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.
4lf13
Shame. I thought True Crime looked to be pretty good. I hope they start reeling out a few more unique games, though.
coruscant
Guitar Hero could have stayed good (and very, very profitable), if it had just released a title every few years and have it sell very, very well (as Rock Band does), and supporting them afterwards with DLC. But no – they had to think only at the short term and try to do as many as possible, thinking they could get those sales on all titles. In the end they only have themselves to blame.
lenn117
feels so so sorry for those layed off… :'(
cc_star
OneOfSwords (Acti’s Social Media Manager) just tweeted:
Not sure GH is RIP, gang. There are changes but they’re still being explained, in real time.
Porcupine_I
the bad news here is that they will now “focus” on their key franchises
Colinbarr66
Really disappointed with the True Crime news, I was looking forward to that after the amount of hours I sunk into the PS2 games.
spooner_22
OH MY GOD! YOU KILLED GUITAR HERO!!
YOU BASTARDS!!!!
And I was really looking forward to True Crime 3 too!!!
TSBonyman
That’s a shame about True Crime, i was looking forward to it.
PriceKitty
WOW.
I was SO looking forward to the new True Crime.
Now I have another reason to hate both Guitar Hero and Activision.
F the both of you AND YOUR CRAPPY FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS!!
rainydays458
Although the news is sad for guitar hero fans, it doesn’t matter to me as I’v never liked rhythm games.
Whats really sad the is the loss of the true crime game from the screen shots it looked promising.