With the game industry already saturated with rhythm action titles, how can the genre move forward?

There’s something very game-like about a good old-fashioned rivalry. The medium is defined by the head-to-head, competitive instinct at the core of many of its products, and there isn’t a gamer alive who can’t recall at least one platform war, or who avoided taking sides in a franchise battle – Sony versus Microsoft, EA versus 2K, Halo vs Call Of Duty, the list goes on. Historically, gamers are at their most comfortable in tribal factions.

The current rivalry between Guitar Hero and Rock Band is one of the most significant in recent history. Both games are huge $1.6 billion revenue-generating monsters, which is hefty even when stacked against the biggest names in the business. Guitar Hero and Rock Band have made a significant impact on the industry’s commercial worth, accounting for 32 per cent of its growth from 2007 to 2008. But what’s really astounding is how it all started – with Guitar Hero, a quite little game from a budding music developer called Harmonix.

Greg LoPiccolo, vice president of product development at Harmonix, remembers the unassuming way that Guitar Hero debuted at E3 in 2005. “We had this tiny little booth in Kentia Hall, you know, in among all the porn games, Broadway dancing simulators and odd things from Korea; it was quite a scene.” LoPiccolo was on the development team for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band with British designer Rob Kay, who has since left to work on a new game at AiLive, codeveloper of Wii MotionPlus.

“The success of music games blew us all away at Harmonix,” Kay recalls. “The first Guitar Hero was seen as a fun side-project for us. Nobody, including me, expected it to actually sell well. We poured ourselves into it because we wanted to play it ourselves. We playtested the game, of course, and wanted it to be easy to pick up and play, but only because were trying to be good professionals and make it fun for our families and friends – there wasn’t some master plan.” The absence of an underlying scheme didn’t hinder its popularity, with Guitar Hero going on to sell 1.5 million copies and spawning a very successful sequel. It was the kind of success that gets major studios excited, and Activision purchased RedOctane and the Guitar Hero name for $100 million in June 2006. A few months later, MTV Networks announced a deal to acquire Harmonix for $175 million.

Alan Flores, lead designer, Harmonix

… continued