Admittedly, I have never used Twitch once in my life. While I would consider myself a casual gamer I just never stumbled upon this seemingly awesome device. There have been so many times in which I found myself in a game situation I could not pass, and honestly most of those times I got frustrated and quit. The only time I can recall going online to look for help was when I was trying to beat the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 campaign. In the end, I never even used the websites advice. I instead just turned down the difficulty on the game. (Yes, I am THAT guy.) Maybe back then if I would’ve seen a tutorial on Twitch with someone giving me a walkthrough I would’ve toughened up and beat that part of Black Ops. That being said, I am not for Twitch expanding into Karaoke and Rock Band games.
In theory, expanding into the music gaming market seems like a good idea. In the real world however, is it entirely practical? The songs chosen to be put on Rock Band and Just Dance are mostly popular mainstream songs. I can only imagine the oodles and caboodles of money it would take to get a license to include these games on their website. Songfreedom.com says a commercial song license for a ‘Gold Tier Song’ costs $200. Alright maybe Amazon could swing that much for a few karaoke games and make a profit off of it. However when I looked a little closer I realized it also labeled ‘Platinum Tier Songs’; those of which start off at $50,000 and are available upon request. Amazon will not be making any profit if they have to buy licenses for 30 to 40 ‘Platinum Tier Songs’ every time they add a new game to their server.
Also, is there significant enough of a market for people who want to watch musical game tutorials online? I suppose there are those who want to hear people comment on the dancing, but Youtube is already flooded with videos of those types. I don’t find many people who get stuck on any part of a Karaoke or Dance Game. Rock Band and Just Dance games have never had levels in which you needed to know a specific trick to pass it. They just have individual songs with adjustable difficulty levels. In my perspective, for musical games the old saying holds true, practice makes perfect.
I think Twitch and Amazon would be better off focusing on purchasing licenses for the strategy game commentary videos that feature copyrighted music. That seems like the main reason Twitch is useful, to hear someone as they guide the character through the difficult task. Without being able to hear the commentators voice, Twitch becomes obsolete. That is why they should try and preserve what they have going well for them right now, instead of trying to expand into different markets.
