Fans of the original Guitar Hero series might be looking forward to the series’ return until you discover just what Activision is doing with the game to convert it from a product you purchase once into a service designed to siphon fees from your wallet.
Perhaps the most egregious affront to gamers is the fact that the base game only includes 42 songs. That’s almost 50% less than some of the earlier releases, so let’s take a look at how many songs were included in the series before this new generation of Guitar Hero.
Guitar Hero II – 74 songs
Guitar Hero III – 73 songs
Guitar Hero IV – 86 songs
Guitar Hero V – 85 songs
Guitar Hero VI – 93 songs
While this is pretty terrible in itself, the real issue here is the Now Playing section of the game. According to recent tweets from someone previewing the game, it costs $2.50 for a pack of 10 plays for the privilege of playing these songs, or you can buy a full day of unlimited plays for $6. This essentially turns the Guitar Hero franchise into interactive Spotify.
While you can earn the coins in the game to unlock the songs, it seems entirely disingenuous to ask customers who have already spent $100 on the game and the new peripheral to pay daily or for packs of songs. What do you think?
