During an investor conference call, EA execs revealed that the publisher’s deal with Viacom (the company that owns MTV, Harmonix, Rock Band and maybe you as well) is only active through fiscal year 2010 (which ends March 31).
Could be news, could be not news. I wouldn’t worry too much about this, in any case- even if EA loses/drops the distribution rights, the cash cow of DLC and RBN would be attractive to whomever wants to secure the next deal. In my (completely uninformed and outsider) opinion, it’s more likely that said rights are being re-negotiated. What do you think?
UPDATE: According to Kotaku, EA is officially quitting third-party distribution, meaning that Viacom now needs to find a company to press and push out anything Rock Band-related come April 1st.
“While we have great relationships with our partners we are modeling a reduction in our distribution business as we concentrate on higher margin EA owned titles and digital initiatives,” EA chief operating officer John Schappert said in yesterday’s conference call.
Short-term, that takes $450 million of revenue off of EA’s books. Long-term, it means they won’t paying the freight on titles they didn’t make.
Well… there goes everything I just said.
-Kyle A.
ah, thats why there weren’t any Rock Band titles on EA’s earnings report, despite Green Day Rock Band and an “unannounced Rock Band” title slated for fiscal 2010.
This doesn’t necessarily mean EA wont renew, or that another company wont pick up the deal though, which is good. Overall, it could be good if another company picks them up though. I’ve never been so keen on EA being the publisher. Although I’ve also never been too keen on MTV or Viacom’s involvement either. I’ve had the feeling that its EA and/or MTV that got the ball going for GD:RB (or at least a lot of pressure from those entities), rather than Harmonix’s desire to create a game for that band.
Perhaps they’re waiting for this to be resolved before releasing RBN.
EA will definitely want to renew the deal seeing as their biggest competitor is Activision who obviously has the Guitar Hero franchise. The problem may lie in whether Viacom wants to, seeing as music rhythm games sales are declining to the point it was blamed for Viacom’s second quarter financial 2009 drop.
If EA doesn’t pony up, Activision will buy it up and lock EA out of that segment of the gaming community.
PLEASE DON’T LET ACTIVISION RUIN ROCK BAND TOO.
EA seems to know where the money’s at though as they’ve consistently been at or very near the top 3rd party publisher. I’m banking on this not being news.
If Rock Band falls under Activision’s cold, cruel grip, all is lost. I can see it now: next on future Activision RB DLC- Miley Cyrus 3-pack.
What’s so bad about that?
Also, if Activision DOES buy Rock Band rights, they’ll probably merge it with Guitar Hero to end all competition with music games.
@Roope
Please, tell me you’re joking…
thank god, maybe australia wouldn’t get so shafted by whoever takes over the distribution biz.
Fingers crossed Europe will not have to wait an extra 6 months for RB3 like we did with the original if a new distributor is found.
I prefer the Rock Band graphics engine if Guitar Hero and Rock Band merge. However, the game engine for Rock Band is inferior to the Guitar Hero 5 engine.
The competition is healthy for both titles. If Guitar Hero released one game for every Rock Band game, the sales would be better (see: World Tour/RB2, GH5/the Beatles). The problem is they release about five games for every Rock Band title.
I really cant think of a worse case scenario than if Activision took over publishing rights for Rock Band. I honest to God would prefer that Harmonix close up shop and stop producing Rock Band altogether, than to have the Rock Band name usurped and destroyed like their previous Guitar Hero franchise. Best case scenario would be if a high quality producer like Bethesda Softworks or Square-Enix picked up the rights, although I could see Ubisoft showing an interest. Even Microsoft as a publisher would be acceptable to me, although I know that would probably be met with a lot of dischord in the community since it would likely mean no more PS3/PSP or Wii/DS support. All in all, I think there is a LOT of companies out there that could be showing a strong interest in picking up publishing rights here, so we’ll just have to see how it plays out.
And I have no problem with a Miley Cirus 3 pack. Would prefer Billy Ray’s Achy Breaky Heart, but honestly, its just 3 songs and there is definitely some people it would appeal to- its not like we haven’t had SpongeBob, Naked Brothers, iCarly, and at least one other “kid” band.
And this is bad because…..?
RB:Beatles, for me, is the greatest music game, period. DLC in RB is far superior to GH. But GH has taken a huge step forward for the more casual players, with the Party Play mode and the like. I know that most of you reading this (and apparently a consensus at Harmonix) don’t agree with that direction. A greater audience, reached with more pop and casual features, will ultimately sustain the genre. [That, and perhaps bundling band likenesses in DLC would go a long way.] Merging the formats, making them cross-compatible, would encourage even more DLC production.
I think that this is the big problem in most major genres and franchises. You establish a strong core fanbase, and then what? Well, given that management is looking at the bottom line, they want more money. That means you have to expand the reach beyond your core fanbase. The problem is that you often end up alienating your fanbase by “dumbing” the game down, or otherwise destroying some of the original allure for the game in order to make it more accessible. From a business perspective, thats ok because consumers are just numbers. But when this happens, you usually end up with games like Guitar Hero 3 on, Final Fantasy 7, Oblivion/Morrowind, etc, which have really lost some of what made the franchise and preceding games so great in the first place. Eh, just my two-cents. I just can’t see anything good coming from mainstreaming any franchise (its the video game equivalent of “selling out”)
I doubt Harmonix would agree to Activision unless they retained control of the game (ie, not merging with Guitar Hero). Isn’t that basically why they left in the first place? To do their own thing?
If Activision took control, I could see them alternating GH and RB titles so as not to compete, and Activision just gets the whole pie while both companies retain control of their individual product.
lets just hope activision keeps themselves in there dark smelly cave full of fail heroes
EA is still publishing GD:RB.
Activision will not publish RB, they have way too much money in the GH name to also promote a basically identical game.
Odds are if they cant find another publisher MTV games will publish it themself. In fact, thats probably what they are going to do.
@Crunk Posby: HMX left because they were bough by MTV games, while Red octane was bought by Activision. Making it impossible for them to stay working on Activision game franchise.
Also, to those saying Music games are declining. They are, but they are still in the top 5 best selling game genres, so its not like that all hope is lost in the genre.
As far as I’m concerned, getting away from EA is a good thing. In the video game industry, EA is like the Borg. They buy up small game companies with winning products, and destroy them (see…Maxis, Origin, Bullfrog, etc). When they’re not doing that, they’re busy finding ways to release the same game year after year (Madden, and the rest of their sports lineup). Yes, Activision is guilty of the same thing…but EA is a bigger offender.
I highly doubt that Activision would get involved in the distribution of the RB product line. They’ve already announced that they’re cutting down the music releases for 2010 to 1 GH sequel, and DJ Hero2. There are plenty of other game distributors out there.
As for the people who are always complaining about Guitar Hero…have you guys played any of the recent games? The visuals are definitely better than RB, and the gameplay is just as fun. I play both, and each franchise has it’s strengths and weaknesses.
As for Miley Cyrus being released as DLC…I think there’s a better chance of that on RB. In the past year, RB has put out songs by Racal Flatts, Shania Twain, and Kelly Clarkson. GH DLC includes Jimi Hendrix, Phish, and the Rolling Stones…not to mention the 9 free songs we got last year, vs the 1 free song from Harmonix.
Rumor Train: Activision is axing Neversoft
@xHoly Div3rX – News Editor
…wow. Talk about out of left field.
@Kyle A.- RBDLC News Editor
It might have been a little interesting to some. I know this is a Rock Band website, but some people would also have liked to know that.
It also adds to the possibility that Activision could replace EA, I suppose.
yay rock band is now unofficially “less” of a mainstream distributed game (although mtv is very mainstream now (jersey shore??)
@xHoly Div3rX – News Editor
I didn’t mean posting it- I meant the news in general
Sorry if there was any confusion.
@Kyle A.- RBDLC News Editor
Ah, no problem.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6250295.html
looks like Viacom is being a douchenozzle now too. It would be nice if Harmonix could split all together and publish everything independently.
@NiGHTS
Hello, good sir. Might I point you to the abomination that is Band Hero?
@sean
Wow. Wowwowwow. This is horrible. It seems as though the floor is coming out from under these two leading franchises.
I’ll be honest, when all I had was the Wii, I rooted for Guitar Hero as the ports at that time were superior to Harmonix’s half-job attempt with Rock Band 1. Then, I got a 360, bought Rock Band 2, and never looked back. I feel now that the plentiful MSP I invested in my DLC Library may not ave been the best choice (but what do I know? I’m just a Freshman in College trying to e an indie charter hoping that the RBU won’t become vaporware).
That being said, I hope that the unspeakable won’t happen, that the end of Rock Band won’t come too soon. It is far too good of a franchise and it deserves more than to be shafted during hard economic times despite a minor loss in profits. I mean, did anyone think 10 years ago that plastic instruments that resemble what little kids play are going to be used to rock out with adults? Or when DDR came out that eventually the genre would create a Beatles Video Game? (I still cannot believe that a game like that actually exists…)
Dunno guys, just my two cents…
@m2cks
I played Band Hero and loved it. Yes, it is just a reskin of GH5…but I liked GH5 too.