Ubisoft: Rocksmith's frosty reception blamed on "lack of enthusiasm for something that is new"

Ubisoft's North American executive director Laurent Detoc feels the reason Rocksmith was met with a less-than enthusiastic response from the gaming community along with tepid review scores is because "as much as [gamers] claim they want innovation, they don't."

Speaking with Gamasutra, Detoc feels Ubisoft's guitar game, which claims to be able to teach people the instrument, didn't deserve such lukewarm reviews.

"As much as [gamers] they claim they want innovation, they don't," he said. "What I see when I read the reviews is a lack of enthusiasm for something that is new. We, as human beings, tend to like what we know. But more importantly, we call ourselves gamers. Are we gamers – or players?

"I think the 'gamer' label has actually been hurting the industry. As our industry evolves, we need to be more mature and find a way to look at content and judge it as if we were real consumers instead of as gamers."

Detoc relayed to Gamasutra that when Ubisoft's causal title Just Dance came out, some reviews of the game were merciless, and even entreated the public to not purchase it. However, he said Ubisoft will continue to make games that appeal to all markets, not just the triple-A crowd, and not just what critics prefer to review.

"[Review sites] are a part of this industry," he said. "We need to judge the products for what they are. You can't compare, say, Just Dance to an Assassin's Creed. We can't expect critics to be experts at everything.

"[Casual and core] are businesses that can exist side-by-side. We're going to continue to make games that appeal to a lot of people who don't need to be experts with a gamepad.

"Time will enable us [as an industry] to stop bashing casual games."

Rocksmith is currently out in the US for PS3 and Xbox 360. It will release in Europe during 2012 once “music licensing and other external factors" such as trademarks are sorted.

A PC version is expected in December.