Activision Abused Guitar Hero, Says Former Publisher

[sunburst]

Activation beating a franchise to death? Never, they take good care of their franchises. Now if you'll excuse me I must ride my unicorn to the sherbet kingdom to meet the gumdrop king.

I'll bring the fairy dust.

Activision wasn't alone in flooding the market. Rock Band wasn't much better and the entire music game genre worked together to bury itself.

 

[Diligent]

OR Activision did exactly what they intended to do, and all the should have could have and would haves wouldn't change their decision one bit. Obviously they intended to just totally strip mine the guitar rhythm games while they were around, because they saw them for the fad that they were, and understood that they couldn't possibly last.
And you can't possibly blame the fact that people became tired of banging on a plastic toy guitar on Activision either.

Don't get me wrong, I have no love for Activision or their methods, and I don't even buy their products, but like it or not as a business strategy what they did is sound and Activision is very good at making money.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Well, how is this news exactly? Activision doesn't know how to handle a franchise? SHOCK AND HORROR! I never would've thought that!

 

[Larmo]

I noticed this about 2 years ago around the time of Guitar Hero 2 or 3 (lost track), it was obvious even then that they shat out a new disk and set of guitars milking the music gamescow to emaciation, while Rock Band delicately crafted cheese from a softly milked cow, but Guitar Hero still managed to spoil most of it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Kotic's buisiness strategy makes me think he's only there to make as much from the flagship titles as he can and when they're all run into the ground he'll just leave, taking all his millions with him... The man is a fucking parasite.

Ignoring Blizzard's contributions to the corporation (and ironically, their opposing business strategy of creating titles that have exceptional appeal and sales in the LONG RUN), this is probably Activision's ultimate fate.
Kotick will keep investors pleased just long enough to destroy existing markets without contributing towards finding new territory.
Furthermore, it's possible that Activision will go the EA-route by buying out prior competition and running their products into the ground too with extraordinary sequel-exploitation.

The process might be long and painful though; it took over a decade for EA to start falling apart. It will probably take either a massive internal struggle or sudden plunge in marginal profits to bring Activision down, and they still have Blizzard to feed off of in the meantime (of course, if Blizzard's end of the company continues to post consistent profit and Activision's doesn't, I'm sure we will all know whose side the wind will be on that day when the investors come a-knockin).

 

[Madmanonfire]

Rock Band saw regular - almost yearly - releases, but far fewer of them and much better support for each release.

And yet each release wasn't as good at Guitar Hero. Odd.

OT: This is just perfect. More fuel for mindless GH hatred. -_-

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Rock Band saw regular - almost yearly - releases, but far fewer of them and much better support for each release.

And yet each release wasn't as good at Guitar Hero. Odd.

OT: This is just perfect. More fuel for mindless GH hatred. -_-

I'm a little confused here. Are you saying that Rock Band was never as good as the original Guitar Hero, or that the Rock Band series was never as good as the Guitar Hero series?

 

[DustyDrB]

\
The process might be long and painful though; it took over a decade for EA to start falling apart. It will probably take either a massive internal struggle or sudden plunge in marginal profits to bring Activision down, and they still have Blizzard to feed off of in the meantime (of course, if Blizzard's end of the company continues to post consistent profit and Activision's doesn't, I'm sure we will all know whose side the wind will be on that day when the investors come a-knockin).

I wonder when Blizzard' contract with Activision runs out. I feel like they could do just as well on their own at this point.

 

[solidstatemind]

In other news, the sky is blue. Film at 11.

 

[Nikolaz72]

And then Blizzard turned everything around by buying Activision. <_<

 

[Podunk]

I'm going to have to file this one right next to 'Activision isn't planning to cancel Call of Duty franchise' for most obvious story.

Though the last paragraph I find interesting, because I have always felt the opposite. If Activision tried less to be like Rock Band, maybe they would have done better. When the schism first appeared I really hoped that Rock Band would be the fun four instrument party game while Guitar Hero would remain the single player (or co-op, if you really want) game with emphasis on impressive, wild, guitar-centric songs. I still play the first few guitar heroes on a regular basis, but with World Tour the solo factor went out the window. Eye of the Tiger is a fine song, but on guitar? That is boring as hell.

 

[Low Key]

It's not like Activision's business practices are anything secret. Why did RedOctane allow themselves to get bought out by Activision in the first place? That appears to be the catalyst in this situation.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Zvarri! The truth has once again been elegantly revealed to me. This guy can only be...

The Master Of The Obvious!

Has it really been revealed until this picture? HAS IT?

 

[mjc0961]

He thought that Activision should have aped Take Two's handling of the Grand Theft Auto series. Rather than launch game after game, Take Two had nurtured the franchise for ten years, leaving it strong and healthy. Sumner's thoughts on the demise of the Guitar Hero franchise echo many others who think that Activision mismanaged the series, resulting in a difficult climate for all music games.

That seems a bit unsporting to use Take Two and GTA as a comparison considering the rumors flying around that Activision might acquire them and then ruin the hell out of GTA. I'm just going to go curl into a ball in that corner over there and weep at the possibility of that happening now...

 

[Monshroud]

Maybe next time the developer won't sell out to a bigger company and reap the rewards of their labor. Imagine what could have been had they not sold the company over to them.

 

[Madmanonfire]

Rock Band saw regular - almost yearly - releases, but far fewer of them and much better support for each release.

And yet each release wasn't as good at Guitar Hero. Odd.

OT: This is just perfect. More fuel for mindless GH hatred. -_-

I'm a little confused here. Are you saying that Rock Band was never as good as the original Guitar Hero, or that the Rock Band series was never as good as the Guitar Hero series?

The latter. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Temah]

Guitar Hero comes back the day Kotick figuers out how to drain the last few drops from it.

 

[TAGM]

Activision should have nurtured Guitar Hero, says the series' original publisher, rather than trying to make a quick buck.

I seriously worry if we need to explain this to top-end game developers.
Did they seriously need to be Told this? Really? Because if they did... Well.

 

[Exort]

\
The process might be long and painful though; it took over a decade for EA to start falling apart. It will probably take either a massive internal struggle or sudden plunge in marginal profits to bring Activision down, and they still have Blizzard to feed off of in the meantime (of course, if Blizzard's end of the company continues to post consistent profit and Activision's doesn't, I'm sure we will all know whose side the wind will be on that day when the investors come a-knockin).

I wonder when Blizzard' contract with Activision runs out. I feel like they could do just as well on their own at this point.

It is not a contract. Vivendi owns Blizzard. When Activision and Blizzard merge. Vivendi owns ActivisionBlizzard. Blizzard's owner is still the same. It is Activision owner that changed from Kotick's investor group to Vivendi, however Kotick became the new CEO of the whole company.

By the way, when they merge, Blizzard was larger than Activision. Blizzard was the second largest publisher, while Actvision was like the fifth(?).