Guitar Hero 5 Expert Drum Glitch Will Never Be Fixed

It's official: the Expert Bass Drum glitch in Guitar Hero 5 will not be patched or fixed.  Drummers will have to either play Hard skill or move up to the brutal Expert+ skill level if they want to avoid the game's bug.

An official post by Guitar Hero developers Neversoft on the GuitarHero.com support forum states:

by Neversoft » Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:12 pm
I have an official statement I can now post about the Expert+ drum glitch:

"Thanks for all the information on the expert+ issue. Unfortunately, it's not something that we will be patching for currently released products. However, we are currently working on solution for future Guitar Hero games."

Thanks,
Neversoft

In reality, Neversoft has actually fixed this problem several months ago, since Band Hero came out in late 2009 containing a fixed Expert skill level.  Thanks to Band Hero's song importing feature, players were able to test the same songs on both GH5 and Band Hero for a back-to-back Expert drum comparison, and in every case, players agreed that songs glitched in GH5 were fixed when imported into Band Hero.

Unsurprisingly, the company's recent decision not to correct the game's malfunction has caused a furor to erupt among Expert Guitar Hero drummers.

This is not the first major Guitar Hero malfunction that Activision/Neversoft have refused to correct

For instance, Guitar Hero World Tour for Nintendo Wii contains a fatal flaw that acts like a "time-bomb", slowly corrupting the player's hard-earned game progress and save data.  Every time the game is played, the game loads slightly slower, until a period after several months where the game will load so slowly as to become irritating.

But that's not the worst of it.  As the condition deteriorates, the game begins to freeze when loading certain songs.  After a few more months of sluggish loading and random freezes, ultimately the game will begin to freeze every single time the game is loaded, completely preventing the player from playing the game whatsoever.

At that point, the only solution is to completely erase all game progress and save data, and start over from scratch.  For a game that requires so much time, effort, and skill to complete, this is an unacceptable situation, yet the company is not going to be fixing it either.

However, Guitar Hero 3 for Nintendo Wii was recalled to fix mono sound output, and new game discs were issued

In early 2008, players discovered the embarrassing mistake that Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock for Nintendo Wii only output mono sound.  Activision issued a full scale disc recall that also included a buyout offer that allowed GH3 owners to either send their disc back and wait 3-4 weeks for a patched stereo version, or to instead send their entire Game & Guitar bundle back to the company for a $130 refund.

5Frets participated in the mono disc recall and things went smoothly.  Activision even send out a "mea culpa" in the form of an apology letter and surprise bonus of a free Guitar Hero 3 Les Paul custom faceplate ($10 value).

So why won't Guitar Hero fix bugs in games since Guitar Hero 3?  What Changed?

Did the Guitar Hero 3 mono sound disc recall prove to be too costly for Activision?  One can only speculate.  Certainly since the Guitar Hero franchise has earned over 2 BILLION dollars, it would seem unlikely that cost could truly prevent the company from remedying their mistakes and providing customers with the satisfaction of a properly functioning game.

However, while systems like Xbox 360 truly could be patched, the primitive design of the Nintendo Wii does not allow post-release game patches.  So a fix for the Expert drum glitch would require a game disc recall similar to the GH3 mono recall.

What Guitar Hero really needs is better Quality Control

After completing the Career mode of any Guitar Hero game, the player is treated to a very long credits screen.  Particularly interesting is the enormous Quality Assurance (QA) and Testing team, which I'd estimate at 100-200 people including Managers, Directors, and Leads.

With so many resources dedicated to product quality, you have to wonder: how does Guitar Hero manage to consistently ship product with major errors?  The Guitar Hero 3 mono sound fiasco should have been a wake-up call.