for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] Rhythm games are a genre with a storied history over the course of the past 30 years Rhythm games have grown and developed into a genre known for its unique gameplay systems and strongly dedicated communities but it wasn't always this way many of those familiar with rhythm game history like to point to Japan and Japanese Rhythm games as the origins of the genre particularly with the likes of paraa the rapper and later the original Beat Mania for the Western rhythm game scene the Japanese history of the genre is simply much more well-known but just a short flight away from Tokyo in South Korea another rhythm game was being created right in the rise in popularity of Rhythm and music video games this is easy to DJ want to come here the Big B and I'm on SO singing you better chill and just ride [Music] ride easy to DJ is an arcade rhythm game originally created by amuse world and released in 1999 the main gamep playay of the game is five keys and a turntable almost exactly the same as the original Beat Mania it was certainly inspired by 5K Beat Mania however the game would feature differences that would help it to stand out from 5K Beat Mania the main distinct difference is the foot pedal both sides of the cabinet feature a foot pedal used in gameplay adding a distinct gameplay element to help it stand out Additionally the turntable in easy to DJ behaves slightly differently spinning much more freely than Beat Mania turntables which have a lot more friction for stopping this allows long turntable notes to be charted a bit differently than Beat Mania which didn't even feature long notes for turntable until the game switched to Beat Mania 2dx so while the game was obviously inspired by Beat Mania easy to DJ features some gameplay differences that help it to stand out against Beat Mania released on April 20th 1999 was easy to DJ the first tracks for reference at this point in time Beat Mania was on complete mix released as beat stage complete mix in Korea as easy to DJ was a similar game to Beat Mania comparisons were created between the two series immediately the main thing that differentiated the two series was the visual quality easy to DJ first tracks features notably higher quality visuals than Beat Mania complete mix and consumers took notice with the game becoming popular in Korean arcades of the time quite quickly the main modes that would exist throughout most of easy to DJ's life would be defined here in first tracks exercise mode was a tutorial mode with two practice stages and a third stage where you play you love the light life you live interestingly the tutorial seems to have been entirely in English which seems like a choice though a large amount of the game's UI is in English also Additionally you love the life you live is somewhat comedically similar to jam Jam reggae from Beat Mania pretty funny that this is the tutorial song as well the other modes in easy to DJ are separated based on the number of songs difficulty of judgment and number of keys present in each Street mix seems to have been the stand standard mode allowing the user to play four songs an interesting footnote is that while researching this I noticed it seemed to be common that in Rhythm games of this era the standard number of songs per credit was often four instead of the three we see today Beat Mania was doing this for a time as well radio mix allows the user to play five songs but has a harder note judgment this mode plays more like a course mode having the user select a station to play with the songs playing in sequence one after another this allows the user to play more songs at the cost of more difficult gameplay which is an interesting concept lastly there's Club Mix Club Mix is another non-stop mode with four songs but doesn't feature the harder judgment instead it serves as the game's 10 key mode taking advantage of one turntable both sets of keys and one foot pedal during each song the user is prompted to use one of the turntables to select the upcoming song in real time and then the next song plays immediately upon completion of the current one the song selector turntable is not used for notes so only one is required during gameplay easy to DJ carried a lot more mode variety at launch than its competitor Beat Mania helping it to stand out in the Market along with its improved visuals the game features an overall hip-hop aesthetic and music Direction and the game found early success in the Korean arcade Market a market that was about to be changed forever around the turn of the Millennium South Korea was in the midst of a recovery from an economic downturn dur during this time the Korean internet cafe known as a PC bong became popular they started popping up everywhere and around the same time the popularity of games like Starcraft and Diablo I began to Skyrocket due to this PC games as a whole began to gain traction resulting in a slight downturn to the arcade Market in an arcade Market that was already not that profitable at the time something like this was definitely noticeable released on December 15th 1999 was an expansion to First tracks titled special Edition this was pretty much a version refresh but did come with some notable changes due to being so close to the beginning of the series the most notable thing was that they added long notes to the turntable and foot pedal increasing mechanical depth and adding long notes much before the Beat Mania series would do so they also deleted exercise mode the tutorial it seems like an odd decision to delete your game's tutorial on the very first version of the game but according to namuwiki players seemed to believe it was a waste of money to pick that mode since you didn't simply play that first before progressing to the normal game additionally they added a menu to the effect button to select your modifiers on song select like your scroll speed the hidden modifier and even random they also added a double mode command that let you play two player mode songs as a single player similar to what Beat Mania did before an official doubles mode existed this was also slightly different than Club Mix since during club mix only one turntable SL foot pedal is used though using two foot pedal seems difficult the game introduced the concept of multiple difficulties for a single song as well with the addition of easy mix and HD mix or hard mix versions to add alternative charts for the same song the overall theme of the game changed as well from the hip-hop style over to techno and overall easy to DJ would more generally follow EDM Trends over its lifetime changing as it went the most interesting thing about this version of the game is that this version was actually shown in Japan under the name easy for DJ this was shown at the am show which is now jpo there are a few pictures of this easy for DJ Marquee and the game at am show and it's super interesting to see this alternative localized version that was never released nami's easy to DJ history article mentions that around this time the Korean arcade scene actually revived slightly doing part to the popularity of music games like Pump It Up which was released originally in September of 1999 and also easy to DJ despite the rise in popularity of the PC bong for a Time Korean arcades were still staying on their feet one two 1 2 bring it down this brings the story to easy to DJ's only major cancelled version easy2 DJ dance Edition easy to DJ wasn't the only game in the easy series the most notable other game in the franchise at this time was easy to dancer similarly to easy to DJ being created by iterating off of beat easy to dancer was created by iterating off of Dance Maniacs another Konami arcade game from around this time with amuse World basically following in the footsteps of bman they thought it would be a good idea to create a system similar to the link system between Beat Mania 2dx second mix and DDR second mix as such easy to DJ dance Edition was said to be created and was partially developed being shown at the SBS cyber game show in August of 2000 however according to Nami due to the popularity of easy to DJ over easy to dancer in Korea easy to dancer was set to be discontinued after just two versions as such dance Edition was scrapped and never [Music] released after the bump in the road that was dance Edition and the subsequent cancellation of easy to dancer easy to DJ second tracks it rules once again or IRA was finally released on November 1st 2000 tracks was changed to the stylized TRX spelling and this version of the game would introduce many key features that would remain in the game for the rest of the series lifespan in that way second tracks is sort of the first true version of the game nami's second tracks page provides a list of the features added to the game that would remain in the series throughout its lifespan in some way some of the highlights include the judgments which go from K cool to fail adding the series staple 7K and 14k modes to radio mix and space mix respectively now giving each mix mode a unique control scheme removal of two player only charts the introduction of skin selection functions high scores for each Song and more s key and 14 key are very interesting in easy2 DJ as they take advantage of buttons that are placed high above the normal Playfield this means the player has to move much further around the Playfield than something of the more static gameplay of Beat Mania 2dx making it very unique to play in comparison playing easy to dj1 14 K can be a very humbling experience trying to Grapple with where all the buttons are on the control deck and is a significant challenge for highle players the game featured a more koreanjapanese pop music Direction rather than that of techno from Special Edition the game also featured the introduction of a series staple mode now known as Ruby mix which was essentially the beginner mode instead of exercise mode Now featuring lower difficulty content and relaxed clearing conditions despite the arcade scene holding out against PC bongs for a short while around this time was when PC gaming in Korea began to really pick up and arcade games were no longer the dominant video gaming Market in the country the value proposition provided by PC bongs compared to arcades was not in the arcades favor at all in addition to curfew for arcades limiting their operating hours where PC bongs at the time did not have such a curfew as such the arcade industry was suffering and it seemed that some companies developing arcade games seek to soon exit the industry nevertheless amuse World continued to develop new versions and on September 17th 2001 easy to DJ third tracks absolute pitch was released nam's history article mentions that due to market conditions this was actually supposed to be the last version of easy to DJ that amuse world was planning to develop this version of easy2 DJ added a series staple side mode that some people unfamiliar with easy2 DJ might have actually seen before third tracks introduced easy to catch a side mode where you use the turntable to catch fruit to the music if you've ever played OSU before you've certainly seen this mode and this game is where that type of gameplay originates it was introduced as a hidden mode accessed with a command and later down the line would become an official part of the game this version had a lot lot of notable ambitious changes overall first off an all song command was finally added to the game according to namuwiki it was actually added in second tracks but wasn't accessible or finished so now users with the code could easily access any songs they wanted additionally they attempted to implement an internet ranking mode but it uh wasn't wellb built leading to many cheated scores due to bugs in the game after this version of the game internet ranking was actually never implemented again again despite the easy to DJ site appearing to be under construction for an update of the mode in future versions it just never materialized again the reception of this game by the players was positive overall and it was seen as the best version of the game at the time however the writer of the NWI third tracks article supposes that this version of the game introduced a near irreparable amount of difficulty inflation to the game to the point where it may have shortened the series lifespan or affected its popularity before tracks there was only one level 9 chart but in third more than five level eight or nine charts were released and many of level 10 or higher the game was also seen as being at the peak of the series quality but due to declining market conditions of the Korean arcade scene the development conditions for the game got increasingly worse leading to many of the developers leaving amuse World additionally amuse world had been indicating an exit of the arcade rhythm game market after this version so the game's music director K left amuse world world after development was [Music] completed despite it looking like the series might be at its End come just a few months later and a new version would be on the horizon though under different development conditions on July 28th 2002 easy to DJ fourth tracks overmind was released despite amuse World intending to leave the arcade Rhythm games Market according to Nami after tracks and some unfavorable business ventures like the short-lived easy to golf they decided to return to the series for the sake of making some of the money back they lost on Bad Business moves since a large part of the development team had left amuse world at this point many of the developers and composers were outsourced to work on Fourth tracks including K the game actually only featured four composers in total for the new songs the others being andd we Forte escape and xx dvxx at this point the series had settled in a bit and not as many groundbreaking features were being added on a version to version basis that said this version did introduce Auto scratch and auto pedal options to the game later down the line in the series modes that featured no scratch or pedal were added so this could somewhat be seen as the precursor to that the game as a whole was designed to be a call back to First tracks and even had a mode that reverted the Judgment system to First tracks the game overall made some odd decisions in terms of modes and changes according to Nami the first first tracks mode wasn't really of interest to current players and other questionable decisions were made like the removal of Ruby mix to be replaced with easy mix contrary to the name easy mix wasn't as easy to find in the game compared to Ruby miix as such leaving beginner players confused on where they should go other things were removed in this game like per song leaderboards namu wikii points out that this point in the series is where the overall quality of the game generally started to decline due to the conditions the game was developed under and this would not be the last time this happened to quote the translated article describing the overall State the game is a mess but the songs are all masterpieces it certainly seems from the outside looking in that fourth tracks was not very well received even if it was unexpected to be getting another game in the series at [Music] all according to Nuki after the release of fourth tracks in an attempt to follow the trend of popularity of online video games like Ragnarok online from sister company gravity amuse World created an online game called wonder rush but it was unsuccessful so once again a new easy to DJ version was created to recover costs as such easy to DJ Platinum released on September 6th 2003 the struggling development conditions of the series were really starting to show through around this point with bugs odd feature additions and removals low amounts of consistent staff working within amuse World on the game and questionable design choices according to namuwiki platinum was originally intended to be split into a normal Edition and a limited edition but only the Limited Edition released under the name Platinum presumably the original base version wouldn't have been named platinum and that name actually gave some players the impression that it was the final version though a running Trend throughout the series was that it seemed like it was going to die every few years or so apparently due to the unrealistic Financial projection of the series from higher ups Ruby mix was returned to the game instead of easy mix seeming to be the preferred mode considering the feedback from the last version this game actually only had one internal music producer working on the game that being Forte escape the rest were outsourced once again showing what seemed to be a lack of commitment to easy to DJ from am Muse world at this time relying more on contractors than in-house composers around this point in the series The Hardware of easy to DJ's arcade cabinet was starting to cause issues and bugs bus due to age with the hardware remaining the same for about 5 years to this point according to Nami some of the arcades were actually taking it upon themselves to upgrade certain components of the hardware to resolve issues at the time the mix was seen as low quality but it would actually receive favorable retrospective views from fans later on as the quality and dedication to the game waned between fourth tracks and platinum most of the remaining developers and some contractors working on easy to DJ decided to leave work on easy to DJ and formed their own company known as pentavision pentavision would go on to create the DJ Maxx series and is the reason that later down the line the developers wanted to collaborate between easy2 on and DJ Maxx respect V to include music from that first to platinum [Music] era despite the main body of developers and contractors no longer working on the game August 17th saw the release of easy to DJ six tracks self Evolution it was originally going to be named fifth tracks but due to confusion relating to the Platinum naming of the last version they went with sixth some of the developers working on this game were contractors for companies producing for other Rhythm games and as such had some interesting crossovers the main developer SRS was an O2 Jam Charter previously this version at the time was seen as basically the complete version paying respects to the entire series it featured a mode that directly reproduces first tracks titled remember first which according to Nami was praed due to there being basically no more cabinets running first tracks at this time many more features were added to this version like a mode where you could play against the top score for a chart called virtual battle a unique idea for the time predating Beat Mania pacemaker feature that said it often crashed the machine due to memory limitations so it maybe wasn't the best implementation easy to catch was added as an official mode and also turntable mode turntable mode is another side mode from older easy to DJ games games and is weird it's basically a guitar freaks type mode I guess you hold the keys down and turn the turntable to strum the notes it's bizarre and looks very difficult the namuwiki page for turntable mode has a subsection just labeled terrible songs when machine translated so that should give you an idea of how this Mode's charting is received the big feature in self- evolution was the evolution system unlock method involving the unlocking of the 13 letters in the phrase self Evolution there were conditions like winning a virtual battle failing on the first stage of Street mix selecting a song in Street mix by letting the timer run out Etc according to namii aside from this system not being received very well one of the letters in the unlock system literally did not work the u letter unlock required the users to match the number of notes to the number of combos or in simpler terms get a full combo however due to the way that this was Pro programmed this was actually impossible combo in easy to DJ starts at zero so no matter what the user did they would always be one combo short of the unlock condition because of this the unlock condition for you was Kept Secret for quite a long time and it resulted in a developer traveling to some of the arcades and soul to manually unlock the letter U the actual condition for U wasn't revealed until 3 years later when the developers admitted that the original condition was bugged aside from actual programming errors the game was generally very buggy due to a aging Hardware which was already an issue in Platinum and that still hadn't been upgraded a new board had actually been designed by this point but due to budget issues the board wasn't released with six tracks six tracks was also the first game in the series to leak onto the internet leading to Illegal home use and data modifications this resulted in some absolutely strange and unique rhythm game content like easy to DJ Rhythm Brazil tracks and this bootleg chart of weird w exclusive to Thailand that was raided with a difficulty of 22 some absolutely strange pieces of rhythm game history with the series seeming to be stable for the time being the series would progress in the early summer of 2005 while walking down the street I happened to notice that the street scene was a little strange the back alley was full of raw fish restaurant signs there were many signs with lots of fish drawn on a blue background contrary to my illusion they were not signs for a raw fish restaurant it was the prude to Sea Story the biggest gaming Scandal that would shake up the Korean gaming industry and politics for the next few years predating where we are in the story of easy2 DJ slightly in 2003 the k Korean arcade adult and Screen horse racing Market was big before being sanctioned by the Korean Ministry of culture and tourism the main company providing these machines was facing a financial crisis due to not being able to collect money from the machines they sold with the company producing these horse racing games on the verge of bankruptcy the company president decided to try one last Hail Mary by making a bootleg of a Japanese Pachinko machine called sea story in 2005 sea story was taking over from insane popularity and tons of arcades started buying them the arcade industry of the time was not very profitable so business owners saw this as a way to increase income leading to an increase in so-called adult arcades unlike the game centers of previous years SE story operated on a similar loophole of legality to that of Japanese Pachinko that being that it dispense something other than cash as a prize that could be sold Elsewhere for money additionally the Korea media rating board which was responsible for rating games such as this was very LAX and essentially took the operators's words at face value when presenting a game for validation eventually the board decided to not evaluate future games of this nature but the old ones were not Declassified allowing them to continue Operation Sea story sold so many units that even LCD manufacturers were seeing a bump in Revenue 11,000 of the 13,000 arcades in 2005 were were classified as an adult arcade eventually similar to horse racing gambling games the reaper would come for sea story and by extension Korean arcades in 2006 the president of the company in question said in an interview no matter what anyone says sea story was made purely with domestic technology it's okay to be proud afterwards Korean authorities began investigating the company that was creating sea story and crackdowns on gambling began particular ularly they moved towards the Banning of the system of issuing gift certificates for prizes this whole thing actually ballooned into a large scale political Scandal involving the Korean government but that's a bit out of scope for this video so go check out the article for yourself if you want to learn more about it in the second half of 2006 following some radical changes induced by the political landscape around the scandals SE story machines started to be confiscated so many that the number exceeded ,000 this whole event would irreparably damage the Korean arcade scene due to a large amount of stores propped up on now illegal gambling Revenue with the shifting of the arcade industry toward adult games and then the subsequent loss of income to the arcade industry following the Banning of illegal gambling games there would be a three-year Gap until the next easy to DJ entry [Music] eventually a new entry would make its way out and the series would continue into a new era on March 14th 2007 easy to DJ 7th tracks resistance was released the title was apparently meant to signify the resistance to the state of easy2 DJ and the Korean arcade scene at the time around this time the stability of the development conditions for the series would really begin to deteriorate due to the state of the industry the production team for seventh tracks was entirely new after everyone who produced sixth tracks left and was largely made up of a collection of easy to DJ players from the time in addition to the development team for the series starting to destabilize the production time was starting to shorten seventh tracks was developed in just 3 months time this shortened development time began to result in lower quality assets and sometimes bugs and this version in particular featured a large amount of resource reuse due to originally being planned as an expansion to sixth tracks despite some issues seventh track did do plenty of good for the series shd was added as a standard difficulty that could be used on all songs individual rankings for songs were readed and the hardware of the cabinet was even upgraded slightly resolving some of the bugs in the previous versions in the process according to namu Wii players noted that the songs composed for this mix seemed to be made for hard charting and that the charts were also good while the mix had some issues it largely seemed to be a solid release in the series however easy to DJ was about to to hit another bump in the [Music] road unfortunately at the time around seventh track's development amuse world was caught in a patent infringement lawsuit with Konami related to their patents for Beat Mania that were registered in Korea this is a lawsuit that amuse world would not win and they were ordered to pay damages to Konami of 11.7 billion W or about 877 $7,000 by today's conversion rate part of the lawsuit meant that they could not create new entries in the series with the easy to DJ name so to get around this they instead started a lengthy cycle of patches and updates for seventh tracks to preserve the easy to DJ name according to the NWI article's author they suspect that Konami probably had legal grounds to pursue them for doing this but it was a negligible gain for them so they just didn't as such amuse world would begin the seventh tracks era of updates to keep the easy to DJ name alive around this time the development team was frequently being restructured for each new version of the game and the development team consisted of players in the BMS community at the time development of seventh tracks 1.5 supposedly took place over only the course of 15 days and the development team was supposedly not paid for their work on this the difficulty balancing around the game and some of its side modes for this update was a bit all over the the place and resulted in an Infamous moment for easy to catch the easy to catch Four Kings of Heaven refer to four charts for easy to catch from version 1.5 of seventh tracks that were noticeably different or harder than the others due to the shortened development some of the charts were rushed or ported straight over to catch from the normal game mode grey Hunter is a ported chart from normal gameplay resulting in notes spread very wide apart Legend Of Moonlight contains a ridiculous widespread pattern near the beginning of the song that's very difficult Prince of Darkness is a high-speed and nonstop onslaught of notes and Hyper magic the hardest of the four was so difficult that it took almost 4 years for someone to clear and as of 2020 on the NWI article only has five recorded clears these four songs got recharts down the line but the Four Kings of Heaven original charts were actually revived later on with a [ __ ] skull difficulty rating this kind of Niche High difficulty content is unique to easy to DJ produced only under the strangest development conditions 7th tracks 2.0 mostly focused on quality of life updates for seventh tracks They added features like BGA disabling song sorting options skin functionality bug fixes replacements for general purpose VGA with song specific ones and more after two years of Base seventh tracks being around and getting updates March 30th 2009 would bring easy to DJ 7eventh tracks class R code name Violet this was framed as being an update despite having seventh tracks in the title as previously mentioned this was due to the issues with the easy2 DJ name if they kept it on the same version they could still use the easy2 DJ name despite this it is essentially the eighth game and featured a different development team from base seventh tracks development for this Series starts to become noticeably strained here just based on time frames alone code name Violet was produced in just 32 days barely even clearing a month while it was a new game according to Nami the decision to keep the seventh tracks name gave players the impression that seventh was just being dragged along for updates despite it being a new game internally whether or not they should have continued under this name or changed it is Up For Debate but despite this the easy to DJ name was hanging on for now code name Violet is notable for featuring the release of Kami which became one of the series most famous songs and would feature notably in future collaboration projects with other games unfortunately for other songs in the series The Game's loading issues were still present resulting in the removal of 55 songs to try to improve the loading issues with the [Music] game a little over a year later on November 9th 2010 7eventh tracks bonus edition was released out of nowhere the game featured no location test before release and according to a developer who worked on it was made in 3 weeks and by only three people internally this was the ninth version of the game despite carrying the seventh tracks name still the song list of be was interesting because the majority of the song list was ported From Another music game called Sabin soundstar covering Sabin soundstar henceforth referred to as 3s is out of the scope of this video as a whole but it was another music game made by an entirely different company called 3s entertainment the game itself featured similar Hardware to the easy to DJ cab but had three percussion inputs rather than the turntable according to NWI around the time players were speculating if the game was meant to be a sequel to easy to DJ despite the different company producing the game people were unsure if amuse world and 3s were owned by the same company or were related in some way way or if there was some other team creating 3s supposedly the rights holder for 3s and amuse world was the same person so there would be some sort of relationship there but the exact details are unclear the developer I spoke to who worked on be mentioned that info relating to 3s was under NDA which certainly paints a picture Nami mentions that be was produced by 3 s's production team which is interesting I personally would make the assumption that there was some sort of plan to switch over to 3s entirely and that the game's lack of success caused them to Pivot back to easy to DJ but that's just my speculation be comprising music entirely from an unrelated game wasn't the only thing strange about this version though be is notable in the history of easy to DJ for being very buggy so much so that the players of the game referred to be as bug Edition due to numerous problems introduced into the game blue screening on boot up the all songs code crashing the game the game starting in free play mode on boot as well as other various bugs and typos all plagued the game's reputation being noted by players as the worst version in the entire [Music] series all was not lost for be and easy to DJ though as just a few months later on February 17th 2011 easy to DJ bonus edition revision a was released also known as Bea Bea featured many improvements to overhaul the performance and image of the game being a large update to bonus edition bugs were fixed previously deleted songs were readded some older charts and background animations were restored graphical elements were updated loading speeds were improved and UI elements were adjusted the even brought back content players probably wouldn't have even expected like the previously mentioned easy to catch Four Kings of Heaven complete with their skull difficulty rating Bea even featured UI elements that paid homage to previous easy to DJ mixes further solidifying the mix as one designed to respect the history of the franchise at the time Vera was considered to be an appropriate conclusion to the series according to fans Nami even cites that Bea was such an improvement over be that It reversed its bad name it seems the players thought that they had done right by the franchise and fixed the problems from be especially in a time where the future of the series was uncertain before we move on a quick shout out the aformentioned developer I spoke to on some of the previous sections related to be and Bea was echospherics on Twitter under the same name he kindly answered some questions I had about the series be and Bea so my thanks go out to him verra being considered an appropriate sendoff was possibly more apt than the players realized at the time because Bea would be the last version of easy to DJ that amuse world ever produced the original developer had shut its doors and was no more but easy to DJ doesn't quite end there development of the easy series would transferred to a company known as Square pixels bringing in a new era of easy to DJ Square pixels consisted of some of the developers from the previous production team and some new ones and they would lead easy to DJ into a new era on March 8th 2012 easy to DJ Azure expression was released into Korean arcades this is the last game being classified as part of seventh tracks despite it being internally the 10th version they had dragged on the seventh tracks name as long as they possibly could and I'm sure there were still concerns over using the easy to DJ name especially as a new development company was taking over so Azure expression would be the last version to use the easy to DJ name due to turnover of game development to a new company song ownership and Licensing became an issue due to permissions held by people that no longer worked on easy to DJ many songs were removed from the game due to not having usage rights to the music over 40 in total were removed most of which were from the other seventh tracks versions while the game was praised at the time for featuring higher quality charts and good visuals and song Choice the new version was criticized for the song removals as it was off the back of Bea considered the most comprehensive version at the time of ae's release according to namuwiki the removed content in AE was so contentious that some arcades decided to not upgrade due to player demand to keep Bea this led to a divide in the community over moving to the new game versus staying on the old one just a few months later on June 22nd 2012 Azure expression integral composition released being the half version update to AE this upgrade was actually free to those running AE unlike some of the seventh series upgrades which were paid paid upgrades were actually contentious for a good chunk of the seven series Life due to it seeming like some of the premid version refreshes were paid betas to the point where some players even referred to easy2 DJ as the paid beta series the upgrade came with the usual bug fixes and updates to visuals as well as a few new songs and some difficulty scale adjustments it was additionally received well due to relying mostly on new content for the update material rather than existing or old content being put back into the game as was the case with many of the version updates in the last few versions made imuse world with this the easy to DJ name would be officially retired both to prevent issues with legal action from Konami as well as to resolve the limitations of not being able to create a new version instead being forced to patch seventh tracks the name would change to easy to AC short for easy2 arcade and the series would continue on from there under square pixels they apparently had actually intended to keep using the easy to DJ name anyways but during the development of the next version Konami seized the trademark to the name itself forcing the name to be [Music] changed released on May 7th 2013 was the first game with the easy to AC name easy to AC endless circulation we can once again see here that the production time on these mixes is quite low even under the new team as Nami cites this version as being produced in only two 2 months though this is still far better than some of the final 7th versions being produced in just a few weeks this version featured a few series staple updates like a rework of Ruby mode a new how to play video and the letter based unlock method from sixth tracks returning these changes were generally received well but according to Nuki it was criticized for bringing back the letter-based unlock system probably because it didn't work very well last time additionally at time of release the full unlock command in the game didn't actually work but luckily this time they just fixed it at the patch version rather than having to send a person out to the arcades to fix it it still required sending Gear Drive in but small improvements other than that endless circulation was received well it was praised for having high quality new songs and a lot of them the overall design and UI were well received and EC was seen as a generally good version released December 6th 2014 was easy to AC evolve aside from being the next version in the series it also featured a cabinet hardware upgrade shortly after releas as the PC in the machine had been causing problems for quite a while this was actually received very positively for quickly fixing issues that came with the new release it even resolved some long-standing bugs that had been plaguing the game for quite a few versions the new version focused on making the game more accessible to newer players by loosening judgment tightness and decreasing clearing difficulty some players seem to argue that this was too little too late and that easy to DJ was always a game more targeting the hardcore crowd but it's a nice ad nonetheless as the original timing Windows present in the game were extremely strict the game got support for video BGA instead of just animated in engine ones the game could now be updated over USB and the game even ran an event called the who is the next song contest to get songs submitted for the game and it drew a lot of attention with over 100 nominated songs easy to AC evolve would also feature the introduction of fox b 2 square pixels as the lead game planner he would go on to become a wellknown developer of the EZ series from the outside looking in this is probably when the game was on its most normal path during the square pixels era regular decent quality updates new songs promotional material bug fixes Hardware upgrades it seems the game was definitely getting a lot of love around this time released on January 28th 2016 was easy to Asen night traveler apparently meant to capture the feeling of the night more system related improvements came with this version like 10K and 14k course mode as well as a new UI theme and more bug fixes aside from the new content of course that said this version did face some criticism that course mode actually wasn't in the game on launch in addition to things like dedicated BGA instead with some content using some of the generic BGA instead the game was criticized for launching without those features understandably so since the previous previous versions had been relatively sound on release night traveler features one of the most interesting modes in the whole series titled code name Violet 2 originally revealed as an April Fool's joke released in August that year was a secret mode titled code name Violet 2 in reference to the seventh tracks version this turned out to not actually be an April Fool's joke but a fully fledged mode releasing with 22 charts and a Coden name Violet Skin this actually ended up being a recurring mode getting updates a few times it's a super novel aidea to have a space dedicated to a Revival of an old version and it feels in a similar vein to remember first around this time was an event that would arguably altered the course of easy to AC Forever After Night traveler was released a crowdfunding project was started to release the soundtrack of night traveler it had the usual crowdfunding campaign stuff including stretch goals it was successfully funded however after the campaign was complete the issues started to arise production delays with the OST caused drama over the release of the soundtrack it took a very long time to release the OST itself as well as the stretch goal obligations this would kick off a chain of events causing a loss of money and taking over 3 years to fulfill all obligations related to the night traveler OST along the way fox b and some of the other developers were personally harassed due to the delays and there were even posts made admitting to stalking one of the members of square pixels so conditions for the Easy 2 Series at this time were certainly not the best despite all the issues production on the series continued and on August 16th 2017 easy to AC time traveler released the half update version 2 night traveler with the theme of revivals the inclusion of many revivals in time traveler was done with the goal of bringing back seventh track songs and Bridging the Gap between Square pixels easy to AC and Bea content this version similarly to the other half versions featured mostly enhancements aside from new songs older generic bgas were updated the track screen demo was revived and some of the reviv seven track songs even got new charts this version was praised for adding quality of life features like decimal speed modifiers and improved sound quality but was criticized for having most of the version's content be revivals something that the series has been criticized for in the past Additionally the version featured some updates to the scoring system which were not well received it was rumored that during development of this version basically only fox b was working on the game showing the strain of development at this time of easy 2's life additionally in relation to the previously mentioned soundtrack issues the soundtrack for time traveler would also be produced to be given out to the backers of the NT OST free of charge this further strained the development and financial situation of the game not unexpectedly due to issues with harassment and the poor ongoing situation at the company of its time traveler night traveler and the night traveler OST foxb departed easy2 AC in October of 2017 Square pixels as a developer on easy had basically dissolved at this [Music] point a few years down the line a development team known only as easy to AC team was formed to continue development of the series easy to AC team was formed by the game's distributor CJ up after the team's formation on May 31st 2019 easy to AC final released this game was released under very strange circumstances it turns out that the reason development on the series continued was due to pressure from The Game's distributor the distributor was actually withholding revenue from previous games and preventing the developers from updating time traveler and night traveler until they released final forcing easy toac team to release something in order to fulfill their contractual obligation final was announced before night traveler and time traveler update were complete and as such fans were very upset and Confused due to the aformentioned pressure from The Game's distributor the initial release of final was very low quality according to namiki it was produced in just one week the shortest development period of any version of easy to DJ on release the course mode was unfinished and the game featured very lowquality assets there were some additions to the game like Fast slow and updates to Coden name Violet 2 but any updates the game featured were largely overshadowed by the extreme extr poor State the game released in some of the new content that was released in final was already slated to appear in ncn TT's patches an absolutely horrible way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of easy to DJ the version was so bad that it was blasted by fans as being another game the quality of be calling it bug Edition 2 and led fans to condemn the game's publisher for destroying the reputation of the game that square pixels had worked so hard to build back up it even had a similar issue of Bea to seventh with some arcades deciding to not update from time traveler due to the absolutely horrible State the game released in some of the easy to AC team resigned afterward the distributor reached out to Fox B to ask him to return to help produce updates to final as such fox b would return to work on the sequel to final saying that he had no other choice in order to receive revenue from final time traveler and night traveler during this time foxby would work to fulfill the patches intended for TT and NT and also to improve final as a result of their efforts released August 7th 2020 was easy2 AC final ex the last version of easy2 AC produced by square pixel they went all out on this game getting some last improvements in on both the hardware and software side the game was switched over to run on SSD the fast slow system was improved and finalized and 35 songs were added a solid amount for the game's final release fox b later revealed that it would be the last game Square pixels releases and that if CJ up decided to create a new game that the content in all easy to AC games in the past would not be allowed to be used this was due to square pixels being more of a collective than a company so all songs were licensed on a per artist basis and the artists retained the rights to their songs despite not being the best version it was received well according to Nuki due to the poor quality of Base final this would conclude easy2 AC's 21e run and the future of the easy series was a bit unknown but luckily we wouldn't have to wait long to see what would come [Music] next over the next few years a few different events would serve to cap off the era of easy to AC and start a new era on March 17th 2021 easy to on reboot R entered Early Access a new game and spiritual successor to the easy to AC series featuring music from throughout the whole series developed in part by square pixels and directed by fox b as fox b had previously stated Square pixels would withdraw from easy to AC development on April 20th 2021 leaving future updates to easy2 AC team foxb later revealed that easy2 AC team had also disbanded and that the distributor had no intentions of continuing the series so as of this point in the story we can consider easy to AC completely dead during this time Co would cement the end of easy2 AC due to Arcade market decline during covid-19 that coupled with easy2 on reboot R meant there was pretty much no way that a new easy to AC version would be released and on April 24th 2021 documents released showing proof of suspension of development for easy2 AC so here we are at the end of a long confusing bumpy road and we have to try to answer the question why did easy to DJ die well if you've been following along even a little bit what didn't kill this game this is a game tied at the hip to the Korean arcade industry caught in the mix of every single bump and crack along the way from Market declines to gambling schemes this is a game criticized for creating overly difficult content too early on in the series lifespan kneecapping the appeal of the game to Casual players even though you could make the argument that that was done because they didn't think the game would survive much longer at that time let alone as long as it did this is a game whose developers were subject to lawsuits contractual deadlines Rush development time botched crowdfunding projects harassment high amounts of pressure from The Game's distributor and a game that saw ownership under three to five companies in studios depending on how you look at it there is no one nail in the coffin here no one turning point that decided this is where the story ends this game coughed and sputtered along for years spurred only on by Passion and dedication from The Game's fans and developers people who were barely paid or sometimes not paid at all or sometimes inadvertently forced to work this series was pushed out for many years under harsh and unforgiving circumstances and yet somehow through all of that it still kept on going to The Bitter End the game's Legacy resides in its hardcore long-term fans who still track down machines to play on to this day when I was writing this script I kept thinking about how I was going to conclude the video and what I would say to wrap up this whole story but after every single point bump and turn that this series went through I can only rely on the last note from my research to adequately summarize my thoughts on easy to DJ it is unironically a miracle that this game lasted as long as it did easy to DJ lives on in its fans and in easy to on and today it joins our list of dead Rhythm [Music] games if you made it all the way to the end thank you so much for watching thanks so much to my supporters on patreon check out my Twitter twitch and Community Discord links are in the description below if you like this video don't forget to like And subscribe and I'll see you next time [Music] [Music] Where Have You [Music]