11/26/07

Touring Rock Band

rock band tour schedule
Clear your calendar and reschedule your girlfriend's birthday dinner, boy, because you've got somewhere else to be.

The video game business is good these days. Really good. The moneymen in the marketing department don't even need to read the proposals they sign off on too carefully anymore apparently. That's why Halo 3 got a soft drink, and that's why, in what can only be described as an unspired (see what I did there) game marketing maneuver, Rock Band is attempting a "tour" to promote its new rhythm game. Oh I know, me too.
Rock Band outfitted tour rigs will spread across the country on a 24 city tour – from California to Cleveland, Atlanta to Arizona and everywhere in between – to give music fans the chance to play on a full concert style stage with all of the lights and monster sound systems they’re used to seeing at a classic arena rock concert. Whether consumers are instrument experts or gear rookies, everyone will get a chance to rock with Rock Band.
Although I don't understand why anyone would prefer picking up a fake guitar to a real one, I try to accept it. But if people actually show up to be spectators at this kind of thing -- to see shut-ins with fluorescent tans "rock out" on stage with guitar-shaped controllers -- I'm going into seclusion.

6 comments:

  1. Because it's a fun and easy way to feel like you're making music. Not everyone can afford a real guitar and put in the time to learn it. The payoff is much faster and more accessible to press 5 colored buttons on a toy guitar to earn a high score in a game.

    Why do you play Call of Duty when you could go buy a real gun and learn how to shoot it? Same idea.

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  2. A real guitar costs less than rockband, and about as much as GHIII with game/controller.

    I wont even start with your COD article.

    But honestly, fine by me. If the dudes in Sugar Ray or Nickelback were too busy learning guitar hero riffs to rape my ears, let the jocks of today think they're making music and clickclicklcikclcickclcick away.

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  3. You fail to mention the amount of time and money it takes to LEARN how to play a real instrument with any sort of aplomb.

    It's a video game. It takes about 5 minutes to learn how to play it. Most people play it for fun and/or for the social interactions it brings at a house party or bar. No one is positing that playing guitar hero or rock band is actually playing real music. Not everyone has the stones to be a "real" musician so stop pissing in their cornflakes and go troll back in Narnia from whence you came.

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  4. Ok. The point I wanted to make in the original post wasn't that Rock Band itself is inherently lame (I'll let everyone make up their own mind about that). My point is that the Rock Band TOUR is inherently lame, and anybody that shows up to watch people pretend to play fake instruments on a stage should be locked in a broom closet.

    unless we're talking about that air guitar competition. that's actually kinda cool...

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  5. i imagine the point of the tour is to increase awareness for the game and to give people a live demonstration of the hardware. it's the type of game that NEEDS to be demo'd for people to get it. the people who are PLANNING on attending are generally rhythm game fans who want to play/test drive the new game. in turn, once random shoppers SEE it in action, they are more likely to buy it or plan to buy it if it tickles their fancy.

    now if anyone shows up SOLELY because they think they are a rock star and people will love them like one, you can lock them up in a broom closet and have them scoop out each others' buttholes

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