Seven45 Studios to Spend More Than $10 Million on ‘Power Gig’ Game Marketing

Seven45 Studios will spend more than $10 million in marketing for its coming music game Power Gig: Rise of the SixString, including TV, print and online ads, Jeff Walker, vice president of marketing, told Consumer Electronics Daily. “We know we're going up against two behemoths” of the music game genre, he said, referring to the Guitar Hero games from Activision Blizzard and the Rock Band games from MTV Games and Harmonix. And Power Gig is Seven45’s first videogame.

But Walker said he’s confident Power Gig can find an audience and help drive interest for the genre, which has seen flagging interest over the past year or so. The company has “kept a close eye on” the industry, especially on the music game genre, and believes the bulk of the reason for sagging sales has been “consumer fatigue” caused by a “lack of innovation,” he said. The makers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games have merely been “re-skinning” their games without adding much new, he said.

A key selling feature of Power Gig is that it features a real six-string guitar that’s been designed to also work as a game peripheral. The guitar can also be plugged into a real amp. Seven45 is a sister company of music instrument manufacturer First Act, which is already known within the music industry and has an established retail customer base.

Another selling feature being stressed by the company is that the game will, out of the box, feature music by artists including Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews and Kid Rock who have until now avoided the music game genre, Walker said. The 70 tracks that will come included on the game disc will be original master recordings from those artists and others, he said. There is also a “full plan” for downloadable music tracks to be added “post launch,” said Senior Producer Jonathan Chmura. The company was still “finalizing the plans,” he said.

All the major videogame retailers will carry the game starting Oct. 19, including Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Toys “R” Us and Wal-Mart, Walker said. The game will come in a choice of three SKUs: The game only at $59.99, a guitar kit including the game and guitar at $179.99, and a full band kit that includes the game, guitar, a microphone and drum peripheral at $239.99. It’s “competitively priced,” said Walker, pointing out that rival products such as The Beatles Rock Band are priced similarly. The peripherals can be used with rivals’ games, and the peripherals from rival games will work with Power Gig, he said.

Unlike the drum peripheral pads that come with Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which users hit with standard drumsticks, the Power Gig peripheral was designed so that the user doesn’t actually hit the pads. Users just have to make a downward motion in the direction of the pads with the specially designed sticks that come with it. Polls indicated that some consumers didn’t like the noise generated by hitting drums on rival offerings, Walker said.

Activision Blizzard and Harmonix didn’t respond to requests for comment. MTV Games didn’t comment, but a spokesman said pro-style instruments were recently introduced for Rock Band games. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter said he didn’t think Power Gig would be a major rival for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. “It’s hard to play real guitar, easy to play air guitar. People want the fantasy without having to actually perform,” he said.