Like a lot of people out there, I also have encountered broken rock band equipment. During a intense song of drumming little did i know that my bass pedal broke in half. The amount of disappointment I had was huge until I put "broken rock band bass pedal" in Google and found a huge amount of people that had encountered the same disappointment that I had gone through.
After my research was done I found that it was no problem to get returned, you could just goto EA's support site fill out the form, and an empty box would be on the way, but like everyone else there were two options. Give credit card info and they send you a new one or you can send yours back first and get a new one sent out when they recieve your broken one. Of course like most 24 year old males, if i had a credit card it would have been maxed out due to buying ea's expensive rockband so this was not an option.
Last night I sat down with the intent to see if I could get EA to maybe hook me up with a new one and let me keep my old one,like I have been hearing all over various gaming websites. Too my dismay I contacted them, with a long distance number I might add, that is probably going to cost me more then the pedal was worth. I did speak with a very nice repersentative who took all of my inofrmation and was getting ready to explain shipping details when she said she needed a credit card, I don't have one that i can use and she said they dont send empty boxes for you to return the pedal to canada. I know we might not seem like the biggest or the most important country, damn you could atleast send me an empty box. I talked to her for about 15 minutes to find out that there was absolutley no way to get a box sent to canada.
This really amazed me for the simple fact that i was 100% confident that i was going to get the problem solved and possibly a new pedal for free and keep my old one.
Just wandering if anyone else has encounterred this and if so email ea and give them a piece of your mind.
A true Canadian, eh?
Mark Bollivar
TheGamer Writes "Harmonix has proven plenty of times it can make Rock Band work without instruments."
I mean, yeah, but was anyone saying otherwise? The fact is people liked the plastic instruments rather than pressing buttons on a controller. They enjoyed the simulated experience.
"Work"? No, but to be good? It's absolutely necessary. Not having the accessories is like playing a lightgun shooter with an analog stick sure it works, but one experience is completely unique and fun as hell, and other is torture trying to make do playing in a way it was never meant to be played
"trying to make do in a way it was never meant to be played"
I disagree. The accessories were a fun gimmick (and very marketable) but they were added AFTER the genre had been well established with games like Frequency and Amplitude (both also made by Harmonix).
The gameplay formula is different on a controller - there's a focus on switching lanes and contributing to all of the instruments.
Never played Frequency, but Amplitude and Rock Band Blitz were really good. I would love to get more of that kind of game. It's basically a different part of the genre, and stands on its own.
The insurmountable difference in popularity between Amplitude and Rock Band proves my point
Popularity isn't proof of quality. If it was, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now. lol. Our disagreement wasn't over which one is more popular. Amplitude and Blitz just aren't "torture" to play.
Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live failed to revive their sub-genre, and Rock Band 4 caused Mad Catz to have to file for bankruptcy. Doesn't mean that instrument-based music games are bad.
It does mean that there's too much overhead and risk for anyone to take a gamble on a big budget game that needs instrument accessories now though.
For the genre to thrive, for now, it needs to do so without the instrument accessories. That's just a fact, unfortunately.
VR games like Beat Sabre (a new sub-genre) and traditional music games make more sense and are more viable right now.
*"If quality is always proved by popularity, then Harmonix wouldn't be making music for Fortnite now."
I think CHEAP plastic instruments is THE reason why the instrument-genre ‘died’.
People invested in buying the game AND the peripherals, so the guitar, the dj-set, the drum, whatever, and the experience was absolutely fantastic. Great fun, great music, etc.
But then the instruments would break. A button would stop working, or your hits wouldn’t register, and that kind of hardware failure would end in you not being able to play the game as intended, and thus you not getting the scores you deserve.
So, now you had a great game, but a broken instrument, and nobody is gonna buy a new plastic instrument every 3-6 months in order to keep playing the game.
A solution would have been to release better quality instruments (obviously), at a slightly higher price, so you could have kept the new games coming and the genre alive, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
The only issue I ever had with any of the hardware was the drum pedal on the original rock band set stared to crack in half. The reason I, and other friends I know who played, lost interest is they weren't putting out new tracks that we were interested in anymore. I think earlier this year I looked through the releases for the last 2 years or so, and there was maybe 3 songs I would have bought.
Yeah I had this happen too with my drum controller, I ended up attaching a metal strip to it which fixed it up nicely.
Bust a Groove, Gitaroo Man and Parrapa the Rappa were such good games. Neither needed any extra peripherals
Player 2's long-form feature about kids and video games continues with a look at introducing toddlers to games for the first time.
Music rhythm games dominated the video game market in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the genre would fall from grace shortly after finding success.
More like faded away than failed. Failed implies it was new and didnt take off... that is not the case. Rhythm games were hugely popular but the lights dimmed and the show is over.
You would think the current situation would cause a resurgence but im actually seeing more people picking up real instruments and learning to play. My son is one who started out on GH and now he plays real guitar.
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I also got into playing guitar through Guitar Hero and Rock Band. And I know at least three other people who did the same.
Still get Rock Band out a few times a year. I really don't think you can say it failed when they're still bring out DLC every week! They must be making enough money from it to keep the licensing going!
Basically the reason the artist Prince did not want his music on those types of games. As he believed it was better for kids to actually learn to play a real instrument than to play with toys that really did not teach how to read music and how to actually play an instrument correctly.
A lot of music now a days is just done on a sound board and the creator has no real clue if the music was put on a sheet in front of them to play. The term musician has taken on a new meaning in recent times.
I lost interest when they stopped allowing you to use the controller to play with, just couldn't get into playing with the guitar.
Rock band 4 allows controller. Though I just bought RB4 again so I can replay my favorite music rhythm game.
I didn't know that. I haven't played a lot of Rock Band, but have a lot of Guitar Hero, I'll definitely check it out.
Not the sole reason, but over saturation by Activision releasing 5 GH games in one year, charging full price for all of them while only Metallica and GH5 were worth it.
I dont think these games failed at all. People aren't going to keep buying games and peripherals over and over. All songs need to work on either rockband or guitar hero thru updates. Guitar hero live was actually good but rockband with all its songs and same equipment killed it.
I'm sure part of the reason they faded away, at least over the long term, was that you couldn't download them digitally.
Wow, Canadians getting treated like a red headed stepchild yet again. Good thing my rock band works perfect. At least for now.
Oh and EA (Shakes fist in anger and Glares)
I'll simply cut & paste my previous post regarding this matter:
http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...
As far as the empty box issue is concerned, EA's support website clearly stated that packaging for return will be included with the replacement equipment, and that a credit card would be required only so that they can secure shipments outside the US- and that doing so would assure "two day air mail rush delivery."
If they think that I'm going to bend over backwards, or pay additional money to return their crapware, they've got another thing coming.
By the way: I'm STILL waiting after two weeks of putting in the first RMA request...with no customer service response in sight.
(Effin' EA!)
just go to Ebay and search for rock band metal pedal, you should get to an auction selling alluminum plates that can be either screwed or glued to your broken pedal as I have already done. There is even a graphite pedal, if that's more your style. The alluminum pedal was 15 bucks and after using epoxy, the base pedal isn't breaking ever again.
This is precisely why I havn't bought this game yet. There are stickers right on brand new ones in store that say something like "IF you have problems with Rock Band equipment DO NOT return to store, contact EA"