How Mobile Guitar Heros Has Evolved: From Tap Tap to Beatstar
15 years ago, I remember how we were crazy about Guitar Hero. I remember how happy I am when I was able to sing and play a song on it. Then one day someone in our class brought the first iPod touch, the main innovation for me was not a portable music device with thousands of music but a game that it enabled us to play: Tap Tap Revenge
The ancestor of Tap Tap Revenge: Tap Tap has launched on September 11, 2007. I found it interesting when I learned that it was even several months before App Store’s launch. People used to download the app from the blog of the game developer Nate True. Moreover, it required a jailbroken device to be installed.
In June 2008, Tap Tap Revenge was launched on AppStore. The game became huge with more than a million players in less than a month. We were crazy about the multiplayer challenges.
In 2019, Apple introduced in-app purchases for free apps. Here is how TechCrunch commented on how Tap Tap is affected by this change:
Up until now, Tapulous has been unable to sell new songs through its flagship applications Tap Tap Revenge 1 and 2, because these are both free. In order to take advantage of the in-app purchase feature that Apple launched earlier this summer, Tapulous was forced to launch TTR3 as a 99 cent application. The app has still done extremely well, leading the Top Grossing charts for days, but it would have almost certainly gotten even more downloads had it been free.
When we arrived in 2010, the Tap Tap games had collectively received over tens of millions of downloads.
Then one day, the game was gone. At least I didn’t know what happened till I started researching for this article. On January 7, 2014, Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem resigned. Tap Tap announced that
It no longer makes sense to maintain the game within the ever-changing mobile and music markets
20+ Tap Tap games were pulled on January 10, 2014, from AppStore. They later closed the servers in February 2014. I think Tap Tap has discovered branded content mechanics because even I remember the Lady Gaga version of the game. However, they brought all this content with more and more apps which brings all the acquisition challenges again and again.
Today, there might be hundreds of games on AppStore and GooglePlay with the same game mechanics. The task is to tap the flowing screen at the right time. For instance: Temple Run, Subway Surfers… (I think the most interesting part is, one of the creators of Temple Run is the former Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem)
But, one of my casual music beat games is: Like a Dino
Even though I love the original music of Like a Dino, it is not Tap Tap.
I might be missing some other successors too, but I haven’t seen anything like Tap Tap till I encountered Beatstar. Beatstar was the first game that I had the same feeling as Tap Tap.
Beatstar was soft-launched in September of 2020 and it got its global launch just a year afterwards.
Basically, you need to tap at the correct time to get maximum points from the game. If you have a “Perfect Streak” while playing a song, you are gaining multipliers. However, this is not the only mechanics that Beatstar has. Get ready to burn your brain!
Beatstar has 6 main collections as follows: Latest Hits, Electronic, Rock, Alternative, Hip-Hop, Pop. Also, the songs are tagged according to their difficulty levels as Normal, Hard, and Extreme. (There are also other genres that you can discover from Music Library) Normal, Hard and Extreme differ with their “Perfect Streak” multipliers.
Every time you play a song, you are earning Beatcoins according to the stage that you have reached. If you collect 350 Beatcoins, you have earned a Song Case. You can create up to 3 song cases. If you reach that limit, you cannot play any more songs. (or you have to watch rewarded video ads if you don’t want to spend money)
When you tap to unlock a Song Case, you need to wait 3–5 hours according to their type. After 3–5 hours, you can collect the Song Cards. Those song cards are collected in Song Boxes (I mentioned them as Collections above). When you collect enough Song Cards in a Song Box, you are earning a song from that collection.
If you fail to tap while playing a song, you have a second chance too. But it has its price. The price starts from 3 gems. If you fail again in the same play, it becomes 5 gems. (I only paid 3 gems so I can only assume the price can be 7 gems if you fail again.) You can collect gems from Music Library’s Daily Reward section or you can buy gems via in-app purchases. If you collect 145–149 gems, you can get a song from Music Library too. In addition, you can also purchase a song via in-app purchase as expected.
Let’s focus on the gameplay again. When you play a song, you get a score, stars(and medals), and tour points. Your overall score determines your ranking in your country and among your friends.
If you pass the score of your friend in a song, you can brag about it. I think this is one of the key experiences that reminds me of Tap Tap. Because there were multiplayer challenges at Tap Tap. However, the multiplayer feature was based on two players playing at the same time, brag is asynchronous.
The number of stars you collected helps you to make progress in your Journey. Your Journey Level determines the songs that are available to collect from Song Boxes. Medals are just medals for your gamer ego. Tour Points are collected in Tour Passes within Monthly Seasons. Every time you complete a Tour Pass Level, you are earning some prizes like song cards and song boxes. Also if you get a Premium Tour Pass via in-app purchases, your prizes become even bigger.
Pretty exhausting huh? I guess you have already missed the simplicity of Tap Tap (as far as we remember). Let me help you with the user flow diagram of Beatstar. (As I have only experienced the free features of Beatstar, I have drawn a FREE version of Beatstar user flow as below)
Beatstar is not only a game
Even though it seems like too many things are going on Beatstar, it is using all the game mechanics and revenue channels that the majority of the big mobile games have. We are not that unfamiliar with them any more.
However, Beatstar has one more important revenue stream. Beatstar has a similar approach to its ancestor Tap Tap. Some artists are promoting their songs in Beatstar. Beatstar gave the song as a gift to their players. As you need to play the song to get points, stars etc., you are listening and learning the song too. If the difficulty level of the song is decided cleverly, your struggle to complete the song starts to put roots down in your brain. (I memorized Headlight by Alok & Alan Walker thanks to Beatstar.)
The main challenge
Tap Tap, Temple Run, Subway Surfers, Like a Dino or Beatstar… Regardless of their name, I think the main obstacle of those games is your thumbs. They are getting so tired that you cannot play it anymore. You need to rest to improve your reflex again. This was the main challenge for the users. Let’s think about the possible competitors too.
According to SensorTower data, Beatstar has approx. 3M downloads. It hasn’t reached Tap Tap’s 10M downloads yet. However, Beatstar made a good start. This may attract others too. I consider the copyright as a great entry barrier for any possible competitor of Beatstar. Beatstar already has the power of Supercell behind them and has a pretty good music collection right now. If anyone wants to get a piece of Beatstar’s success cake, they need to find a good amount of investment to get those copyrights. However, Beatstar has to keep itself updated and if someone starts to earn the Latest Releases, they may create a shift in themselves. You may recall from the start,that the copyrights and music industry have buried Tap Tap before. If you want to think about whether that could happen, I recommend you to listen Beatstar’s current music collection on Spotify while doing it.
Were you a fan of Tap Tap like me? Do you realize the similarities between Tap Tap, Temple Run, and Subway Surfers before? What do you think about Beatstar and its future? Please feel free to share your comments below. If you want to take a closer look at the user flow of Beatstar, just click and check the Miro board.
Sources:
https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/15/apple-announces-in-app-purchases-for-free-iphone-applications/
https://www.deconstructoroffun.com/blog/2021/9/12/beatstar
https://support.beatstar.com/hc/en-us/sections/360002621718-Gameplay
https://app.sensortower.com/ios/us/space-ape-ltd/app/beatstar/1521483641/overview
https://app.sensortower.com/ios/us/space-ape-ltd/app/beatstar/1521483641/overview
