In an investor meeting yesterday evening, gaming giant Activision confirmed that rumours that began circulating around the internet only a few hours earlier were true, with the publisher announcing it was to pull the plug on the Guitar Hero series - at least, for now.
"...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,"
Just four years ago, Guitar Hero III grossed publisher Activision $1 billion, which makes yesterdays announcement all the more shocking. It's a spectacular fall from grace for the franchise, which many have put down to Activision's flooding of the market with game after game. Going from being a single-instalment a year franchise, there were four Guitar Hero, or spin-off games released in 2009, with Guitar Hero 5 and Guitar Hero: Smash Hits making up the main offering, while Guitar Hero: Modern Hits saw its release on the DS, and Band Hero, an ill advised effort to expand the rhythm action game's audience helped further saturate the market.
No more Guitar Hero. Sniff.
However, Guitar Hero wasn't the only franchise to have the rug unceremoniously pulled out from under it, as the publisher also confirmed it would be making numerous lay-offs at DJ Hero developers, and Leamington Spa based outfit, FreeStyle Games, along with cancelling True Crime: Hong Kong, due to alleged quality reasons.
"Even our most optimistic internal projections show that continued investment was not going to lead to a title at, or near, the top of the competitive open world genre. In an industry where only the best games in each category are flourishing, to be blunt, it just wasn't going to be good enough."
To be honest, we're not entirely sure we follow this explanation. Announced towards the end of 2009, it's likely the game has been in development for around three years, and while it may not have made a profit, that's three years of development costs that Activision will now see absolutely no return on. If they'd have released the game, at least they'd have sold some - and initial reactions from the press who previewed the game in December suggests it was shaping up nicely. The timing between the press showings and the cancellation would seem to suggest that either there's been a serious miscommunication inside Activision, or, the decision to cancel is a hasty decision.
To be honest, we really don't see the logic in either of the cancellations. Then again, we aren't running Activision. While it didn't do as well as it's predecessor, Guitar Hero 6 still sold around 100,000 copies in its first week on sale. Instead of helping revitalise these franchises, or releasing True Crime, Activision have chosen to instead scrap them, and concentrate on Call of Duty. Countering the layoffs elsewhere, the company announced it would be setting up a new studio called Beachead "focused solely on the development of an innovative new platform and services for Call of Duty". Whatever that might mean.
Whatever your opinion of the games, it's a dark day for Activision, and our thoughts are with everyone at FreeStyle Games, and Neversoft, who we know from first hand experience were passionate about what they produced.
