That is the ultimate question that I and several other gamers have questioned all the way from the start of the Guitar Hero series.  Activision started the trend with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Harmonix continued the idea just recently by releasing The Beatles Rock Band.  From what I can recall, the number of single artist based music games is up to at least five, featuring the bands I mentioned above plus Metallica, AC/DC, and Van Halen.

Now the reason I bring this all up in the first place is because there may be another single artist based music game on the way.  According to IGN, the band Queen may plan on working with Harmonix to create yet another Rock Band game.

Okay, now just follow me here for a second and lets come back to the question that I started out with… Artist based music games, Yes or No? I’ll give you my answer as well as my opinion.

The reason I think that game developers have been trying to do these one artist based games is because it will attract fans of the artist.  Why would they want to do this?  I believe it is a game developers way to promote the game series (ex. Guitar Hero, Rock Band).  Say a customer who has never played a music game before goes out and buys the Beatles Rock band just because they love the Beatles.  If they turn out to love the game, Harmonix may have a new customer who will be out to buy Rock Band 3 when it comes out.

But here is my issue with it.  What about a customer like me? A person who loves the Rock Band series but does not like the Beatles?  Someone who wants more variety in a music game instead of playing a bunch of songs by some artist that I could honestly care less for?  The point is, I and many other gamers may be left out of the loop.  While we are waiting for Rock Band 3, Harmonix is pushing the game back to make room for a game I could care less about.  Now don’t get me wrong and believe that I think all single artist games are bad because that is not the case.  I loved Guitar Hero Metallica.  But here is what I think game developers for music games should do.  Instead of putting a bunch of songs by one artist in a game, spread them out in several games (Like Rock Band 3, then 4, etc.), that way music lovers get there favorite artists, as well as a variety of other songs.  Who knows, maybe I’ll end up liking a new artist or two just from buying a game because it had a few of my already favorite artists in it.  And if Harmonix skips making artist based games, then I can get my copy of Rock Band 3 sooner!

If you have not figured it out already, my answer to the question of artist based music games is obviously no.  I know other may have different opinions but I am going to stick with mine.  These games are a big deal to developers and we all know it.  But enough of my opinions, what about yours?  Feel free to comment on this post and let me and others know how you feel about the concept of single artist based video games!