by A.J. Focht
Whether you started out playing “Smoke on the Water” using three buttons or if you could 100% “Through Fire and Flame,” the Guitar Hero franchise holds a special place in the heart of the gaming community. That place is now held in memoriam, since last week Activision Blizzard pulled the plug on the groundbreaking series.
While Guitar Hero was not the first format to introduce musical play, it brought the genre up to the forefront of gaming. The first Guitar Hero game gained a lot of attention. Gamers put away their first-person-shooters and real-time-strategy games, instead turning their game nights into miniature rock concerts. After Red Octane (who owned the rights to Guitar Hero) was bought by Activision, Harmonix (who had actually developed the original game) subsequently released their rival Rock Band format, which created some hard competition for the Guitar Hero franchise.
It is unknown if Activision is turning off their amps and conceding to Harmonix’s Rock Band and it’s publishers MTV Games and Electronic Arts (EA), but it sure looks that way. In a press release, the publishers stated: “We simply cannot make these games profitable given the current market.” If this is the case, it’s assumed EA will keep Rock Band in production now that there is no competition in the market. Even if the genre hasn’t sold as well in the last few years, EA is bound to be able to make their format profitable now their major competitor is out of play.
Activision didn’t stop there either. They announced that along with closing out the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero series, they are also going to pull the plug on the True Crimes series. The strategy of this business move was made clear about a week later when Activision acquired Take-Two Interactive. It seems they are more than willing to leave EA with the rhythm market while they set their sights on the future of gaming. Take-Two Interactive is the owner of 2k Games and Rockstar Games; Rockstar who won numerous 2010 Game of the Year awards for Red Dead Redemption.
It seems as if Activision is counting on some of Take-Two’s more profitable franchises to fill in the financial gap left by Guitar Hero. Acquiring Take-Two gave Activision control over many series including: Grand Theft Auto, Bioshock, and Civilization. This also gives Activision their own sports franchise (the 2k sports games) to compete with EA’s near monopoly on the genre. Activision seems more than happy to let EA control the rhythm market, because the deal with Take-Two Interactive is a huge slap in the face for EA. EA failed a hostile takeover of Take-Two back in 2008, not long after Activision’s merger with Blizzard.
Guitar Hero is just the first casualty in what looks to be the start of a full scale corporate war. EA will likely corner the market on music games, but we are bound to see more carnage. Now that Activision has both Blizzard and Take-Two Interactive behind them, it shouldn’t be long before EA makes a move of their own to expand. It is sad to see a classic series become a casualty of corporate finagling, but there is the hope that great new series will be born as a result of this real life computer game war.
