Activision Pulls the Plug on Guitar Hero Franchise

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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Activision Pulls the Plug on Guitar Hero Franchise

Declining returns on music games prompts savage staff cuts at Activision studios.

Almost everyone has had dreams of being a rock star, but as of yesterday, you shouldn't rely on a videogame to help you fulfill them. Not a videogame from Activision anyway, as it announced last night that it was halting work on the 2011 Guitar Hero release, and disbanding the division at its publishing arm that handled the franchise.

According to Activision, the Guitar Hero franchise had stopped being profitable, and so the decision was made to bring it to an end. It's no secret [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104868-Harmonix-Rock-Band-3-Might-Have-Stolen-Guitar-Heros-Thunder] that the most recent release, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, received a lukewarm response from critics and consumers alike. Warriors of Rock was really just the latest example of a genre in decline however, a far cry from its heyday in the early days of the Guitar Hero franchise.

Besides the Guitar Hero cancellation, there are also rumors of layoffs at Vicarious Visions, which made the Wii version of Warriors of Rock, and FreeStyleGames, which made DJ Hero. Activision has not commented directly on these rumors, but an SEC filing revealed that it is cutting a staggering five hundred staff. These cuts are said to be in "anticipation of a continuing weak environment for casual and music-based games." Activision predicts that these layoffs will cost it between $35 and $50 million in severance pay and other costs.

While the end of Guitar Hero has been coming for a while - thanks, in no small part, to Activision shoving so many of them out of the door - it's hard not to see this as the end of an era. Our thoughts go out to everyone affected by the job cuts, and we hope they're able to find something else soon.

Source: Gamasutra [http://gamasutra.com/view/news/32946/Activision_Dissolves_Guitar_Hero_Business_Refocuses_On_Digital.php]


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Darkong

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Nov 6, 2007
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Well Activision has no-one but themselves to blame for this really, they over-saturated the market so much it was bound to burn out quickly. This is a direct result of their 'franchises we can exploit year on year' policy and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the same thing happens to Call of Duty in a couple of years time.

I don't think its the last we'll see of Guitar Hero, maybe if they let it cool off for a few years it could be brought back.
 

tunderball

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Jul 10, 2010
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Well this is yet more sad news, I had a huge amount of fun playing these types of games at the time as did many people. It felt like a proper old school event bundling together what plastic instruments we could between us and setting up our fake little band in my friends living room.
Those moments will be missed. Hope everyone involved lands on their feet.
 

Snotnarok

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Nov 17, 2008
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Jellly said:
About fucking time.
Whole heartly seconded that. I was very much sick of it after just 5 minutes, I don't know how that game is enjoyable. It's a minigame put together with music, there's a billion other games worth more than the game that was so ..yeah you get where I'm goin' with this.
 

Spoon E11

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Oct 27, 2010
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If they had released one every 2 - 3 years or so, then perhaps they would have been Ok to run for a little while longer.

But anyway there will be a replacement in 4 years or so.
 

Keepitclean

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Sep 16, 2009
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I didn't know they were still releasing them, I haven't seen anyone play a Guitar Hero game couple of years.
Darkong said:
Well Activision has no-one but themselves to blame for this really, they over-saturated the market so much it was bound to burn out quickly. This is a direct result of their 'franchises we can exploit year on year' policy and it wouldn't surprise me at all of the same thing happens to Call of Duty in a couple of years time.

I don't think its the last we'll see of Guitar Hero, maybe if they let it cool off for a few years it could be brought back.
Also this
 

Jezzascmezza

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Aug 18, 2009
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Jellly said:
About fucking time.
You took the words right out of my mouth.

The franchise stopped being fun in 2008, and stopped being original in about 2007.
I think 2009 was what really destroyed the franchise though- there were about five "hero" games released that year.
 

LavaLampBamboo

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Jun 27, 2008
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I think it's strange. We've seen the rebirth, the rise and now the fall in the music/rhythm action genre in about 4 years. From a market point of view it's really interesting.
 

Outlaw Torn

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Dec 24, 2008
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So which genre are they going to demolish next? I wouldn't be suprised if they wanted to go for a biggy and managed to destroy MMO's through Blizzard. It's not too far fetched either.
 

Legion

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Oct 2, 2008
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marcogodinho said:
A classic case of franchise overexposure. Activision milked those franchises to death.
Exactly, and so they really shouldn't have been surprised.

Sports games have habits of being released every year with minor improvements, but these games were released multiple time in the same damn year.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero could have quite easily have had two games apiece and then continued via DLC. The first game because it's new and hasn't received the feedback necessary to be what it can be, and the second to fix all the mistakes made the first time around and make general improvements. Everything after that was just money grabbing from wherever they could get it.