According to Wikipedia (shameless I know) the first modern rhythm action video game, entitled "PaRappa the Rapper" was released on the Playstation Console in 1996. The game included simply timing button presses to corresponding symbols scrolling across the screen. The important notion here is use of a game controller to help add visual and aural stimuli to a simple rhythm. But calling on the player to hit a corresponding button, both in time, and correctly, creates a good deal of tension and excitement as to how the song will play out and concurrently, how close the player can get to perfectly matching all the symbols. While I have no real direct knowledge of PaRappa the Rapper, the entire genre of modern rhythm games relies on the exact same game play motivation, a player must use whatever input method is provided to quickly and accurately keep time with the music and hit the correct sequence of "notes" to achieve a high score. This motivation is further supplemented by the creative input devices designed by various developers.
Perhaps the most popular creator of rhythm games is Bemani, Japanese developer Konami's games and music division. The division actually takes the name Bemani from its first product released in 1997 entitled "Beatmania". The game, initially released in arcades and later on home consoles, invited the player to be a "virtual DJ" through the manipulation of 5 buttons and a faux turntable (analogous to a flat knob). By hitting this button in time with onscreen cues, players could assemble a musical track from the ground up as each button press would cue a different beat or electronic sound throughout the completion of the composition. Aside from allowing players to create music, the game also introduced what would become the standard onscreen user interface for rhythm games going forward. While playing, gamers would be presented with a row of vertical columns, each column corresponding to the turntable and each one of the five buttons. Cues for button presses would then scroll down toward the bottom of the screen, when they reached the bottom players would be required to press the corresponding button associated with the cue's column. Patterns became more and more complex as the difficulty level of the game's songs increased. Later versions of Beatmania, like Beatmania IIDX, added two more buttons and ramped up the complexity of the game's cue charts; it is not uncommon to find songs with over 3000 button presses in a relatively short interval of 5 minutes or less.
Bemani's framework for Beatmania easily transitioned to other instruments and modes of game play. Perhaps the most popular of Bemani's games used Beatmania's downward scrolling interface, and mapped the button presses to pads on the floor. The game, dubbed Dance Dance Revolution, presented players with a faux stage to perform on, even including lighting effects and thumping bass supported music. Dance Dance Revolution's intrinsic motivations will be discussed below in more detail, but for now it is important to note that the addictive nature of rhythm games and their easy transition to all sorts of input schemes allows for continued renewal of interest in the genre.
The ease of transition led to further creations by Bemani and other companies that used input methods such as: hand motions (Para Para Paradise), miniature guitars (Guitar Freaks, Guitar Hero), fake drum sets (Drummania), and interestingly even a 24 note piano keyboard (Keyboardmania).
Rhythm games all rely on a similar motivation for the player, whether in Dance Dance or Guitar Hero there is a constant drive to continually gain greater and quicker control over the supplied input device. Because rhythm games have a set curve of skill, it is relatively easy to become an adequate game "musician" in a short period of time. Since real instruments require years of practice and patience, there is some mild and shallow satisfaction in pretending to play a song very well. Even the mastery of non-sensical input devices (like the one provided for Beatmania) provides significant value to the player, since they feel that they are creating or directly contributing to the music they hear. While such music is already prepackaged, and the input is devoid of personalization (like modulation, and complex musicality), success in completing difficult compositions is wholly gratifying in the play space of a singular title.
Since most rhythm games (with the exception of PaRappa) began their lives in arcade play spaces; there developed a rather complex social scene involving such titles, especially Dance Dance Revolution. The arcade machine for said game included an elevate play platform and invited others to stand around the machine and see how well a player could match the steps to achieve a good score. This articulation naturally led to the formation of a community of players who would meet at the arcade to test their input skills and try to best one another. Similarly, due to the rise of internet message boards and connectivity, basically every rhythm game in creation has some sort of online competitive community. Apparently these games give rise to a natural competitive tendency, which reinforces the desire to acquire more control over a specific title.
Concern has been raised in certain segments of the public and media over the inherent valuelessness of rhythm games. Because such titles only poorly imitate the complexity of actual instrumentation they function as a distraction from the otherwise noble pursuit of real musical knowledge. In an article from a recent issue of Newsweek Steven Levy argues that the recent popularity of Guitar Hero could possibly make children less inclined to learn the real thing. While his argument is tenuous at best, there is a legitimate concern over the value of this game genre. Personally, and I think a good deal of the community would agree, I do not see rhythm games as a suitable replacement for real instruments as they are inherently completely different things. One involves learning how to manipulate a complex physical or digital object to produce or mimic musical composition, while doing such one must understand musical theory, chords, and a large amount of other factors that I lack the knowledge to list. The other involves some form of pressing buttons in an assigned pattern, thus rhythm games are not and cannot function as a replacement or substitution for musical instrumentation because pressing buttons and musicality as two different things; if a player gets better and better at a rhythm game, they improve their ability to manipulate hitting buttons in assigned sequences. It is given that some sequences and input devices are inherently more complex then others, but they are not within the same realm as true instrumentation and thus it is unfair to compare a genre of game that trains twitch reaction to musical learning. Rhythm games should be compared to other rhythm games as the skills one gains from one do transfer to other varieties of input because the main user interface, and thus interaction with the game, do not generally differ. This observation nicely transitions to my last point, namely genre stagnation.
As stated above, rhythm games base their continued popularity on finding new and interesting ways to encourage players to hit button sequences presented onscreen, my main fear is that eventually this framework will be too ingrained and lead to a stagnation of the genre. There can only be so many implementations of a certain control scheme before people lose general interest. Newer and different types of input devices, of which there are copious amounts, can only stave off the decomposition of interest, eventually a totally new schema will need to arise in order to continue player participation in the genre. I hope that this new schema slowly bridges the gap between buttons and instrumentation, for instance a guitar game that uses a real guitar as input and slow teaches the player to master all the "buttons" (read actual notes and chords) as an introduction to actual musical learning. Sadly I do not think the industry will head in that direction, simply because the nature of the genre lends itself to simple, quick and easy button mashing instead of education, but one can hope.
