Activision Pulls the Plug on Guitar Hero Franchise

[GaryH]

Guitar Hero stopped being fun when it was just Activision wearing Guitar Hero's skin as a mask. The game's soul left with Harmonix and Rock Band/Rock Band 2 are the true sequels. We haven't lost anything... yet. Activision may have milked the whole genre to death.

 

[RadiusXd]

BEAT HAZARD is far more entertaining for me anyway.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I don't even think Activision did it yearly, I think it was bi-yearly. You couldn't turn with out a new guitar hero to play.

Oh well, no loss for me. I kept away from that franchise because i wanted to be able to play Monster Magnet songs and their lack of uploading my own tunes made it unappealing.

 

[The Night Shade]

The same happend to Tony Hawk's Franchise they make a lot of games really fast and then they have nothing

 

[twm1709]

man.. I really wanted the Queen soundtrack.
If only they had settled with releasing "World Tour" and having some sort of iTunes-like store to buy themes, rather than constantly releasing new entries with completely random tracks... what a terrible way to handle your business.

 

[karloss01]

not surprising, i never liked the serie as i could usually afford a real guitar for the same price.

 

[Fire Daemon]

That's what you get when you saturate the market with games who's prices are inflated by a bunch of accessories. Nobody wants to keep on buying new guitars, your house gets filled with the shit and it's hard to justify the cost when you have plenty of working instruments and usually just play alone or have a friend bring over their own stuff anyway. I know it's possible to buy this disc alone, but these usually just go a bit below retail at release and it's hard to justify this purchase as well, seeing as how it's unlikely you'll enjoy more than half of the songs.

They should have released one (plus) game every two years and supply the current game with a quality amount of DLC, more similar to what Rock Band does. The new game a year thing was never going to work in the long run and Activision only has themselves to blame, which is unfortunate for the Developers, but they surely have a decent level of experience to find more employment.

Still, I've played Warriors of Rock and I thought it was one of the better ones yet, even though it does cater to the hardcore gamer more than the guy who wants to play with friends.

 

[Tiswas]

http://www.1up.com/news/family-guy-wipeout-games-announced

They've also canceled True Crime: Hong Kong. But look what they are making instead. Family Guy game. A TV series that should have been buried at the end of series 4 when it ceased to be funny. And Total Wipeout (not the fun racing one.) a game that received a shitty Wii Shovelware game last year.

Activision is dead to me.

 

[SaintWaldo]

I can't say this loud enough without amplification, so please, bear with me...

(Grabs Mic...)



This thing's on now, RIGHT?

>shit<

Sorry.

>ahem<

HEY BOBBY, DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOUR FUCKING FAT GREEDY GOLDBRICKING ASS ON YOUR WAY OUT!

And you can fucking QUOTE me on that. So, when is Rock Band 4 development starting up?

 

[JaysonM]

They should have brought out a new guitar hero once every console.. Not once every month..

 

[Togs]

do you think this will make that bloodsucker Kotick see what his business plan does?
Doubt it, man has the brains of the leech he so closely resembles.

 

[Artemicion]

About fucking time.

Amen, brother.
Condolences about the job losses, though. That sucks.

 

[Kanazuchi]

I always regarded GH was for those who wanted a challenge and RB to be for those who just wanted to have fun. Fun, remember that? Before you went online to get the online achievements in GHSH and the only song anyone played was TTFAF?

Was a whole lot done from GH5 to GH6? Going from 3 to 4 included vocals and drums, 5... didn't do a whole lot, and I suspect 6 didn't do a whole lot either. Metallica had a soundtrack that was just over half Metallica, Van Halen actually took a step backwards by not using the concurrently released GH5 engine. (BTW, Metallica and Van Halen vans should be thanking the Aerosmith fans who had to put up with a really suboptimal game so they could get better games.) Oh yeah, and then there was Band Hero which didn't do a whole lot of anything.

RB1 to 2 improved the Tour mode and added drum solos, and 3 added keys and Pro mode, which I'd take over the entirety of 2112 any day. Beatles added vocal harmonies, but Green Day didn't do a whole lot either. This isn't to say Harmonix can't screw up RB, but at least they're not oversaturating the market... yet. Hopefully they'll learn from GH's errors.

 

[Madmanonfire]

Good. Guitar Hero ceased being able to compete with Rock Band years ago.

That makes about as much sense as LBP being able to compete with Mario. Try again. (Hint: Other way around)

OT: GH6 was the perfect swan song for the franchise. If it weren't for oversaturation, GH could've been an amazing thing. Instead, it's just a great thing. Hopefully RB dies as well, as it's still a few years away from being able to match GH3, let alone GH6. We don't need such a downgrade continuing in GH's place.

 

[PsiMatrix]

On the bright side, the cancellation of True Crime: Hong Kong finally convinced me to upgrade my avatar.

Very nice it is too.

 

[jaketheripper]

guitar hero greatly improved my real guitar playing speed. that being said.... it retarded my accuracy.

 

[jaketheripper]

Good. Guitar Hero ceased being able to compete with Rock Band years ago.

That makes about as much sense as LBP being able to compete with Mario. Try again. (Hint: Other way around)

OT: GH6 was the perfect swan song for the franchise. If it weren't for oversaturation, GH could've been an amazing thing. Instead, it's just a great thing. Hopefully RB dies as well, as it's still a few years away from being able to match GH3, let alone GH6. We don't need such a downgrade continuing in GH's place.

rock band 3 is better than any other music game. due to the fact that i can actually play a guitar... so no it isnt a downgrade. better tech. better(and more) songs. i think rockband has some life left.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I hope this brings more exposure to the open source alternative, frets on fire [http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/]



Also where the industry failed, they needed to develop an algorithm that would take any mp3 and instantly make a game track out of it. Instead they tried re-sell the same game with different songs. Or tried to sell old song as overpriced dlc.

There is no substantial gameplay difference between guitar hero 1 and 4, only different songs.

 

[infernovolver]

Reiterating what's already been said; thank god, took long enough, about time, Activision's own fault, shouldn't have done what they did, etc.

Harmonix > any lap dogs Activision can scrounge up to make another 'Hero' sequel.

do you think this will make that bloodsucker Kotick see what his business plan does?
Doubt it, man has the brains of the leech he so closely resembles.

Haha! That's gold right there.

 

[Andronicus]

Never mind Guitar Hero, they cancelled True Crime: Hong Kong for god sake. I don't care about a musical game series that has been milked to death and should've died a year ago, I care about a game with actual potential and fun gameplay more original than the crap Activision's been producing for the past few years. Activision cares only for milking the profits out of existing game franchises and considers any game that can only exist by making a few less million dollars a failure.
So I declare war on Activision and its pants-on-head-retarded CEO. I'm uninstalling all Activision games from my computer and I'm refusing to buy any more until Bobby Kotick either steps down or gains a conscience.

On the bright side, the cancellation of True Crime: Hong Kong finally convinced me to upgrade my avatar.

Hehe, you should read the financial report [http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=548900].

At the same time, due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011. The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong?. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences.

Sorry if it seems like I'm just rubbing it in, but it cracks me up.

Also from the same report:

In 2011, the company will allocate the majority of its resources and focus toward opportunities which we expect will afford us the greatest competitive advantages and the greatest potential for best-in-class quality, high-margin digital growth, and long-term success. These opportunities include Blizzard Entertainment's games currently in development, robust investment in forthcoming Call of Duty titles, the development of a best-in-class digital community surrounding the Call of Duty franchise, a new property from Bungie and an innovative new universe with broad appeal that will be revealed at Toy Fair later this week and will bring the world of toys, video games and the Internet together in an unprecedented way.

Direct from the Kotick dictionary!
Robust investment: "I'm going to run this brand into the fucking ground!" [http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/228852564_ebkPQ-L-2.jpg]

I'll be interested in seeing what this new universe with apparently broad appeal will be though.