Today Activision announced that Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s has gone gold. And despite release date estimates of July 17th, the publisher indicates that the game will not hit shelves until July 24th. This is the last iteration of the Guitar Hero franchise that will be developed by Harmonix as Activision has opted to move development to the Activision owned crew responsible for the GUN and Tony Hawk games, Neversoft.
Source: Gamespot [ more info ]

Rock the 80's is essentially an expansion. It doesn't sell alongside a guitar. And there's nothing wrong with this, I have 5 guitars already. I can't say I'm exactly happy with the pricetag compared to the setlist depth though. Let's examine:

Guitar Hero - $39.99
30 song set list + 17 bonus tracks + 2 "hidden" tracks = 49 total songs

Guitar Hero II - $49.99
(PS2) 40 song set list + 26 bonus tracks = 66 total songs
(360) 48 song set list + 26 bonus tracks = 72 total songs (not including the 9 XBLA downloadable tracks)

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s - $49.99
30 song set list = 30 total songs.

The problem I have here is that I'll be paying the same amount for 30 songs as I previously paid for 66. And where some will argue that this is because some of the tracks on Rock the 80's are original recordings, the woody-truth (meaning, as I see it) is that the price increase is little more than Activision upping the sticker price to capitalize on their investment at our expense. Why would I think that? There are only six "original recording" tracks in the game and they're not exactly the upper eschelon of the tracklist.

In all honesty, if this wasn't the final Harmonix developed Guitar Hero title, I wouldn't buy it in protest. And at this point, unless there's a miraculous 9th inning homerun from Neversoft, I have no interest in artificially padding Activisions wallet by buying Guitar Hero III either.

I'll follow Harmonix on to Rock Band and Activision can eat me.

Its called: Cashing in on the fans.

Sadly enough, its a very common practice in the gaming industry.

This can be placed along side EQ's habit of having "expansions", Sony's add ons which pretty much are needed to make the PS3 useful for playing your old games, and to make the PSP do something other than look mildly expensive, and...you get the idea

When GH I & II were released did they state that there were 30 + 17 + 2 and 40 + 26 songs (respectively) or did they just say there were 30 & 40 songs (respectively) for each game? If anyone can follow that, is it possible they aren't telling use about bonus and/or hidden songs?

Nope, they told how many songs and how many bonus tracks. In the case of Guitar Hero II the entire set list was published shortly after the game went gold. Though most of the tracks had been released over time to keep our attention.

In this case the full set list is 30 songs. And bonus songs aren't a part of it as those are made by smaller, lesser known bands. It'd be difficult to go back and get bands like that representing the 80's.

That's a good point, not a lot of 80's cover bands.

I know my wife is going to want to get this but at $50 for half the songs, it is pretty crappy.

IMO this ranks up there by putting out a really crappy expansion after a awesome game.

Well some expansions actually continue a story arch, you have to keep that in mind, its a whole different topic when you're talking about whole games, for guitar hero they're upping the price for no apparent reason.

This doesn't surprise me at all. The sad thing is, people are going to go out and buy this game at $50 en mass, and Activision won't give a rat's ass about those protesting the price.

It's the same thing that happened with the Guitar Hero II downloadables on the 360. Everyone and their mother was up in arms about the price, but tens of thousands of people paid for it. It's pretty much a given that they will do the same with this expansion pack. Whether it's releasing it for $60 on the 360, or releasing it as downloadable updates 3 songs at a time, for a rediculous amount of money.

I'm definately not picking this one up...but I don't know if I'm going to skip GH3. It really depends on what other songs they throw on it.

To play devil's advocate, could it possibly be that the music industry is picking up on the popularity of the game and charging a higher price tag for a new (and bound to be popular..) genre' of music?

Honestly, I dont even own a console (well, ok.. a SNES is sitting in a closet somewhere along with a PS) and dont really see the appeal of GH.. Just a thought on how the price might have gotten jacked up..

-Law