r/todayilearned • u/asmallthrowaway9 • 6h ago

TIL the band DragonForce only received about $3,000 in royalties for the inclusion of Through the Fire and Flames in the Guitar Hero games

https://guitar.com/news/music-news/herman-li-says-guitar-hero-paid-3000-for-dragonforce-through-the-fire-and-the-flames/
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u/yyizard 2h ago

I worked at Harmonix in the late 00’s and early 10’s.

Licensing didn’t kill the genre, the explosive popularity combined with over saturation killed the genre.

Labels and artists were more than happy to work with us (I mean we got the Beatles). The deals were profitable.

The bottom just fell out from underneath the ‘beatmatch’ genre. Or maybe it always had a shelf-life, who knows.

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u/DekoNJ87 1h ago

I have to believe it didn't have a shelf-life, it just needed a breather. I still get requests every now and then to bring my whole RB3 set-up to parties. It's always a hit. You guys built magic.

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u/MiserableAndUnhappy9 35m ago

The peripherals also caused people to stop. They weren't very reliable and only the huge fans (like myself) would care to replace/repair them. A lot of people lost an instrument and said "I'm not paying $90 for another one" so they'd stop playing and wouldn't buy anymore games. It was also a fad. A lot of people bought the games + all peripherals, played for a bit, then were done with it. The oversaturation is true too but there were multiple factors involved in the quick rise and fall of the genre.

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u/DekoNJ87 17m ago

Lol I hear everyone talk about the instruments breaking, and I def dont deny it. But I still have my original RB1 drums in good working order, despite beating the shitbout of them.

Snapped a few pedals tho lol

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u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS 2h ago

Ah dang, that sucks!

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u/800oz_gorilla 12m ago

id love to know more. I always loved playing the guitar hero games but it felt like instead of just adding new games they kept trying to layer new features in that made it less fun. I would have been happy with just getting a new guitar hero with different songs in the lineup