Arcade Rhythm Games in Japan Part 2.5 - Why is GITADORA Still Alive While Guitar Hero is Already Dead?

After writing the last blog on GITADORA, I kept thinking why the game is still alive and able to make money for KONAMI (otherwise development would have also stopped) while its American descendants, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are discontinued. I don't believe it's a cultural phenomenon when it comes to rhythm games, because music itself, is multicultural. Music with vocals and lyrics may be less appreciated outside its home region, since language can be the thing that stands between foreign audiences and the music. However, for instrumental/electronic music, this gap doesn't exist -- it's just the rhythm and the beat, and they don't require any cultural or language backgrounds.

I've read some articles online, and I found an article on The Guardian blames "the lack of 'game-changing' innovation" for the death of Guitar Hero (Stuart, theguardian.com). This is, partially true. New contents is always needed if a sequence of a game is to be made and sold -- nobody wants to pay for something they already have, or something that is very similar. It is true that gameplay remained almost the same throughout all Guitar Hero games (except for Guitar Hero Live, which was also a failure), and each new version is basically adding new songs and re-skinning the game. But there are also games that are successful throughout a decade or even longer, while the core gameplay remains the same -- basically competitive games like Counter Strike, League of Legends and fighting games. Competitive games are generally non story-driven, and they receive very few significant changes in gameplay because of their nature -- new systems are equivalent to new skills to master, and it's usually not a good idea to implement new systems frequently as players may not be learning that fast.

Figure 1, photograph by Bunker

Let's get back to "the lack of 'game-changing' innovation". As for GITADORA, the gameplay only changed once during its 20-year life span, and the only change was adding 2 fret buttons on guitars, and adding 3 more percussion pads on the drums. However, unlike Activision (the publisher of Guitar Hero), KONAMI sees its rhythm games as competitive games while Activision considers Guitar Hero as a casual game to play at parties, and aiming at a broader audience (that are less loyal to the game). KONAMI has been organizing arcade tournaments (of its own arcade games, of course) for at least 13 years, as the video of the earliest tournament I can find on the internet (DAIKI.K, 2018), is a GuitarFreaks V2 tournament, and the game was released in 2005. Organizing tournaments is also a strategy used by the competitive games' developers and publishers on PC to promote their games, along with lots of other fan economies.

Figure 2, picture of the crowd in front of the KONAMI Arcade Championship stage (which is on the left, outside of the frame) at 2015 Japan Amusement Expo by 佐々木秀二 , 2015

I have to admit that defining its rhythm games as competitive games is a very wise move by KONAMI. The producers clearly understand that rhythm games are basically all about smashing buttons to the beat, and this is nearly impossible to change. After all, music is just playing the correct notes at the correct time, and rhythm games are just following this nature of music. People have asked me, why I keep playing those button-smashing games for years, and I simply ask them what keeps them playing League of Legends (if the person who asked me the question happened to play the game). Playing with friends is one of the answers, but the biggest reason is always they're trying to reach a higher tier at each competitive season, or at least not getting a lower tier. This is also the biggest reason for me to play GITADORA (music is also important, though). Each player has his/her own skill rating and is also assigned a tier according to that rating. In order to encourage players to unlock new contents and play the game, the skill rating is calculated from the player's best 25 scores in songs from previous versions, plus the best 25 scores in songs from the latest version. The latter is driving players to play and unlock new songs, because there are too few new songs (compared to the song list from the older versions), and their difficulties don't always fit into the player's tier. Some songs can be too easy, bringing too few skill points (since the skill points you get from a song is also based on difficulty), and the player needs something harder to get more points. Or they can be too hard for the player to score high, that the player needs something easier. However, Guitar Hero doesn't give me such incentive, neither Rock Band. KONAMI has made its rhythm games into hardcore games for the few but cohesive and loyal hardcore gamers, while Guitar Hero and Rock Band is aiming at casual players that would lost interest in the game soon.

In short, Guitar Hero failed to create a loyal fanbase to the series, and the publisher, Activision isn't advertising the game in the proper way. But this isn't the only problem that led to the downfall of Guitar Hero -- the game isn't being hardcore in the proper way.

I've played the Guitar Hero arcade, and to be honest, I'm not having much fun with it. The biggest problem is that the notes are way too large, and they're moving too slowly. I admit that big notes that move slow is easy to read and it's definitely friendly to those who just want to play at easy difficulty, but since the notes are moving so slowly, it nearly impossible to make a proper muscle reaction to the notes. When you look at the "good", or "above average" rhythm gamers' gameplay videos, you'll find that they tend to make the notes drop fast, because it's easier to tell the note values when there's enough space between them. It seems hard to read at those speeds, but once you've built your skills, it just becomes natural to read at that speed. Back to Guitar Hero, since the notes are flowing so slowly along the lanes, it's nearly impossible to read and time the charts with higher density. "Fortunately", the timing for Guitar Hero is very loose: it's either hit, or miss. I'm saying "Fortunately" because this is one of the worst designs in rhythm games, because it allows players to score by spamming the buttons in high density charts (other than actually hitting the buttons and strumming precisely to the time), while this mechanism is necessary to compensate the high density charts that are too hard to read and time properly. I've looked up on Activision's website, and I've found a post in the Activision forum stating that the Guitar Hero games generally have timing windows from 100 to 160 milliseconds (reply by Wattershed, community.activision.com), which is ridiculously wide for rhythm games. GITADORA, with one of the widest timing window among KONAMI's rhythm games, has a timing window of only 33 milliseconds for perfect hits (this is from my personal experience: in GITADORA, the difference between the time you hit the note and the actual perfect time is shown on the screen, and the biggest difference I've ever seen before getting a "great", which is just worse than a perfect hit, is 33 milliseconds)-- one of the reasons I keep seeing people who claim that they're good at Guitar Hero, then get destroyed even by the medium difficulty charts in GITADORA because they can't time at all. I've put a Guitar Hero video and a GITADORA (guitar side) video below, notice that the Guitar Hero chart consists of basically 16th triplets and 32nd notes in the hyperpicking sections and you can't hear the player tapping any of such beats, while the GITADORA player's strumming matches precisely with the notes and the music (including the 16th notes and 16th triplets).

WORLD RECORD ~ULTIMATE ZOIDBERG CHALLENGE~ 1.3 MILLION by LeafGreenHD, 2017

GITADORA 煉獄事変MAS-G excellent by  ななろく音ゲー, 2018

I'm not saying there's no skill involved in Guitar Hero and in fact, thanks to the super wide timing window, such charts with insane density is only playable in Guitar Hero. It still takes a certain level of mastery to achieve the score in the video, or to get 100% in the expert chart of Through The Fires and Flames (by Dragonforce) in Guitar Hero. There charts are still hard and challenging to play, but it's already off from what a rhythm game should be -- hit the notes precisely to the beat, not spamming the notes (but of course, no human would be able to get those scores with a 33 millisecond timing window).

References

Bunker, Michael. (2011, Feb. 17). Getty Images for Activision. retrieved   from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/what-killed-guitar-hero-99761

DAIKI.K. (2018, Feb. 11). BEMANIトップランカー決定戦 Guitar Freaks V2. retrieved from   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslOn5NSdfM

LeafGreenHD. (2017, May. 7). WORLD RECORD ~ULTIMATE ZOIDBERG CHALLENGE~ 1.3   MILLION. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9UFIv08L6E&t=30s

Stuart, Keith. (2011, Feb. 10). Guitar Hero axed: five reasons why music games are dying. retrieved   from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2011/feb/10/guitar-hero-axed

Wattershed. (2009, Oct. 9). Margin for missing notes, in milliseconds?. retrieved     from https://community.activision.com/t5/Guitar-Hero-5/Margin-for-missing-notes-in-milliseconds/m-p/7419483

佐々木秀二. (2015, Feb. 26). 新たなBEMANI王者達が誕生。最高峰の戦いが繰り広げられた「The 4th KONAMI Arcade Championship」フォトレポート. retrieved   from https://www.4gamer.net/games/292/G029210/20150219125/

ななろく音ゲー. (2018, May. 18). GITADORA 煉獄事変MAS-G excellent. retrieved   from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOjSAyCO7CM&t=76s