Activision brought the axe down on the Guitar Hero franchise in February 2011 explaining that “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.”
Perhaps somewhat inevitably, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has indicated that the company intends to resurrect the once successful cash cow franchise. Perhaps this means that in line with their initial statement, we will see a revived Guitar Hero game launching sometime in 2012. It will also mean that Activision went a full year without ramming another tired iteration of one of their key properties down the throats of the mass consuming general gaming public.
Speaking to Forbes, Kotick explained how they may have played a bum note with the Guitar Hero franchise by focussing to heavily on innovating with the introduction of DJ Hero. The DJ Hero game was well-received by critics but consumers were apparently quite disinterested if the sales are anything to go by.
“We were so excited about going down this new direction with DJ Hero, I think we abandoned a bit of the innovation that was required in the Guitar Hero franchise,” said Kotick. “It was the double whammy of DJ Hero was unsuccessful, and then Guitar Hero became unsuccessful because it didn’t have any nourishment and care. So we made what I think was exactly the right decision last year.”
“We said you know what, we need to regain our audience interest, and we really need to deliver inspired innovation. So we’re going to take the products out of the market, and we’re not going to tell anybody what we’re doing for a while, but we’re going to stop selling Guitar Hero altogether. And then we’re going to go back to the studios and we’re going to use new studios and reinvent Guitar Hero. And so that’s what we’re doing with it now,” Kotick elaborated.
“In the case of Guitar Hero, we did the research and it was very clear people didn’t want more 80s heavy metal music. But what they wanted was very difficult for us to get from the music companies. I’ll give you an example: The number one thing that our audiences wanted in Guitar Hero was Led Zeppelin. But we couldn’t get Led Zeppelin to consent to give us the rights. And there were a lot of instances of that, a whole host of artists who just didn’t want to give rights to Guitar Hero, and it was hard to get around that. And then there were other things…we put things out there that were not ready for prime time and that today actually would resonate very well with audiences,” Kotick concluded.
So, watch out for Guitar Hero 7: Rise of the Roadie – Kinect and Move edition to feature realistic lifting and wiring of giant plastic speakers. The collector’s edition may even come with some fake vomit for Tarryn to choke on.
Activision plans to reinvent the Guitar Hero franchise << Comments and views
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