Report on music games from DPad

[sherl0k]

The Game II linked me to this somewhat interesting article dealing with music games (mostly DDR and Guitar Hero) and how they've become mainstream. They also report Activision releasing Guitar and Drum Villain in the article, which was recently trademarked just a few weeks ago. At least now we can confirm that the games are indeed in development.

The one thing that confuses me about the article is that the writer seems to believe that DDR tournaments are a "new" thing and really haven't matured, and that "they don't provide huge payouts." Someone missed the Jacob Javits tournies in NYC this past year, or the year before...

Also they put a mention in to DDRFreak and talk about how this place has been standing since 2000 but tack on an 's' to the URL, which won't lead people here.
_________________

[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

[Pakwan Kenobi]

[sherl0k]

Wasn't that JSB that won all those tournies, out in Cali?
_________________

[quote:ed1f6848c5=\\\"jaeness\\\"]get your change from obama, he apparently has tons of it.[/quote]

[good ole poster]

Wait... drum villain?

[social life ninja supreme]

[FLAteam]

I think it has plenty to do with musicianship. Wasn't it hard for you to step to a beat when you first started playing ddr? Freestylers still exist, and they have plenty of artistic talent. Its true that most people that play frequently are steppers, but even that has some musical attributes. Yeah, you could say its eye-foot/leg coordination, but (assuming the song is on sync), a lot of it has to do with music.

I haven't played guitar heroes, so I can't really say much about that game.

[jpoppyz]

they fail to mention USPF(US Pump It UP festival) and WPF(world pump it up festival) in the whole entire article. those are probably some of the biggest competitions involving a video game out there.
_________________

[AA Bob]

[Pakwan Kenobi]

sherl0k, back in the day, the bigger payout usually went to freestyle, and JSB was better at technical than at freestyle. AI2's Solo 2000 machine was won by Mel B. Matsuri AI's Solo 4th Plus was won by dj 8-ball for his Cafe routine. B3 was won by...well technical was dominated by GPF.Lith and Team Seattle. Freestyle was....Bruce Leroy, I think, and I don't remember if he got the $1000. Mike Ngo's March Madness tourneys were large in terms of participation, but never approached $1000 for 1st prize payout.

Ask the SoCal community who won their more recent big payout tourneys. I'm thinking specifically of the RGC series, since Kiba/John Locke/CEO Dude from Alpha Centauri organized those, and donated his own money for those. Something tells me it was JJK for at least one of those...
_________________

The legend will never die.

KEEP FREESTYLE ALIVE.

This is unbelievable.

[Edible Bondage Tape]

[The Game II]

My problem with the story was just the absolute lack of knowledge. I would have rather heard all of what cynan said and be content. It just showed that the author knew very little about the ddr scene (and if you read the comments, seems that way with the readers as well, aside from rantalus).

And the total lack of information about PIU nationals and world championships is just bad.

--GCII
_________________

www.getyourtournament.com
I'm back with Get Your Tournament!

[WBBulldogs]

[cooljdude]

Well, they fixed the "s" thing.

[Catastrophe]

I'm not offended by anything in this article. It seems like they're just comparing organized DDR to other organized video games, such as FPSes, RTSes, and fighters. DDR does have the most unusual popularity::organization ratio of the entire video game universe though. Every other game (that may or may not also define its genre) that is at least as half as popular as DDR seems to have a much more established competitive community. Someone at TGA was telling me about their Tony Hawk Pro Skater career and it was impressive. Seriously! The winner got $10,000 for that game too!

For Guitar Hero I know what the deal is - the game doesn't reward exceptional play. You got a 100% streak! Good for you. That's pretty much expected at the competitive level. The difference between players would be who used their score multipliers and when, and that's lame. I remember someone making an Amplitude strategizer. The output of the program was a chart that maximized your score multipliers for a given song. My inner dork was pleased, my inner gladiator was not.

For DDR I think I know what the problem is - no one wants to watch it. DDR isn't played head-to-head like RTSes, FPSes, fighters, football, baseball, chess, or whatever. No conflict. Competitive players want to have strategy even while they are simulataneously pushing something physical to their limits. For example baseball has strategy besides being a contest of strength and speed. That makes baseball fun to watch! But the lack of conflict is not the issue. If it were then nobody would care about bowing, golf, or the Olympics. The only thing that DDR lacks that those other sports have is an audience. Counter-Strike and the Boston Red Sox draw an audience. Joe Peterson, sadly, does not. (I picked him because his name is Joe.) But if Joe did draw crowds then prize money would follow and competition would follow that. If you follow me.

At TGA there are postcards on the front counter advertising a $1000 bowling tournament in NY with a $25 entry fee. Compare that to the $50/$30/$20 that DDR players usually get and the $1000 that TGA is putting up later this year. But there's no argument that bowling > DDR today. However, TGA does have a DDR league, which is like a bowling league, except that you play DDR instead. And there is a points race. C'mon! Points race! Click the links. It's like being there!

[Tsuri]

world wide and as far as arcade games are concerned music games are far more established than your average crap you can get at home no problem... the thing is arcade music games always offer something over their console counterparts... for instance 250 more songs...

And not mentioning Pump it Up World Fest was just a lack of actually looking into the genre... any of us without biases towards game series could have wrote a better article... and everyone seems to think DDR was the start... no it was Dance Aerobics for NES with the power pad... same concept without arrows.

Also there are music games where real dance are involved more so than technical feets here are some of them : 3DDX D-Tech, Dance Maniax, Pump it Up, Para Para Paradise, and Technomotion and then there are quite a few music games that use real instrument controls that do help you play said instrument... Drummania is a good example of this... so is keyboardmania.

This article feels more like a music game bash topic that basically says : "blah the concept is the same and people who play don't get laid and you know what... they're all the same game..." yet then the same person will probably praise how great and different Gears of War is despite there being a million other shooting games out there...

[DancingMewtwo]

While they are dead wrong that DDR tournaments are not new, they're spot-on with "no big payouts".

$1,000? $10,000? A machine? True, that's much higher than what usually gets paid out for video game tournaments, but here are some other things to look at:

*On TV, all you hear about are game shows that have top prizes of $1,000,000. Survivor, Millionaire, Deal or No Deal, etc. This puts the mentality in your average joe that in order to be BIG something may have to break seven figures.

*Major League Gaming's contracts that went out to some of the pros, if I'm not mistaken, were $250,000.

*The Omegathon, which was done by the Penny Arcade guys, has increased its prizes each year, and involved a car + a crapload of games/systems/stuff as its first place prize.


A good few years ago, when I got into DDR initially, I looked at the comic/novel "The 10k commotion", about a $10,000 DDR tech tournament, and said "This really needs to happen." Now it has, but it's still not enough. I don't think tournament payouts would be taken seriously by the mainstream media until there is a player who is good enough that they can live solely off of DDR tournament winnings.

Maybe MLG will pick up DDR, and we'll start to see something more along those lines. Maybe with more attention being shown to video game competitions on TV (I remember turning on CBS one Saturday and seeing some special about FPS competitions) some company out there will host the $1,000,000 DDR tournament. But until then, until it's worth it for people to fly from all over the country to a DDR tournament because the prizes ae just so big, the article is right in that respect.
_________________

I'm the one who provided the fully unlocked DDR Extreme gamesave. There's a link to it HERE. For those of you who were pulling your hair out over Mission 98: You're welcome.

[The Game II]

[DancingMewtwo]

Good points. Would love to see THAT dispute (the bar) solved once and for all...but if ITG can't solve it, I doubt ANYTHING can.
_________________

I'm the one who provided the fully unlocked DDR Extreme gamesave. There's a link to it HERE. For those of you who were pulling your hair out over Mission 98: You're welcome.

[Julie QQQ...?]

There was a girl on Facebook who was talking about seriously turning pro in DDR and a bunch of us from the Mid-A/Northeast area just laughed at her. Unless Konami/Betson's willing to put a foot forward like they did for Digital Life at the Javits Center, it's virtually impossible.

I do agree that the game needs to be a bit more involved. An R21-like gimmick for tournaments could potentially drive DDR back towards a competitive emphasis, but until the game's depth expands, people will still be AAAing everything all the time, and there's no way it'll be fun to make competitive for the entertainment value (RIP Freestyle).

I find it odd but not surprising that the author didn't mention GF at all. Not saying it was necessary, because it isn't, but if he's talking about the competitive aspect of GH (or the lack thereof, because of it's "timing windows" and incredibly weak learning curve), I was suprised that he didn't make a comparison to it (similar to no mention of PIU, which also was kind of odd).

[ranatalus]