Guitar Hero Exec Bails After Mediocre Sales

[Austin MacKenzie]

Guitar Hero Exec Bails After Mediocre Sales

With waning sales and market oversaturation, the Guitar Hero division's chief executive is leaving Activision as it tries to steer the franchise back on course.

The Guitar Hero franchise at one point stood for an innovative revolution in rhythm gaming. With the advent of Rock Band, as well as growing economic issues, the franchise began to see a drop in profit. Dan Rosensweig joined Activision in March in order to give the franchise a boost, and oversaw the biggest release of Guitar Hero games to date.

Under Rosensweig's tenure, Activision released four games: Rock Band Beatles [http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Stand-Alone-Software-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B0028ZH7GU/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1280161709&sr=1-1]).

Instead of replacing Rosensweig, Chief Operating Officer David Haddad will instead be taking the reins of the franchise, reporting directly to Activision CEO and President Mike Griffith. Griffith issued a statement saying Haddad "...is the right leader to drive our agenda to improve profitability."

As for Rosensweig, he's headed to Chegg, a textbook rental firm where he will serve as chief executive.

With the new leadership, the Guitar Hero franchise is changing its approach to how it handles releases. Before his departure, Rosensweig stated they would be shifting focus to some of the better selling products. This is confirmed with the new leadership, Activision has stated it will focus less on new Guitar Hero titles and more on digital distribution.

While Guitar Hero may be on the ropes, it's far from out of the match. Activision hopes to revitalize the franchise by cutting down on the actual product releases. If that means they're not trying to sell us a new, expensive peripheral set with every new Guitar Hero installment, it just might work.

Source: LA Times [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/activisions-guitar-hero-chief-exits-after-less-than-a-year.html]

Permalink

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Well thats what happens when you make like 8 games within two years.

 

[Jim Grim]

Guitar Hero 5 was awful. I can't believe I bought it.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Well thats what happens when you make like 8 games within two years.

Serves them right. Teach them to think were gonna buy all of that shit.

*hides pile of Guitar Hero games*

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Stewie:*Hits them with baseball bat* Now what have you learned?

 

[Sporky111]

I'm amazed it took them this long to realize that market saturation doesn't work. I bought GH5, but just the disk. I already had WT but my disk got ruined and I *shamefully* need a fix now and then since I can't afford a real drum kit.

I was going to get Metallica because of, firstly the double kick pedal, and secondly because Metallica is awesome and it wasn't just their songs exclusively. However, I could never find a kick pedal for sale on it's own (why don't you focus on fixing that, Activision?) so I never bothered.

 

[tighem]

Beatles: Rockband did not perform poorly. I believe it's well north of 2 million copies now. It has so far performed better than RockBand 2, actually and certainly outsold every *Hero game that came out last year. Lego Rockband on the hand, tanked.

 

[The Rockerfly]

No, the games series can still be profitable. How?

-Stop releasing so many

-Let us buy the drum kit as a standalone or even with the game

-Stop trying to appeal to such a large audience, Guitar Hero is about guitar playing as said in the name. Make sure the songs feel cool

-Stop releasing really obscure songs from well known bands (initially) and obscure bands on the disk. If I want to hear an obscure song then I am willing to pay extra money for it but it means if the songs and bands are obscure then it doesn't appeal to people buying the game. This is the main point as the game engine really does not matter so much as the song

Finally make the instruments comfortable, I have two broken guitars but still use them over the functional GH:WT one because it's so damn uncomfortable.

/rant

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

I'll honestly admit I love DJ Hero.

 

[SMOKEMNHALO2001]

I'll honestly admit I love DJ Hero.

I'm glad I'm not the only one, I don't see why people hate it. Gamers ***** about not having something new and intuitive and when it happens they don't care, I'm actually looking forward to DJ Hero 2.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

I'll honestly admit I love DJ Hero.

I'm glad I'm not the only one, I don't see why people hate it. Gamers ***** about not having something new and intuitive and when it happens they don't care, I'm actually looking forward to DJ Hero 2.

Exactly. As long as I'm having fun, a shit is not given.
And same, I want to see what kind of stuff they put into it

 

[triorph]

Is it just me or does "rock band: beatles" kinda defeat the spirit of a lot of these games? I mean I know a lot of people love the beatles but I always thought the idea of these games was to be a hard rocker with music bordering on metal. This could just be my opinion of course but it seems like the choice in music in these games has gone downhill.

 

[SMOKEMNHALO2001]

I'll honestly admit I love DJ Hero.

I'm glad I'm not the only one, I don't see why people hate it. Gamers ***** about not having something new and intuitive and when it happens they don't care, I'm actually looking forward to DJ Hero 2.

Exactly. As long as I'm having fun, a shit is not given.
And same, I want to see what kind of stuff they put into it

I remember talk of David Guetta making more music for the franchise.

 

[ItsAPaul]

Well Guitar Hero 2 was already released, so this shouldn't affect anything.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Well thats what happens when you make like 8 games within two years.

Serves them right. Teach them to think were gonna buy all of that shit.

*hides pile of Guitar Hero games*

Well think about it, there was the two DS games Decades and On Tour as well as Guitar Hero World tour and Guitar Hero 5, DJ Hero, Smash Hits, Band Hero, Metallica and finally Vanhallen. That is a CRAP LOAD of plastic guitars.

 

[laserwulf]

For me, the song selection got progressively worse with each new GH, aside from a few standouts ("Paint it Black" in GH3, "Du Hast" in 5). The first one wasn't a guaranteed bestseller, so the song selection was like rock's greatest hits: "Smoke on the Water", "Iron Man", "The Ace of Spades". Now we get ____ from one-hit wonders like Kings of Leon.

 

[Aardvark]

Rockband had the right idea. Release the game, then reap the windfall from DLC. Then again, they had the game mechanics downpat early on, whereas GH have only just gotten back to GH2 playability standards.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

This is what happens after releasing the same game every 4 months with a diffrent soundtrack. If the game dosen't change why would fans bother to pay for the same thing?

 

[Gamegodtre]

Activision listen if you want to make guitar hero good make the damn songs guitar based, i mean why call the game guitar hero if only 5 songs are hard for guitar. Also second put the extra songs back on the menu from lesser known bands. Lastly stop trying to be Rockband.
On a side note if your going to release non-english songs like La Bamba at least make them hard songs to play or songs no-one has ever heard, and don't make them mandatory to play.

 

[theSovietConnection]

Guitar Hero might do a sight better if they were to release the majority of their expansions and Guitar Hero: [Insert Band Here] Edition's as DLC as opposed to full on games. Then we aren't getting a new game every 6 months, and when a new Guitar Hero comes out, its actually more of a big deal.