This weekend’s release of Guitar Hero World Tour drew a lot of excitement from the gamer crowd — and a lot of complaints. According to official Guitar Hero message boards, more than a handful of players have experienced problems with the packaged instruments, and Activision, the game’s publisher, has stepped in for damage control.
But after it’s been determined they’re capable of plugging in a controller, where do future video game rock gods go? Activision and Red Octane — the maker of the peripherals — have used a message board “sticky” to try and redirect complaints to the customer service center or, worst case scenario: Red Octane’s warranty department:
“We have learned that certain drum controllers manufactured for Guitar Hero World Tour have sensitivity issues. We believe that these controllers are limited to ones in the earlier manufacturing stages. While we believe that this was an isolated manufacturing issue, we are stepping our efforts to randomly test our drum controllers so customers can be assured they work properly. In the event any consumers do experience problems with their drum controllers associated with sensitivity issues, Activision will soon be offering a drum tuning kit that will enable players to fully optimize their drums.
Some commenters who have had persistent problems used reams of masking tape to repair the drum set. Other message boarders started angry petitions for Red Octane to “Take this crap back.”
There are few things worse in the tech and gaming world than dropping almost $200 on a hotly anticipated product only to discover it is plagued with problems. I’m hoping there is a great silent majority out there who has not experienced similar issues, and that Activision and Red Octane will swoop in like heroes to fix this mess.