DJ Hero - E3 Q&A Feature

Here at TVG, we haven't had much luck with record decks in the past - drunkenly stepping up to a pair at a party before promptly emptying the dance floor with the horrible sound of a needle etching across vinyl is but one example of our past misdemeanours. Thankfully, FreeStyleGames has now come to our rescue with DJ Hero. Studio Manager, Kevin McSherry explains why:

TVG: While Guitar Hero is nothing like actually playing the guitar, we've noticed that DJ Hero seems to have much more in common with actual DJing. How have you achieved this?

It's very similar. I manage a group of DJs, so we have 16 DJs and it's the first time that's ever happened on any videogame - 16 full-time DJs working in our studios in London - and there are no other games people in that studio. We don't have programmers; we don't have artists - it's a music studio, so we're creating the mixes for the game and it comes from a very authentic source. That means that the interaction we give you is very authentic to DJing.

In the same way as real guitar sales have gone through the roof probably as a result of Guitar Hero and the enthusiasm that surrounds it, we would expect people to start to get into DJing as a result of playing this game.

TVG: As far as the music is concerned, you mentioned that there will be 100 individual tracks...

We've got 100 licenses; 100 of the biggest, most familiar pieces of music that you'll know. We then have 80 mixes where we take fantastic, familiar records such as Marvin Gaye's 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine', which is a great track from the 60s and 'Feel Good Inc.' by The Gorillaz. We then blend them together to create an innovative piece of gameplay; a completely unique piece of gameplay and audio.

If my parents were here, for example, they'd be listening to the Marvin Gaye side of it thinking, 'This sounds like a remix of Marvin Gaye'. Whereas if my niece and nephew were here they'd be thinking, 'This sounds like a vocal over the top of a Gorillaz track', so you kind of hear the piece of music that you're familiar with and you know, but you hear it in a new way.

TVG: Mash-up mixes like that have always been a commercial nightmare for DJs because there are two separate records that you've then got to pay licenses for from the record companies, which essentially halves your profit margin. How much of an issue has this been for the game and how do you think it will affect DLC?

You're absolutely right. It's been very difficult to commercialise mash-ups and we've been inspired by that because there's a fantastic underground community growing of people who're taking familiar music and blending it together. I really wanted to tap into that and you're right, there is a licensing hurdle to get over, but thankfully we're working with the best licensing guys in the industry. These are the guys who've gone out and licensed all the great music in Guitar Hero; these are the guys who've taken acts that are no longer on the road and put their albums back into the charts and brought these acts back out of retirement and out onto the road again.

Because of that, I think the music industry is now a lot more receptive to videogames. It was only 45 years ago that people first started playing records for people to dance to and musicians were terrified of the fact that they no longer had a live gig. I think that through time, musicians have been a little unreceptive to new forms of media but then they've found their feet with them, so I think that's what we're experiencing just now. The music industry is starting to recognise that the games industry is an incredible media partner and offers them the opportunity to take their music to a wider audience that they can't get access purely through record sales, the radio, or TV.

TVG: Guitar Hero is obviously well in tune with DLC now, and no doubt Activision will have DLC for Guitar Hero 5 at launch or thereabouts. Do you plan to hit the ground running with DLC for DJ Hero, or are you going to focus on getting the game out and take it from there?

At FreeStyleGames, we've been heavily involved with Neversoft on DLC, so we've been creating Guitar Hero DLC for quite some time now. We also have a plan for day 1 DLC for this game. I suppose the thing that's most exciting for me on the music side of things is that I get to see which mixes people want to buy and then we can line up more of that type of content for them.

I guess it's slightly different for Guitar Hero. They will be presenting DLC of bands and so on, and I suppose the audience will buy into that band. With us you've got the two underlying tracks and then the DJ that's produced those tracks.

TVG: Genius Products' Scratch: the Ultimate DJ peripheral is strongly rumoured to support MP3 playback. Is this something you could see DJ Hero's turntable having when the product comes to market?

It's not something you're going to see in DJ Hero.

TVG: You've mentioned the use of Guitar Hero's peripheral in 10 of DJ Hero's tracks. Are you able to expand on this a bit?

I'll give you a really good example. We've taken Nirvana: All Apologies, which is a wonderful guitar track, and we've marked it up in its entirety with the full Guitar Hero experience including the fretboard highway and exactly what you'd expect when joining in. Then we've mixed something that you completely wouldn't expect into that [it's since been announced as Rick James' 'Give It To Me Baby' and no, we completely didn't expect that]. We've also taken some of our hip-hop and house tracks and blended them into guitar tracks to create something new and innovative.

TVG: You also mentioned this morning that DJ Hero will implement vocals. How's that going to be done exactly?

When you're at a party with DJ Hero, there's always going to be someone who comes along and wants to join in. You can plug in a microphone and you can MC, freestyle. It's not a score based thing; we just want to keep it nice and simple and that kind of reflects how we've been thinking about the game. We want this to be a social, easy to pickup and easy to get into experience. It's for parties.

TVG: Will players be able to mix together two tracks of their own choosing in the game? Obviously that would be quite a challenge given that the peripheral has one turntable at the moment...

No, it's about re-creating the fantastic mixes that are already there and hopefully inspiring you to look back through the records that we've used and see if there are any that you like and want to buy more of.

TVG: With the peripheral, do you have a touch point for the price that you want to be able to sell it at?

We have don't have a touch point yet and actually a lot of the discussions on the peripheral and pricing are ongoing. We're still working out what the buttons are going to be like and we're not yet at the point of working out a price, but I think it's fair to say that we're aiming at the same area that consumers are already expecting - a similar sort of price that you'd expect for a music based peripheral product.

TVG: As far as modes are concerned, are you going for a similar style to the Career mode in Guitar Hero?

It's not really like Career. We thought about this in a different kind of way from the ground up. If you were to buy an album with 18 tracks on it but you could only play the first two and you had to play them several times before you could hear the rest, then you'd feel kind of cheated. DJ Hero is a social experience and if somebody buys the game because of a track they see on the back of the box, we want them to get that straight away. It's meant that we're going for a different structure that's wide and open but allows you to get into the music and enjoy it. We've tucked away a few hidden gems from you, so there's still something to aspire towards, but we really want it to be open.

TVG: What about multiplayer?

There's online and offline DJ vs. DJ. It's the two of you battling it out on a track, so you're both playing along on the same track and if you're online then you'll be hearing your mistakes and I'll be hearing my mistakes; if we're in the room together, then we'll hear both of our mistakes. I think the Guitar Hero implementation excites me the most actually - to have someone else on another instrument while you're playing yours, and you can do that online as well.

TVG would like to thank Kevin McSherry, FreeStyleGames' Studio Manager, for taking the time to speak with us about DJ Hero, which is due out towards the end of the year on PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PS2.