Guitar Hero Set to Be "Reinvented" Says Activision

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Richard Walker

Having shelved the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises earlier in the year, putting both on hiatus, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has confirmed the publisher's future plans for the series in a frank interview with Forbes regarding Acti's approach to innovating.

Kotick explained to the publication that Guitar Hero gradually flopped because it didn't receive the "nourishment and care" that it should have had and that DJ Hero failed to bring in the bucks because there simply wasn't an audience to support the game.

"In hindsight, if you step back - and it really would have been a simple thing to do - we should have said, 'Well, how many people really want to unleash their inner DJ?'" said Kotick. "And then out of the people who do want to unleash their inner DJ, how many want to do it in the context of a game where you earn points, versus just taking a DJ deck or tools on their Macintosh and actually being a DJ? And it turns out it's a very small market."

Kotick also observed that while DJ Hero was "critically acclaimed", its ultimate failure was hard to take. "You put your heart and soul into it and you deliver an extraordinarily well-received game, and nobody shows up to buy it," he said. Consequently, putting both music games on hiatus was "exactly the right decision", Kotick affirmed, helping to "regain audience interest".

"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 awhile, but we're going to stop selling Guitar Hero altogether," Kotick revealed. "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."

Finally, Kotick observed that focus testing and research indicated that "people didn't want more 80s heavy metal music", so Activision attempted to address what fans wanted most: some Led Zeppelin. "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."

It's more than likely that the Guitar Hero franchise ultimately fell flat because of a lack of innovation, with ever-diminishing returns from each instalment. Here's hoping that Activision can put the franchise back on track when it gets around to revisiting it in the future.

[Via Shack News | Thanks, Clint]

Comments
39
  • Witht he Technology of Now (I Guess it was Rocksmith) Where you can Learn to Play Real Guitar Is better Than Pushing Buttons on a Plastic Guitar
  • i bet theyre gonna copy rock band series 1s again
  • @2, hard to copy RB series (came out in 2007) when GH (started in 2005) came out first.
  • @3 i think #2 means that rockband came out a couple months after gh3 which at the time they wern't using instruments up until the following year gh brought in drums and the mic and the ability to play bass by your self instead of needing to play co-op just to play as bass, he just means copying the band idea Though in your defence i dont see how they could "Copy" rockband any further unless they threw out a new game and said this is what we've been working on this whole time, introducing the "KEYBOARD" Either way i love both gh and rb and cant wait to see what they do to the game
  • Guitar hero:Led Zeppelin would be awesome!
  • Does activision even know the meaning of the word Reinvent, their just throwing out words they think we'll like now.
  • @4, After I posted, I kinda assumed that he meant the band idea, but since I beta tested GH World Tour (was originally called GH4 when we received the band kit in December of 2007) I get confused... lol Speaking of copying - I wish RB would copy GH's features like playing multiple instances of same instrument, and the ability to use the GH drum kit in RB like GH does with RB drums, etc...
  • This is great IMO! GH being one of my favourite game series, I'm glad that they decided to continue it. I hope that they will get better songs and bands for the games so more people will like it.
  • This is why I don't give activision my hard earned money on New games, I let Gamestop take it on used versions of all Activision games because no matter how dead and buried a series is they'll always check for a pulse and toss one more out.
  • The plastic instrument game phase is dead Activision. You killed it by putting out 3 Guitar Hero games in a year (Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero Metallica). Stop. Just stop. It's not fun any more and you killed a good thing.
  • I'm sure there must be a way they can take a leaf out of Audiosurf's book and let you use your own music, create the technology to have it build a 'highway' around that. Without the ability to use your own music, I can't see it advancing to the next level. I say this even though I genuinely enjoy it
  • @3 gotta remember that harmonix owns rock band - and harmonix were the first studio for guitar hero
  • Actually...Guitar Hero 1 and 2 were made by the people who made Rockband. So Guitar Hero 3 copied 1 and 2...which was copying the people who made Rockband......well regardless of that I love both series, and I look forward to seeing what they do. But do not let a repeat of Duke Nukem happen...make everyone wait forever till their hopes were raised to be the point that no game could ever be good enough, and then release something weaker than was already made in the past.
  • The series was good until it went into overkill mode, which is what Activision did with Tony Hawk and now they are pulling the same junk with Call of Duty. Oversaturation is not always a good thing, and with these games especially with little innovation between World Tour and Warriors of Rock. It would help if the games were spaced out more...I mean christ what did they release like 17 GH games in a five year span? That's insanity.
  • thank you 10 n 12. seems like your the only 2 that know what your talking about. activision loves drillin their games into the ground. dlc is all you need without a major overhaul. thats why rockband is still strong
  • @15 you realize the RB3 was a bigger flop than GH6 right?
  • One thing I know about Rock Band 3, it did worse than GH WoR, it was pretty damn fast that RB3 was sitting on the discount shelf at Wal-Mart, and I read several reviews that it sold horribly and in most places sold worse than GH WoR did, many forget the whole point of these games, its a party game, to pretend to be a rocker, and GH always kept it in the realm of a party game, they worked within the limits of the 5 button controller and did some pretty cool stuff, RB resorted to the real insturment thing, which totally defeats the purpose of the game, to be a party game, and not be all serious.
  • Reinventing? I thought this genre was reinvented like 15 times already
  • @17 I don't think it's the real instruments thing that ruined RB3. It's just that the fad is over. Plastic instruments had their run, now it's done. The genre is dead. Same thing happened with DDR. It was huge a few years ago and then just died out. It will happen with any niche genre.
  • @17 i agree with you...i remember when everyone want it to play ddr now almost no one even cares about it anymore....i bet that no one even know about the latest ddr as far as reinventing i think they should really let the game to be forgotten for quite sometime to strike back with a major campaing to sell the game with new features such letting you play your own music....i know i will buy that
  • @19 Perhaps shooter games will go out of fashion too soon? Then CoD would get the boot, or at least they will stop making one every year. But then again, ther would have to be a damn good game in another genre to start the process of shooters becoming a thing of the past. But this is fantasy talk that I am speaking right now lolz :P
  • I loved the rockband and guitar hero games the first couple of years they were out. I stopped playing them for a while due to it all feeling the same and lack of originality. I picked up my rock band a week ago to try and get back into it again and wow... I am so over that phase. While I love guitar hero I really think that "reinventing" is not something that needs to be done. It was great while it lasted, but now it is time to move on to something else and focus all of your creative energy on the "next big thing" not the "next big guitar hero"
  • This wanker kotic has got some cheek hasn't he! Blaming us the consumers for weak sales, errrrm no bobby get your facts straight, us the consumer got sick of you churning out 2 games a year with overpriced pieces of plastic. Instead of a new iteration every 2 to 3 years with cracking dlc tracks to fill the void, you get greedy and expect us to fork out £120 twice a year with nothing new really added that couldn't have been done via dlc! Thats where you fucked up guitar hero, it is now dead and burried I have sold all but my guitar hero 3 and Metallica discs ( I was a mug that had them all) and I shall forever more remember the days of guitar hero 1-3 before corporate greed ruined this once great game. Re releasing smacks of desperation and one last fleecing of a dead franchise, this prick really has no shame.
  • @everybody, rock band 3 received ratings from 9 to 10 from big reviewers while gh6 got 7's, ergo, rock band 3 was better, but it didnt matter cuz gh already killed band game industry and both games sold very badly, in which case it didn't matter which game sold better.
  • Guitar Hero: Rise Against. Or Rock Band: Rise Against. That's all I need, then both franchises can die and never come back and I wouldn't care at all.
  • the reason DJ hero failed was probably that you couldn't make your own songs only remix other stuff. If they'd released decent DJ tools along with it would've sold MUCH better, people gotta be creative instead of the linear button-pressing. There should be a real online music community where ppl can distribute their music to, not just electrosound but guitar too. best thing would be to jam with others online, that would definately be something new & groundbraking. if they dont make that happen im not buyin it
  • Guitar Hero needs to take a leaf out of Rock Band's book, and release games much less often, but expand their music library massively. That means instead of releasing a Guitar Hero , they should digitally distribute it via the GHStore as a pack of songs, characters, and mauybe a seperate career (like how WipEout HD Fury fitted in with WipEout HD)
  • for the 2nd para I meant Guitar Hero: [Insert Band Name Here]
  • please no, im GH out for eternity
  • @ 23 You are a god-send, my man.
  • Guitar Hero and Other Activision Franchises would Be Better If Fucking Kotick wasn't CEO!
  • ^^ couldn't agree more ^^
  • I quite liked GH2 but 3 onwards were balls. 3 just started that whole over the top Jack Black-esque "born to shred" vibe that just felt rubbish. GHWT was shite largely because the GH5 followed so soon after and suddenly no additional content would work for GHWT. In the end they just churned them out, had flakey compatibility within their own franchise and frankly, too many KISS songs. GHWT was the last one I bought but I never really liked any of them as much as 2.
  • Guitar Hero Slipknot Istrument: Guitar Drums Bass Mic Percussion Keyboard Dj Was a nice ideia! But now seriosly, Guitar Hero Slayer would be awesome!
  • The series has been done to death. Let GH die.
  • Im still waiting for Guitar Hero: Avenged Sevenfold. Just sayin.
  • @10 Don't forget about Guitar Hero Smash Hits =P imo, as much as I love Guitar Hero, they should just let it die. Take it like a man and accept the fact they lost the competition to Rock Band. "regain interest", how? Rock Band's always been 1 Up'ing game innovations. GH will bring in the "pro guitar" right when Rock Band introduces a camera that puts you on the stage and you're playing all real instruments. I'm not a RB fanboy, I love both games. But, Harmonix has proven they own the music gaming business. DDR, Rock Band, Guitar Hero (yeah, don't forget it was them who actually started GH too.). They know what they're doing, Activision doesn't. That's why GH got run to the ground, cause all they do is oversaturate their games (CoD, Tony Hawk, GH, etc.)
  • It died after GH3
  • Guitar Hero: Muse would be good
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