris, movie based games and so on.
With all these casual games having always been out, why is there hate now for them? In some way, I think it is the influence of the Nintendo Wii on the market. This hate is coming from gamers who are upset that the Wii is winning the so called console war with sales. You will not hear the hate for the Nintendo Wii and the hate for Lego Rock Band being talked about together. it was not until the Wii’s success did most gamers start caring about casual games on the market. Many other haters have picked up the reasons why the Wii they think the Wii is not a good system. These haters would yell name of games like Ninja BreadMan as to the reasons why the Wii is not a good system. Yet, they did not seem to care when that same game came out two years before the Wii on the PS2. These causal games still sell a lot despite the so called “core gamers” hate for them. With sales of games like Cranial games and Deca games reaching over a million it is little question as to why third party companies are trying to make more casual games. Don’t forget the Wii was not out when we got the first Lego Star Wars.
“Anakin Skywalker meet Strawberry Shortcake”
Now that we have gone over the Wii and why it’s not the Wii’s fault these games come out but companies wanting to make a dollar. Let’s take a look at a game which is tied to the music genre, but not hated on when it makes causal games. At least any hate which I know of. The name of the game is Dance Dance Revolution better know has DDR. It was one of the first major music franchise predating Guitar Hero and Rock Band by many years. There are well over 50 versions of DDR games with many of them not being the core editions of the game but more casual targeted versions. Some of these casual versions are Disney, Hannah Montana, Strawberry Shortcake, High School Musical and many more titles. So where was the protest when these games came out? The fact was very few cared because the DDR fans knew it was the norm and a good way to get more DDR players. Now this is something that the Rock Band players should be looking at when thinking about the casual friendly Lego Rock Band that it is only going to get more gamers into Rock Band. The more gamers that get into Rock Band the better and stronger the title is and the better the support will be for many more sequels. Even if these new Rock Band players start at a kid level it may be something that stays with them and that they will grow to enjoy as well as other Rock Band fans. The reason for this hate may be because of the Wii that so called core gamers are taking more notice to casual games. But that does not mean you, the fan, should get caught up in the hate.
Well said--as a core gamer that also likes the casual, I prefer the best of both worlds when I play--you still have fun either way.
ReplyDeleteYou got it. A gamer likes games it should not matter if the game is core or casual. It should only matter that the game was enjoyable. I did not bring this up during the blog but the first DDR game I played was the Disney one on the PS1. I fell in love with DDR and still play it and buy most of the DDR games to this day.
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