I don't know if you missed it Jon, but Beatmania has an entry on page 23
Guitar Freaks is on page 24
Pop'n Music on page 25
and finally DDR on page 27.
Are you saying they ignored Konami all together or?

EDIT:

Okay nevermind, I stand corrected.


WOW HE ACTUALLY MENTIONED ITG and PIU. SERIOUS RESEARCH HERE GUYS.

How is this even surprising?

In the author's defense, he's not here to do a complete history on DDR (AIJ did that for us), he's covering a much broader subject. And it's actually difficult to cover an entire genre without letting yourself get too embedded in it's roots and beginnings, when most people today are more familiar with the recent examples (Rock Band/Guitar Hero.

All this being said, I haven't checked out the book yet, so I'll do that before saying anything else.

Edit: Jon, I saw your post you left on the guy's page. I will say that I don't think DDR "started" the music game genre. Perhaps that's true in the US, but I'd say games like Parappa the Rappa and Beatmania (in a world-wide sense) are two of the prominent leaders.

How is "Rock Band/Guitar Hero" a broader subject?

The author stated he was:
"Chronicling the meteoric rise and fall (and rise again) of music video games, Music Games Rock: Rhythm Gaming’s Greatest Hits of All Time is the first book to explore the field’s history, origins and most spectacular hits and flops.

Simple wikipedia entries about each game does NOT equal the field's history or origins.

I'm a marketing person. If you say your product can do it, you should back it up.
He also states... Feature: "Complete History: Music Games’ Past, Present and Future "

It's a bold claim, and so I'm holding him to it here. His history is very incomplete, and the book would be better marketed as "brief summary of the majority of popular music games".

Again, as above, HE's the one that is claiming to cover both the past, present, and future of the field. That includes the roots and evolution of how music games rose to popularity, why they did, and the results that paved the way for the plastic guitar games to rise in popularity.  This requires more than 2 paragraphs about each time; it involves tying the games together, painting a history, and telling a story.

Yeah, you should have done this first.

With the title being "Music Games Rock", the bias toward GH/RB is not surprising.

Ooooh I gotta get in on this racket. I trolled up their wall too ehehehehe

I know, this book's stupid and deserves to be hated on by the whole of every dance games community. Good work men.

I know this book isn't perfect, but is it really beneficial to us and our community to totally make fun of this guy? Our genre is getting some attention in the press because of this and we all just bitch and harass it for it's flaws.

Looking at the guy's other books, it doesn't really surprise me.

It's the same reason the Christian community despised Harold Camping, the "May 21st Rapture Guy".  If you let someone who doesn't know what he's talking about get a lot of press and news, the rest of the world can get a wrong impression of that group of people.

This author seems like he is entirely out there for his own benefit; and is doing what many other ignorant people have before of telling the general public "music games really only are popular because of Rock Band and Guitar Hero." 

Had he done more research to paint music games accurately, and really try to tell the history of music games; I'd be in full support of his attempt to accurately tell the story.

Until then, he's another "Harold Camping of the music game genre", alongside many other people who only care about music games because of plastic guitar controllers.

In the US this is true. WE think of it as already being popular before RB and GH, but let's be honest with ourselves. The number of people who played (or even tried) DDR, Parappa, Beatmania, etc. back in it's golden years is probably a fraction of how many people there were playing Guitar Hero and Rockband at it's peak.

Look, this guy obviously isn't creating the most comprehensive analysis for our genre, but some of you just seem like you're out for blood. =D

Who here regularly plays GH/RB?

Generally it seems that at best, we don't play/are indifferent towards it.  At worst, we loathe it.  Especially those of us who went to SC08 and they set up a giant GH stage that drowned out actual Bemani (the balance seemed much better even by SC09; SC08 still remains, and I hope is always, my least favorite SC).  This isn't "beneficial" to a community that mainly plays DDR, ITG, Pump, and Technika.

This book takes the attention away from the games we do play and towards the ones we don't play/loathe, which is almost worse than getting no attention at all.

I don't feel that this book is taking the attention away from anyone. It's simply catering to the majority of the world who has more experience with GH/Rockband instead of DDR and the other niche games.

He's writing this book for those who's first real exposure to music games was Guitar Hero and Rockband. It's a book that was not written for us, but for others who are far less informed and honestly probably don't give a shit about games like Beatmania, DDR, or other niche music games. He is, essentially, giving people exactly what they want. It just so happens that 'we' are not those people.

Yes, that's the problem.  "What people want" doesn't equal the true history, which should be included.  

His own site about the book claims it's a complete history. I'm protesting that his claim is inaccurate, and his data is missing important parts.

What a bunch of nerds

I played the shit out of it. Then I learned real guitar. Still havent picked up real dance though, unless you count my kickin' freestyles

GH/RB also have a glaring, glaring difference from most rhythm games in that they don't judge your timing. Just jerk off the guitar and you hit that whole 'run' perfectly! Just a dumbed down simpler version of what came before it that they're calling the basis of these games.

No this guy deserves to have the shit trolled out of him by every rhythm community that preceded GH.
^This

Just pointing out that you're posting on a dance game forum

sure, im being ridiculous, but you do understand my point though: the people who will actually read and take that book seriously won't care about factual information as much as affirmation for their opionions that they already have in their mind and set in stone

This guy does scummy SEO too.

Check out these identical sites of his:
http://www.toptechexpert.com/
http://thevideogameexpert.com/
http://www.akeynotespeaker.com/
http://www.mediaspokesperson.com/
http://corporatespokespersons.com/
and
http://gametheoryonline.com/
http://toptechnologyexpertwitness.com/

From toptechexpert.com:


thevideogameexpert.com:


Wow a BILLION PEOPLE have turned to this guy. Thats impressive   If not complete bullshit


Oh and he gives parenting advice. I gotta shoot this guy an email and troll the shit out of him hehe. I mean I'm a douche for sure, but this guy... He's got to be the biggest douche of them all...

For someone who a billion people have turned to, his non-existent Wikipedia entry is impressive.

Also,
http://www.businessweek.com/bios/scott-steinberg-2735.html leads to three more of his sites.

idt that's unique hits, just saying. they dont put a disclaimer on that statement.

FYI, the Facebook comment list thing is now missing from the book's site.

I still see it just fine on the site...

It sounds like he's making up more stats beyond the "billion people" statement.
The site for Embassy Multimedia Consultants (from his businessweek bio) is completely password protected.
www.embassymulti.com
I found few articles about the company, just self-made PR releases.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/press-releases/digitaltrends-com-acquires-embassy-multimedia-consultants/
http://bhimpact.gamespress.com/release.asp?i=70

Digital Trend's website is completely broken too.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/contact/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/about/  (both of these are links from their homepage).

It's almost as if someone's out there weaving a web of fake content to look legit. This all just doesn't seem legit.

The email listings on the websites to promote his books are as follows:

Check out http://www.ps3pub.com/ - Spam/SEO blog for PS3 news.
And those sites aren't up to date. At least Angie Newman is legit. Her public linkedin profile shows her working at EA after the B/HImpact company.

Aww, it looks like he finally took down the Facebook comments, and then made his website SEO keyword & link heavy.