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R.I.P Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, Rockband.
15 years ago
General
We could all see this coming from a mile away. At least those of us who saw things the way they really were and not how activision apparently wanted it to appear. Read on to know more, But After Guitar Hero after guitar hero, sometimes more than one in the same year, It comes across as Activision shoveling GH games down a gamers throat, then taking our choking gags as disinterest so wiping the games from existance and shutting down the factory. I Have played guitar hero, But the quality of the game left much to be desired.
Activision has announced the cancellation of the Guitar Hero, DJ hero, And Rock Band games. Due to the decline in sales, the lack of profits, and the cost of the upkeep for the legal side. And yet...I saw this coming a long ways away. They have choked out the same game, at the same time pretty much every year. And The quality of the games, like the interest, has been in steady decline. A general concensus is that GH3, was the LAST -good- guitar hero game, before it slowly and steadily declined into musical dribble and shameless moneygrabs with the band of the week. Metalica, AeroSmith, and similar cameos were seen, but now that that well has dried up, as one headline put it so Adequately: Activision Bails Out of Guitar Hero, Cancels Games.
My thought is that they could have probably earned more money, retained better interest, and in turn had more 'cameos' lining up to it if they had only thought about the game...from the gamer's point of view, NOT which way would make thier wallet 'splode fastest.
Now that the carcass has been picked clean. Activision CEOs made thier statements.
Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in an earnings call last night: "Given the considerable licensing and manufacturing costs associated with this genre, we simply cannot make these games profitably based on current economics and demand.
"Instead, what we'll do is focus our time and energies on marketing and supporting our strong catalog of titles and downloadable content, especially to new consumers, as the install base for hardware continues to grow."
Personally I happen to feel that this move is pointless. You can only choke so many downloadable content packs down the throats of the public before they say "Enough". They say that thier primary fanbase has grown up. BUT if they had spaced thier games apart, again that would not only give them more time to improve the quality, but also allow the older fans to introduce new potential fans. Gamers DO have kids after all... And by spacing the games more than a year apart, those kids can grow and in time they might have learned to pick up a guitar (hero).
Activision said that the decline of the genre, plus the high cost of licensing music and producing the games, led it to close the business.
“There was nothing that Activision or anybody could have done to save Guitar Hero,” said Jesse Divnich, vice president of analyst services for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, in an interview with Wired.com. Divnich said that Activision realizes the “opportunity cost” of continuing to make Hero games when it could instead be putting those resources towards more profitable games.
Well, I am only too happy at this point that I am going to be buying any future Activision game -second hand-.
This is only the beginning. They have bailed out of the sinking ship and left it to davy jones' locker rather than improving it and trying to revive the name with quality. But no, They Abandoned Guitar Hero, Cancel DJ hero and Rockband, And sell off Harmonix. What are your Thoughts? Personally, I feel this is just further evidence of how Money-hungry Activision is. Activision has whipped the GH/DJH/RB Horses, and the horses have finally kicked the bucket...if only they had kicked Activision in the process. R.I.P
Quotes:
http://www.computerandvideogames.co.....e-guitar-hero/
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/.....hero-canceled/
Activision has announced the cancellation of the Guitar Hero, DJ hero, And Rock Band games. Due to the decline in sales, the lack of profits, and the cost of the upkeep for the legal side. And yet...I saw this coming a long ways away. They have choked out the same game, at the same time pretty much every year. And The quality of the games, like the interest, has been in steady decline. A general concensus is that GH3, was the LAST -good- guitar hero game, before it slowly and steadily declined into musical dribble and shameless moneygrabs with the band of the week. Metalica, AeroSmith, and similar cameos were seen, but now that that well has dried up, as one headline put it so Adequately: Activision Bails Out of Guitar Hero, Cancels Games.
My thought is that they could have probably earned more money, retained better interest, and in turn had more 'cameos' lining up to it if they had only thought about the game...from the gamer's point of view, NOT which way would make thier wallet 'splode fastest.
Now that the carcass has been picked clean. Activision CEOs made thier statements.
Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in an earnings call last night: "Given the considerable licensing and manufacturing costs associated with this genre, we simply cannot make these games profitably based on current economics and demand.
"Instead, what we'll do is focus our time and energies on marketing and supporting our strong catalog of titles and downloadable content, especially to new consumers, as the install base for hardware continues to grow."
Personally I happen to feel that this move is pointless. You can only choke so many downloadable content packs down the throats of the public before they say "Enough". They say that thier primary fanbase has grown up. BUT if they had spaced thier games apart, again that would not only give them more time to improve the quality, but also allow the older fans to introduce new potential fans. Gamers DO have kids after all... And by spacing the games more than a year apart, those kids can grow and in time they might have learned to pick up a guitar (hero).
Activision said that the decline of the genre, plus the high cost of licensing music and producing the games, led it to close the business.
“There was nothing that Activision or anybody could have done to save Guitar Hero,” said Jesse Divnich, vice president of analyst services for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, in an interview with Wired.com. Divnich said that Activision realizes the “opportunity cost” of continuing to make Hero games when it could instead be putting those resources towards more profitable games.
Well, I am only too happy at this point that I am going to be buying any future Activision game -second hand-.
This is only the beginning. They have bailed out of the sinking ship and left it to davy jones' locker rather than improving it and trying to revive the name with quality. But no, They Abandoned Guitar Hero, Cancel DJ hero and Rockband, And sell off Harmonix. What are your Thoughts? Personally, I feel this is just further evidence of how Money-hungry Activision is. Activision has whipped the GH/DJH/RB Horses, and the horses have finally kicked the bucket...if only they had kicked Activision in the process. R.I.P
Quotes:
http://www.computerandvideogames.co.....e-guitar-hero/
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/.....hero-canceled/
also, black ops is a piece of shit. massed produced and quickly produced to capatalise on the success of MW2.
Rock Band shills and whores itself out just as much as Guitar Hero (even on the mobile front). You can't say Guitar Hero was the only one doing it. And hell, DJ Hero was pretty fresh and fun.
Rock Band is better as a full game and set, I admit, but all the games are just really formulaic. If you played Guitar Hero you played Guitar Hero 5. If you played Rock Band you played Rock Band 3. There's just not much they can't change much between versions short of a few features here, a setlist there. Rock Band did innovate where Guitar Hero didn't, but the music genre is just over-saturated between both companies. Too many special editions, too many kits.
The other part of this is they said that the fans grew up...well. thats whats supposed to happen. Time passes and people grow up. But If they had played thier cards right and spaced the game, that would have given thier current fans to introduce the game to future fans (thier children).
Again, I am in no way harping on them for having a flavor of the week. But the benefits of patience and pacing, spacing thier games farther apart would have had the franchise lasting alot longer and would have gotten the consumer salivating for the next.
Both companies over-saturated the market with "band games" and people got bored of singing along to the song of the week from either group.
The saturation on both sides was their down fall. Guitar Hero came out in 2005, Rock Band in 2007. but check the amount of releases on both sides since their inception. The numbers are just huge on both fronts.
Each side fucked themselves over, and unless Harmonix does something original, they're next.
But this is also quite telling. In time, The Call of Duty franchise will fall the same way Guitar Hero expired. This is my prediction, and I dont need to pull out my tarot Cards to see that.