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Music Game Shark Jumpin’: Activision Possibly Too Legit to Quit, Working with MC Hammer

There’s been some talk around the gaming campfire about the possible decline of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band-styled music game. The reasons are pretty much what you’d expect: severe market saturation thanks to Guitar Hero having three very successful years across multiple consoles and games, consumer confusion over available product (what do you mean I can’t use this guitar with Rock Band on Wii?), and just could ol’ fashion fad passing. Of course, November’s NPD report showed that people aren’t quite sick of music games. They just aren’t buying them all on one system any longer. Whether or not music games are still profitable is besides the point though! What really matters is whether or not they’re still entertaining, still fresh, and whether or not there are still opportunities to add-on to the house built by Harmonix. What more can they do? Build a mic as versatile as the one included with Microsoft’s Lips? Create a procedural song generator so any song in existence can be used with the games? Stagnation is the enemy here for sure. Here’s a thought: how about trying to make a decent hip-hop game? It’s been attempted, but never successfully. Maybe that’s the next band game evolution!

But not like this, Activision. Not like this.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.