Thanks for sharing this interview. There's always a difference in perspective that's fun to compare between people for whom DDR is "just a job" and the fans who are really dedicated about it and know timing window specifics inside and out.

It was also interesting to have my thoughts confirmed. Despite what we all want, they don't cater the game to us (the hardcore crowd). Despite how much money we might dump into this game, we can't come close to the 400,000 tweens out there who only play a few games a month, but make up a lot more of the profits.

DDR is serious business.

Yeah, I remember back in the day reading a quote (there is a similar one in the interview) how well players did on MAX300 and Konami reps were like "We can't make songs for just those people..."

As an MMO player, the similarities between the two genres is amusing to me.

Yep. You can make all the end-game content you want and the hardcore players will burn through it much faster than you could ever hope to produce it. That's like chasing the dragon.

Randy's Chasing the Dragon

Thanks for sharing the interview! It was interesting to read. It's funny to me that none of the employees got to a high skill level. I know it can suck to have to play your own game all the time, and you get sick of it by working on it, but I would have bet on at least one or two people getting addicted. Or on them bringing in skilled people to test it. Back to that truth of the casual players being the target demographic, I suppose