Shrygue
January 10th, 2009, 00:11
via Team Sushi (http://www.teamsushi.org/?p=92)
I attended the industry insider presentation by President and CEO of Activision, Mike Griffith. He talked about a number of things, but mostly he focused his talk on the phenomenon call Guitar Hero. I know Guitar Hero well, having made a PSP homebrew game based on freetar, called Gunnar Hero (which I should add Frets on Fire support to). At any rate, I listened carefully to what he had to say, and to his insights into what is driving gaming.
On that note, the presentation started off with a video of a guy on a bicycle, playing Guitar Hero in the real world, including bonuses and road markings.
http://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bikeghroad.thumbnail.jpghttp://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bikeghflames.thumbnail.JPG
Once Mike Griffith reached the stage, he made some bold claims about what Guitar Hero is doing to the gaming industry and how it is affecting things. In fact he spent a lot of his talk discussing the effects of Guitar Hero and of course boasting about how popular Guitar Hero really is. He pointed out things like how Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock is the first ever game to sell over $1 billion worth of copies, and how over 50% of Guitar Hero players are female (breaking the typical profile of the classic gamer).
http://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mikegriffith-wii.thumbnail.jpghttp://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mikegriffith-gh.thumbnail.jpghttp://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mikegriffith.thumbnail.jpg
He talked about how the Guitar Hero guitar controller and the Wii remote are changing the way people play games compared to the paddle, joystick or gamepad of previous game systems.
He couldn’t say enough about Guitar Hero. Not only does the Guitar Hero game make people play games more, but it is attributed to increase the sales of actual guitars and other musical instruments. Recently a survey showed that 3 out of 4 players say that they are more likely to learn to play a real instrument and two out of three musicians are more likely to practice as a result of playing Guitar Hero. In fact, last year there was a 27% increase in the sales of real guitars last year. Kind of intriguing since analysts speculated a year or two ago that it would decrease interest in real instruments.
Meyitzo asked me to post some videos. Here is a performance by some staff from Neversoft who are working on a new Guitar Hero: Metallica with song. It works with four players (guitar, bass, drums and singer):
osOgBS5tybk
It even shows in the music industry. Songs featured in Guitar Hero have experienced growth in the rate of downloads. Songs experienced between 15% and 843% rise in music downloads of those songs.
http://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/leisuretime.thumbnail.jpg
He then went on to discuss three key pillars of growth in video games, that aren’t being experienced in other entertainment fields. Specifically he stated that over the last 5 years consumption of movie tickets, music purchases, network TV and filmed media are flat or decreasing. Video games, on the other hand have grown to 12% of all leisure time.
He mentioned that he sees three basic things growing the field: story telling, community and interactivity. He gave story telling examples of Call of Duty which he claims delivers a cinematic level of story telling. For community, he talked about the 600,000 members of the Guitar Hero: World Tour portal as well as the 141,000 songs recorded and mixed in the GH:WT software which have resulted in 21 million downloads of new user contributed tracks. Finally he talked about the interactivity offered with input devices such as the Wii remote in games like Activision’s Dancing with the Stars and GH controller guitar and drums controller.
Here are his closing remarks, preceded by a video montage of recent releases from Activision:
ZblLNva5teQ
I attended the industry insider presentation by President and CEO of Activision, Mike Griffith. He talked about a number of things, but mostly he focused his talk on the phenomenon call Guitar Hero. I know Guitar Hero well, having made a PSP homebrew game based on freetar, called Gunnar Hero (which I should add Frets on Fire support to). At any rate, I listened carefully to what he had to say, and to his insights into what is driving gaming.
On that note, the presentation started off with a video of a guy on a bicycle, playing Guitar Hero in the real world, including bonuses and road markings.
http://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bikeghroad.thumbnail.jpghttp://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bikeghflames.thumbnail.JPG
Once Mike Griffith reached the stage, he made some bold claims about what Guitar Hero is doing to the gaming industry and how it is affecting things. In fact he spent a lot of his talk discussing the effects of Guitar Hero and of course boasting about how popular Guitar Hero really is. He pointed out things like how Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock is the first ever game to sell over $1 billion worth of copies, and how over 50% of Guitar Hero players are female (breaking the typical profile of the classic gamer).
http://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mikegriffith-wii.thumbnail.jpghttp://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mikegriffith-gh.thumbnail.jpghttp://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mikegriffith.thumbnail.jpg
He talked about how the Guitar Hero guitar controller and the Wii remote are changing the way people play games compared to the paddle, joystick or gamepad of previous game systems.
He couldn’t say enough about Guitar Hero. Not only does the Guitar Hero game make people play games more, but it is attributed to increase the sales of actual guitars and other musical instruments. Recently a survey showed that 3 out of 4 players say that they are more likely to learn to play a real instrument and two out of three musicians are more likely to practice as a result of playing Guitar Hero. In fact, last year there was a 27% increase in the sales of real guitars last year. Kind of intriguing since analysts speculated a year or two ago that it would decrease interest in real instruments.
Meyitzo asked me to post some videos. Here is a performance by some staff from Neversoft who are working on a new Guitar Hero: Metallica with song. It works with four players (guitar, bass, drums and singer):
osOgBS5tybk
It even shows in the music industry. Songs featured in Guitar Hero have experienced growth in the rate of downloads. Songs experienced between 15% and 843% rise in music downloads of those songs.
http://www.teamsushi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/leisuretime.thumbnail.jpg
He then went on to discuss three key pillars of growth in video games, that aren’t being experienced in other entertainment fields. Specifically he stated that over the last 5 years consumption of movie tickets, music purchases, network TV and filmed media are flat or decreasing. Video games, on the other hand have grown to 12% of all leisure time.
He mentioned that he sees three basic things growing the field: story telling, community and interactivity. He gave story telling examples of Call of Duty which he claims delivers a cinematic level of story telling. For community, he talked about the 600,000 members of the Guitar Hero: World Tour portal as well as the 141,000 songs recorded and mixed in the GH:WT software which have resulted in 21 million downloads of new user contributed tracks. Finally he talked about the interactivity offered with input devices such as the Wii remote in games like Activision’s Dancing with the Stars and GH controller guitar and drums controller.
Here are his closing remarks, preceded by a video montage of recent releases from Activision:
ZblLNva5teQ