'Guitar Hero' Franchise Canceled
February 9, 2011According to Reuters, publisher Activision has announced that it will disband the unit that makes its "Guitar Hero" games, citing declining popularity for music-themed video games.
The "Guitar Hero" series was a series of music video games first published in 2005 by RedOctane and Harmonix Music Systems, and distributed by Activision, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous rock music songs.
The "Guitar Hero" franchise released band-centric games from AEROSMITH, METALLICA and VAN HALEN.
According to The Pulse Of Radio, Guitar Hero: Metallica had sold 1.5 million copies as of April 2010, while the VAN HALEN edition hadn't even reached 250,000 copies sold, although that had only been out since December 2009.
METALLICA's James Hetfield told The Pulse Of Radio in 2009 why his band decided to embrace the video game format. "A lot of kids that maybe wanted to play guitar, or even, especially adults that wanted to play guitar and never did, they're getting a chance to somewhat live a little bit of that in their living room or whatever it is," he said. "And it's a good way to get your music out there. With all the big record stores closing up, getting music to people, it's getting a little limiting. But there are many places, new places to explore, and one of them is Guitar Hero."
Hetfield may have been too optimistic about video games being the new way to get music to people. Other titles, like Guitar Hero V, DJ Hero, and Lego Rock Band have all more or less bombed.
Industry analyst Michael Pachter told The Wrap last year, "The issue with music games was how fast they grew. They penetrated the installed base so fast that their growth was unsustainable."
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