In an article about Activision Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, Forbes Magazine writer Peter Beller vomited forth his view that Rock Band is a "shameless knockoff of Guitar Hero that added drums, bass and a microphone to the world of make-believe rock stars".
Source: Forbes.Com [ more info ]

The first time I read the article, I was ready to jump all over Bobby Kotick. The second time I read it I realized he didn't say it at all, but rather it was a view expressed by the author of the article. Bobby Kotick isn't a gamer. Despite generating whopping gobs of cash, I doubt he even knows what Guitar Hero is.

Now, where I don't expect a chucklenut from Forbes to know about the Guitar Hero/Rock Band relationship, I do expect the magazine to express something resembling imparitality. That's why I initially mistook the comment as coming from Kotick. 5 minutes of research, or 2 minutes of absorbing the details of his own article, and this asshair would have realized that the company that made Guitar Hero went on to make Rock Band. It wasn't a "shameless knockoff" it was a "natural evolution" of the original idea.

If there is bone in Bobby Kotick's body that has some semblance of common sense in it, he'll release an offcial statement seperating himself, his company, and their game for Beller's ridiculous comment.

HAHA great comic woody

Forbes has never been a bastion of journalistic integrity. Much like sports reporters, financial reporters always add little snippets of "home-team" language to their articles.

With that said, "shameless knockoff" is not necessarily an offensive term in business circles, especially when you happen to outsell the original. Not the nicest words ("spinoff" would have worked), but not inherently insulting for Forbes' target audience.

Hell, it could be posited that 'Guitar Hero' is a knock off of any beat based game that came before it.

Triply bad considering both GH + Rock Band are ripoffs from GuitarFreaks + Drummania

S'all good, my friend has GH, i have Rock Band. Both are good, it just depends on your music taste as to which you will prefer.

Nice comic woody, Levi*

Activision and Konami have some kind of licensing arrangement going on. So if Konami was dumb enough to let a competitor secure the rights to use their patented ideas then the game is not a ripoff, legally speaking. It's a strategic game development move. Activision refuses to talk about their agreement with Konami over patents. Same is true of Harmonix' arrangement with Activision for Rock Band.

All the games these days are just spin offs of older games.
You could say that guitar hero is just a shameless knockoff of "Britney's Dance Beat".
I'm not saying that there is no originality anymore, I'm just saying that there is only so many ways that you can make a video game.

I feel the same way about the people that say "World of Warcraft is just a rip off of guild wars (or other 'newer' online games)." They seem to forget that those games are just spin offs of the earlier online games like EQ and Ultima online ... which are spin offs of MUDs, ... and all those types of games are just spin offs of pen and paper RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. And you could say that DnD took a lot of it's ideas from Lord of the Rings.

Again, not saying that there is a lack of creativity. Just saying that (as woody said) it's the natural evolution of games.

Its still a ripoff, just a legal one.

The game concept is a copy and paste more or less. Konami gave a license for the controller patent to the original creators, i think the current owners are being sued for it.

Weather or not they have the patent rights doesnt change the ripoffness. It's not a GH bash, i enjoy the game a lot, but whenever people start talking about the music game genre, they like to forget the games that created the genre. Much like everyone calling mmo's WOW clones, when WOW itself was a clone of previous MMs, but those never get mention.

You're letting your perspective overwrite accepted definitions. If you're not trying to be negative I think the phrase you're looking for is "inspired by". Guitar Freaks was the genesis. Konami was not able to capitalize on their IP in the states, so someone else figured out how to.

GU is a single panel comic. Does that make it a ripoff of Farside or the Lockhorns?
GU is a webcomic. So is it a ripoff of MegaTokyo, PVP Online, or Penny Arcade?

Words mean something. If we're careful with how we use, them there's far less confusion and animosity in the world.