Report: Activision axing Guitar Hero and True Crime; Freestyle Games hit with layoffs

[Nerdkiller likes BD]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/09/re...e-freestyle-g/

Originally Posted by Ben Gilbert

Despite a recent cover story in EGM, United Front's True Crime: Hong Kong won't make it to retail. Activision's latest earnings report confirms the game's cancellation, as well as the end of the Guitar Hero franchise.

"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," Activision said in its financial statement. The statement goes on to confirm the cancellation of True Crime. "The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg went into a bit more detail on today's investor call:

Hirshberg continued, saying that True Crime's development, "was't going to lead to a title at or near the top of the competitive open-world genre." To put things more directly, Hirshberg added, "To be blunt, it just wasn't going to be good enough."

If that weren't enough bad news, Eurogamer also reports that DJ Hero developer Freestyle Games has suffered "severe layoffs," though it's unclear whether the rhythm series has been affected by the alleged redundancies. We'll update this post as we learn more.

[Update: An earlier version of this post was based solely on Eurogamer's report, which has since been partially confirmed by Activision.]

[Update 2: United Front Games has commented on the cancellation of True Crime]

So...it begins.

[Brandon.]

They were the reason for the decline of the music genre....

You can't expect amazing sales on music games when you release one every 6 months.

[Samus Aran]

So does this mean no Call of Duty: Warriors of Rock?

[Nerdkiller likes BD]

Originally Posted by Samus Aran

So does this mean no Call of Duty: Warriors of Rock?

Please...don't give Kotick ideas.

[Psx0005]

Originally Posted by Nerdkiller likes BD

Please...don't give Kotick ideas.

Nah, Kotick isn't good enough to come up with ideas. He just likes to buy 'em and then milk 'em dry.

[Snicket]

While it sucks that the devs were hit with layoffs, good riddance to guitar hero.

So what happens in two years when there are as many COD games on the market as there were GH?

Is it just me or do the devs of true crime seem really indifferent about the cancellation of their game?

[Shin-Ra]

So many awful game publishers now.

Originally Posted by Eric Hirshberg

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 installed base for hardware continues to grow.

What would those be then! More characterless CoD, some Bungie game and Prototype 2 which looks awful like the first, far worse than True Crime was looking.

[Samus Aran]

Originally Posted by Snicket

So what happens in two years when there are as many COD games on the market as there were GH?

I don't see that happening. They're only releasing one title a year sort of like licensed sports games, plus their b-team made lots of $$$$ with Black Ops, so there's obviously a strong market for it. The only way they could kill COD is to release a few mediocre titles in a row.

[partridge]

No, they're not, there have been strong rumours, from Activision themselves I think, about a 3rd person CoD game and various other spin off's within the franchise.

No FPS needs an annual update, but Activision are determined to flood the market every year with at least one CoD release. I didn't bother with BO and with all the problems I've read about I'm glad I didn't.

Personally I've already lost interest in this franchise. I'd rather pick up exclusives like KZ3, SOCOM 4 and Resistance 3. These are games that have years of work put into them and are properly tested before they are released.

I also hate the fact that every reviewer treats the Modern Warfare franchise as the pinnacle of the FPS genre and compares every other FPS to it. There is plenty wrong with MW.

[perfectionthrusilenc]

after over saturating the market with $300+ Guitar Hero bundles every 9-12 months, it doesn't surprise me at all. Throw in that Tony Hawk bundle travesty and then wanting another 100 bucks for a DJ hero bundle, what did they expect?

Do they really think people have that much money to blow and where do they think that money is coming from? Obviously, no one at Activision watches the news.

And quite honestly, if you like that genre enough and have most of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, they are getting to the point where they are recycling each other's music, so people are to the point of "why bother?" I know I am.

I considered picking up Rock Band 3 because its on sale this week at Best Buy, but after looking at the setlist, most of the songs are spread across Guitar Hero releases, so its pointless to buy those songs again.

[Deadset]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

So many awful game publishers now.


What would those be then! More characterless CoD, some Bungie game and Prototype 2 which looks awful like the first, far worse than True Crime was looking.

It's no surprise to anyone that Activision only has CoD franchise now that GH is dead. I doubt 7 Studios is going to pickup the slack. They may have some fringe Ips but CoD is their bread and butter. The series is stale but sales have still been fairly strong for the series.

Now that bungie is in a 10 year contract with Activision Blizzard to develop new Ips...they will be expected to pickup the slack. The only question is, can they? I guess we'll wait and see.

[Warjack Prime]

Originally Posted by Snicket

While it sucks that the devs were hit with layoffs, good riddance to guitar hero.

So what happens in two years when there are as many COD games on the market as there were GH?

Is it just me or do the devs of true crime seem really indifferent about the cancellation of their game?

I think they'll be fine for a while as long as they keep putting out quality shooter games. That being said I bought Black Ops and haven't even put it in yet due to playing other games. As such, if they release another one this November I probably won't buy it if I haven't played Black Ops yet.

[master_8ball]

With Battlefield 3 coming out Activision will have some real competition for their next COD which I am sure will be the regular Nov release. Will they break the sales record for the 3rd game in a row this time.... doubt it.

[Nerdkiller likes BD]

Originally Posted by master_8ball

With Battlefield 3 coming out Activision will have some real competition for their next COD which I am sure will be the regular Nov release. Will they break the sales record for the 3rd game in a row this time.... doubt it.

I'm not so sure. As far as I know, the console market is the largest market and I'm not sure if Battlefield is really that big to take on CoD right now. On PC at least, it'll beat CoD (considering the previous history the Battlefield games had on PC), but on consoles, I expect CoD to remain the king for at least another 2 years. The first year will probably be the last year it breaks its own record while the second year will be the start of its decline.

Oh great, now I'm starting to sound like Michael Pachter!

[financially stable]

do you think price will drop..onthe gh: warriors of rock bundle?

[refux]

I guess this is what happens when you release what is basically the same game over a dozen times in less than five years.

Somehow that continuing decline doesnt seem that surprising

[KamiAmaya]

Originally Posted by Brandon.

They were the reason for the decline of the music genre....

You can't expect amazing sales on music games when you release one every 6 months.

I disagree with this. Music games do not keep the average gamer's attention for very long so why shouldn't have Activision released as many games as they could while people were buying?
Look at DDR, Konami was only releasing 1 game a year for the PS2 and it still died out. (great to see it's back though)

And Harmonix has just as many disc based releases. Track packs or not, still disc based releases.

Activision:
GHIII, GHA, GHWT, GHM, GHSH, GHVH, GH5, GHWoR, Band Hero = 9
If you count the DJ Heroes, 11

Harmonix:
RB, RB2, RB3, Track Pack vol 1, vol 2, Classic, Metal, Country, ACDC, Lego, Beatles, Green Day, Country 2 = 13
Add in Guitar Hero 1 and 2, 15

If blame is to be placed, blame them both. But the music genre is just loosing interest to the average gamer, once again. You think Rock Band won't follow suit eventually? Especially if their peripherals keep getting more and more expensive.

I'll be sad to see Guitar Hero go. The DLC the past few months had been better than ever (Rocky Horror, NIN, Marilyn Manson!)

I'd also like to add, I am in no way a GH or Activision fangirl. I prefer GH to RB, but that's just because I played it first I suppose. I also own every PS3 GH and Rock Band release, with the exception of the new country track pack vol 2 and the DJ Heroes.

Originally Posted by financially stable

do you think price will drop..onthe gh: warriors of rock bundle?

Ha, I hope so. My drums are broken again and I need another guitar... again.
I guess I should also buy a few guitars before they're hard to find

[Brandon.]

Originally Posted by KamiAmaya

And Harmonix has just as many disc based releases. Track packs or not, still disc based releases.

Activision:
GHIII, GHA, GHWT, GHM, GHSH, GHVH, GH5, GHWoR, Band Hero = 9
If you count the DJ Heroes, 11

Harmonix:
RB, RB2, RB3, Track Pack vol 1, vol 2, Classic, Metal, Country, ACDC, Lego, Beatles, Green Day, Country 2 = 13
Add in Guitar Hero 1 and 2, 15

If blame is to be placed, blame them both. But the music genre is just loosing interest to the average gamer, once again. You think Rock Band won't follow suit eventually? Especially if their peripherals keep getting more and more expensive.

Yes I believe Rock band will follow pretty soon, i just think more is to blame on Activision.

Yes those track packs are disc based releases but there not commercially out there as a new game. There DLC packs of songs already available online but on a disc for people who don't have internet and buy the disc for extra songs. So i don think many at all count vol1, 2, classic, metal and counrty, country 2 as a release at all. There all just a few extra songs running on the rock band 1 engine that you can export to your console.

Activision:
GHIII, GHA, GHWT, GHM, GHSH, GHVH, GH5, GHWoR, Band Hero, GH On Tour, GH Decades, GH Modern Hits = 12 in the span of 4 years.

If you count the DJ Heroes, 14

Harmonix:
RB, RB2, RB3, ACDC, Lego, Beatles, Green Day, Rock band unplugged = 8 in the span of 4 years.

Guitar hero 1, 2, and 80's hits were out when there wasn't any competition and it was just a new hot game.

It's a good amount more of what harmonix has had. It makes sense to blame both since the GH releases came out, that means the Rock band releases come out the same year and time frame which just overwhelms the consumers.

The music genre is soon dead. It's sad, but i actually got over it a year or so ago. I was a big DLC buyer and had plenty of fun it's just people don't want to buy the same game anymore every half a year.

I think it would have been better for each company to just release one major music game once every 1 or 2 years to keep it exciting for a new one to come out. Or Rock Band 1 year, Guitar Hero the next. But ther is no way for two companies to agree on something like that. But instead they tried to go for it all in 4 years, Which i guess worked until what happened to the sales now.

Rock Band/Guitar Hero: 2005-2011 R.I.P.

EDIT: And i hope the price drops for the DJ Hero's because i want to try those really bad.

[Icemage]

Rock Band isn't nearly as much at fault because with the exception of The Beatles Rock Band, all of the other games export into the current main series entry, so you're never at a point where you really "give up on" what you bought, as opposed to Guitar Hero, which imported less than half of the songs that got released on previous discs.

My PS3 RB3 library tips the scales at 1779 songs as of this posting. Even with GH:Warriors of Rock, I could only have a library about a third that large with everything exported on Guitar Hero, and there would be large number of songs "orphaned" on discs that didn't export.

[GLaDOS]

Well look at that... I've been finally waiting for this day to come.

R.I.P, Guitar Hero. Looks like I'll have to give away my copy of GHIII now.