How did BM(IIDX), Pop’n, GFDM and DDR retain popularity while other Bemani titles didn’t?

I was around when I saw the first Beatmania pop up in arcades in the late 90s, followed by DDR and the rest.

Besides the four/five series mentioned in the title, there was a smorgasbord of other games, like KeyboardMania, Dance ManiaX and ParaParaParadise that appeared shortly afterward. But among them all, only that group of four/five still are under active development decades later, while the rest faded away after three revisions at most. And throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Konami released other titles that also eventually got sunset after a handful of years.

What do you think do these four/five have that the others didn’t have?

If I were to guess, ParaParaParadise seemed to live and die by the Para Para trend. It came when the dance was doing hot, and faded away as the clubs stopped doing Para Para. As for KeyboardMania, maybe it was too realistic, what with two whole octaves of piano keys, or four if you play double.

Frankly, I'm shocked that GFDM has retained its popularity, given that GuitarFreaks ever since XG is literally just Guitar Hero and DrumMania got way more complicated. As for the rest, they established a simple concept and just kept iterating on it while keeping strong base gameplay.

For another that didn't manage to keep up... Reflec Beat is effectively dead because they made changes that they absolutely did not need to with Reflesia. There was absolutely no need for them to re-do all of the charts in the game to add new note types to them, especially given how many songs they ended up cutting (have you seen the launch day song list? It was almost as bad as DDRMAX) because I guess they ran out of time to do that.

I feel like a decent chunk of DDR's popularity comes from early 2000s nostalgia, though the lack of musicians from back then kinda makes me think that sort of popularity is also dying down. Heck, my main source of interest in the newer DDR games mostly boils down to the Touhou collab. Even then, that's still licensed music, and it more or less proves my point that modern DDR is heavily reliant on licensed tracks to keep players interested.

Honestly kinda why I think we need a new Dancing Stage considering how the European music scene includes names like Alexander Rybak, Lordi, Pasha Parfeny, Ghost, and every second band from Napalm Records. Also, the Eurovision Song Conest is almost never without a certified banger even if they don't win the year they entered said contest. Though if we do see a new Dancing Stage, I wanna think that Konami would get Ghost's project creator and frontman Tobias Forge to help curate songs for a Euro-centric song list..

Because they're popular and the others aren't/weren't. That's about it. Yeah, back in the late 90s / early 2000s, Konami was just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck. There's so many dead rhythm games and tons of them were made by Konami, like Parapara, Dance Maniax, DDR Solo, Keyboardmania, etc

DDR is still going because it became a fad for a few years and people remember it for that, and it's also the easiest/simplest of the modern rhythm games. GFDM is still going because Guitar Hero doesn't really exist anymore and Drummania is unique enough among rhythm games to attract at least some sort of playerbase. IIDX is still going because it's the original and, at least in Japan, the most popular rhythm game. Pop'n IIRC was originally created to cater to younger kids / women with its cutesy art style, but they quickly dropped that and started making it really hard like IIDX.

IIDX, SDVX, DDR, GFDM, Pop'n, and Jubeat are basically the "core" games of Bemani, that's why they're still around and getting regular updates.

Not sure the last two are doing that well. GFDM takes up a lot of space so many arcades never carried more than one of each, but pop'n and jubeat don't, and many arcades still don't carry more than 2 of these these days when they used to carry more.

For me, the leg-based or index play of DDR and derivatives will always be more fun than using full hand or spread play. I am enamored with the tech and physical activity of dance games and enjoy the more readable charting style. The constraint of avoiding double-steps (generally) leads to more ingenuity in charting, and hand charts sometimes feel messy in comparison since they don't have to abide by the same set of rules.

I also like that DDR is simple, as mentioned by others. There's no analog movement or sweeps, just binary on-off inputs and immediate feedback. It's very easy to grasp that you just press a button when an icon reaches a receptor. This makes it ideal for gamifying exercise for people who have never touched a rhythm game before, and it's a decent gateway into other rhythm games.

I wonder if there is a difference in preferences by region.

I’m in Korea, and based on crowdsourced info, there are 28 DDR cabinets nationwide. In contrast, there are 26 Pop’n cabinets and 38 Jubeat cabinets in Seoul alone.

Originally, Korea only had jubeat and SDVX. UNIANA sure grew up. Korea is the home of PIU, and DDR is relatively new.

From what I remember reading a few years ago from event runners, Jubeat is actually the second most popular rhythm game behind DDR at cons that Bemani games get brought to. No idea why but it's always popular with that semi-casual crowd.

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What are you talking about? Bemani was big in Korea before PIU came along and arcades got replaced by net cafes. ParaParaParadise 1st had a handful of Korean songs for the KR releases, while DDR 3rd Korea had 17.

They're still getting new versions and being included in Bemani crossover events. Very much alive.