Activision has laid off staff from FreeStyle Games, Eurogamer is reporting, closing down the Guitar Hero series in the process. In addition, the publisher has cancelled United Front’s upcoming True Crime title.
This follows a statement late last year from Activision’s publishing head Eric Hirshberg that said the music category in general didn’t “have the same mass appeal” as they used to do.
GamesIndustry.biz claims that the company will now focus on their three key franchises: Call of Duty, StarCraft and World of Warcraft – something that many expect their financial year conference call will confirm later tonight.
Our thoughts go out to those affected by the lay-offs.
Update: Just in the interests of full disclosure: Dan Amrich, Activision’s prominent blogger, has since posted on his blog that all is not quite as clear cut as some would declare. Apparently the business around the Hero titles has been scaled back to reflect the fact that sales in the music genre haven’t been as high as in previous years.
The business division is closed but development on DLC continues and DLC will be wrapped up after the currently announced packs this month. There also won’t be a new full title in development for 2011. Sure, this may just be semantics and a certain degree of corporate double-speak. We’re sure the cacophony of half informed internet news-sellers will be keen to chase the negative. But, Dan Amrich has always been as open and honest about things behind the scenes as anyone in his position is ever able to be and he has a much clearer route to the facts of the situation than anyone else you’ll see or hear passing judgement.
Perhaps it really is just a case of a declining genre not needing a separate business division or yet another new sequel or spin-off? After all, the multitude of Hero sequels and spin-offs were also something the internet masses are keen to decry when they’re announced.
Why search for the facts when the most negative, sensationalist story is right there on the surface though, right?
Update added by Peter C.
wilboss
Massively sad face :(
Rock Band is my preferred title these days but Guitar Hero got me into plastic guitar playing in the first place. It will be sadly missed.
cc_star
Sales peaked around GH3 & World Tour, what followed was Band Hero, GH5 & DJ Hero and none of them caught people’s attention, GH6 was supposed to be its comeback, but flopped.
No good wasting money flogging a dead horse is it, hopefully clears the decks for Acti to create some new mega-franchises instead, but gawd knows what.
Spotter5
As much as I am saddend by the loss of jobs. The guitar hero series was dead in the water. How many games does there need to be really? Better to just release loads of DLC for it. Same for Rockband.
Having said that. I would love to see a Guitar Hero Rammstein…
gazzagb
Don’t care about Guitar Hero or DJ hero, but sad to hear True Crime is being cancelled, it looked promising.
Hopefully Activison will create some new IP’s as surely COD, Starcraft and WOW could support them.
rht992
yeah and so soon after new screen shots were shown off as well
Tuffcub
You will never going to get the play the “Smashing someones head in a fridge” bit of True Crime. I liked that.
iucidium
@wilboss: Harmonix/RedOctane created Guitar Hero, which was consequently brought by Activision, then Harmonix parted ways because of ‘problems’ with Activision.
Rock Band wins, the end!
aerobes
Terrible news for the staff.
I feel the GH series has been going downhill for a little while now but the new True Crime looked fairly promising, though there’s a lot of promising looking games out this year …
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Tony Hawk series go in the not too distant future.
ProjectJAY
Wow, True Crime didn’t even get a chance to prove itself before they killed it. Shame. Not so broken up about Guitar Hero, although GHII got me into music games (TROGDOR! \m/) they barely innovated past World Tour, and even that game was just hopping on the Rock Bandwagon.
“Focus on their three key franchises…” So, no chance of ever seeing a new IP from Activision ever again? Woopee. Gritty high octane military shooters 4eva. /sarcasm
m61726b
I was looking forward to GH10 Legends of DnB. Seriously, Activision killed the brand with annual titles. These games rely on anthems and current trends but there isn’t enough of either at any one time to keep churning and we end up with crap. It’s sad to see people layed-off but they shouldn’t have signed to Activision and hopefully they can find work for a less pushy publisher.
BG123
Wow, I thought True Crime was pretty far in development?
Watch your back COD, coz as soon as the band-wagon moves onto something else, BAM!!