Or so says Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. So I guess that’s it for Guitar Hero as we know it, and that might not be a good thing. Is it possible to make a Guitar Hero style game featuring additional peripherals? Sure, why not. (Rock Band says hi.) But when the CEO says Guitar Hero isn’t just about guitars, that franchise is clearly stepping into a minefield of potential failure. Something about that quote just really makes me laugh.
A friend of mine once told me the design document of one of the modern adventure-style Sonic games started with the words “Sonic is not just about running really fast”. Maybe that’s why those games ended up so mediocre. I guess once a company wants a franchise to be something it’s not, they have to be really lucky not to screw it up.
Activision’s handling of the Guitar Hero franchise is generally quite puzzling. By carefully managing the brand they could have had a guaranteed best-seller every two years forever, but instead they chose to strip mine the brand in just a short few years. I’m not a sales expert but I’d be surprised if the franchise doesn’t start seeing some diminishing returns. Activision then has the choice of either drilling the franchise further into the ground with even more sequels, or to let it cool off for multiple years while Harmonix continues to release games at a more reasonable pace. Both scenarios don’t seem particularly advantageous to Activision.
As a side note, it’s interesting to see how Activision became “the new EA” just in time to become the actual new EA.
“Guitar Hero is not just about guitars, it’s also about us looking at Rock Band sales and saying ‘Hey, we want that.’”
Duncan
April 23rd, 2008