I figured, hey, for my last blog, why not do something that really expresses how I feel about corporations in the game industry.
In The Groove is a game that was developed by Roxor games and released in arcades in late August, 2004. Becoming a hit with hardcore Dance Dance Revolution players, ITG gained steam and a squeal was released in June of the next year. Unfortunately, Konami, the creators of Dance Dance Revolution, took action, and a lawsuit in October of 2006 brought production and work on a third game to a halt.
This brings up a very interesting point. ITG is based on a free, open-source program called Stepmania which has been around for a few years prior to development of the arcade adaptation. Konami has long been aware of this freeware clone and was unable to take action against it, due to it being open source and free. Unfortunately, when the first iteration of ITG was released for arcades, it required a preexisting DDR cabinet to be installed in. Thus, the intellectual property battle began, with arcade owners unwilling to strip off existing decals from their machines, players could easily misinterpret the Roxor product as being a Konami one, and Konami took action with this. Why they waited so long was probably due to their arrogance for owing a monopoly in the industry. From their point of view, it was just another wanna-be dance game.
What they didn't expect, however, was the cult following the game created, with more and more players switching to ITG over DDR due to unique innovations that the DDR series lacked. Songs requiring players to use their hands, perform "rolls" on extended notes, and dodging mines added to the growing stale gameplay of the existing games. This, along with the added expert difficulties, kept players interested enough for the squeal. Konami, seeing a real threat, took action. Players who knew the game well enough knew that these features had existed in the PC ports of Stepmania for years, and were confused as to why Konami was -just now- taking action.
Needless to say, it's the classic "large corporation taking out the smaller guys" scenario. Konami won the suit and immediately halted the series. There have been no games with the In the Groove name since the lawsuit and the acquisition of the rights to the series. Players were horribly upset with the killing of a great alternative and Konami's DDR series continued the stale, boring path it had before. Even with players begging for innovation, they refused to listen.
With the latest release of DDRX, however, elements from the ITG series seem to be making an appearance. "Shock Arrows" are now introduced in some expert difficulties, these are arrows that are not meant to be stepped on. Sounding familiar? Mines from ITG have made an appearance, although a much less visually appearing, and stupidly dumbed down version (they only appeared 4 at a time, never individually or able to be placed creatively enough.) Even with this, though, it seems that the series is still a dull as before, with lacking creativity and promoting the same-old-same-old.
This pulls another key topic. When the rights to something are acquired and content is reused (although rehashed), does the company who now own the rights deserve the credit for this innovation? What is it that makes the existing creators of these techniques be pushed to the side and shoved out of the way by major corporations? Why is it that Konami refuses to have ANY sort of competition in their "music game" industry, wouldn't that help them to make a better product by seeing the competition and how the public responds?
Apparently, Konami's marketing and research department has a LOT to learn.
Associated links:
http://www.konami.co.jp/en/news/topics/050511/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Groove_(series)#Lawsuit
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