Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and True Crimes cancelled.

FroMann

CAGiversary!
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/09/report-activision-axing-guitar-hero-and-true-crime-freestyle-g/
Activision axing Guitar Hero and True Crime; Freestyle Games reportedly hit with layoffs [update]
by Ben Gilbert

Despite a recent cover story in EGM, United Front's True Crime: Hong Kong won't make it to retail. Activision's latest earnings report confirms the game's cancellation, as well as the end of the Guitar Hero franchise.

"Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on its Guitar Hero game for 2011," Activision said in its financial statement. The statement goes on to confirm the cancellation of True Crime. "The company also will stop development on True Crime: Hong Kong. These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."

If that weren't enough bad news, Eurogamer also reports that DJ Hero developer Freestyle Games has suffered "severe layoffs," though it's unclear whether the rhythm series has been affected by the alleged redundancies. We'll update this post as we learn more.

[Update: An earlier version of this post was based solely on Eurogamer's report, which has since been partially confirmed by Activision.]


Never played True Crimes, but I know Activision + Neversoft ruined the Guitar Hero series. If this news is true then this would be a big blow to the music rhythm game genre. Good thing I stuck with Harmonix and their excellent Rock Band games.
 
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Also Activison is going to lay off about 500 people even though they made more profit than last year. I think I know why I hate Activision now.
 
Based on the prior games, True Crime wasn't going to sell and it was stupid to even attempt a third. I will miss Guitar Hero as a supplement to Rock Band. They really jumped the shark by vomiting up all of the GH games a few years ago. If they were kept on a one a year schedule, the brand would probably still be viable.
 
That sucks. I was interested to see how well the new True Crime game was since United Front Games was making it instead of Luxoflux and looked a lot better.
 
[quote name='2DMention']It had to happen sooner or later.

Does this mean Band Hero and DJ Hero is dead too?[/QUOTE]

Band Hero was already a failure when it was announced, some staff that developed DJ Hero have been laid off but no announcements of closing.
 
Normally I'd say competition is good, but Guitar Hero had turned into such a sad clusterfuck of a franchise that I doubt it'll make a difference. Harmonix seems to have their head in the right place, for the most part.

Sorry to see the GH name go for nostalgia reasons, but good fucking riddance to the actual product.
 
Not surprised about Guitar Hero dying. It's been on a big downward trend for the past couple of years.

I AM surprised True Crime was canned, because it did look pretty good
 
Way to go Activision, killed off a million copies selling franchise because you got too greedy. Hope COD isnt next
 
COD is years off if it ever happens. Black Ops outsold Reach on the 360.

Critic wise I'm surprised DJ Hero series is getting canned because DJ Hero 2 had some pretty high remarks by some sites.

However I'm glad to see Guitar Hero gone, and VERY glad to see Tony Hawk gone.

I think we will see more companies dump IP's that are not doing so hot. A lot of game companies have been losing money, but some have turned profits over the last quarter or two.
Take Two/Rockstar is looking to lean the same way, maybe Max Payne 3 will be canceled to keep profits afloat. Of course this can also be bad for the industry if new IP's end up getting canceled in favor of sequels that generate more profit.
 
fuck guitar hero, i have rock band (for now) and thats always been better ever since it was released.

DJ hero on the other hand is sad to see go. I loved the second one. depresses me to see it go, can someone make it work with a homebrew DJ game lol.
 
"These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world's best interactive entertainment experiences."

They're cutting the fat to focus on more Tony Hawk peripheral games. Only the world's best for them...
 
[quote name='Kerig']They're cutting the fat to focus on more Tony Hawk peripheral games. Only the world's best for them...[/QUOTE]

Actually, there's no more skateboard games this year, either. Good riddance to that.

I won't miss GH, but I hope DJ Hero isn't getting cut. I just don't have the right rhythm for a plastic guitar, but I love DJ Hero...
 
If Harmonix plays their cards right, and learns from Activision's mistake, they will clean up in the music genre. I still think there is a market for music games (unlike what Activision is claiming) it just needs to be spread out more between releases. Quality over quantity.
 
I personally wouldn't mind there never being another Rock Band game, as long as we kept getting DLC forever! Maybe just another patch or two to smooth out some nagging imperfections in the interface.
 
With people off GH and True Crime, it looks like Activision is planning to flood the Call of Duty franchise like they flooded GH.

Hopefully DJ Hero though keeps going. That would be the only sad news for me.
 
Yea . . good riddance to GH , since its been a downfall since III. DJ hero . . LOL . . that game is a pile of crap that should've never been produced!!! Yea lets make a music rhythm game about every damn genre possible. DJ hero was a failure outta the gate . .
 
[quote name='ninjalunchbox79']Yea . . good riddance to GH , since its been a downfall since III. DJ hero . . LOL . . that game is a pile of crap that should've never been produced!!! Yea lets make a music rhythm game about every damn genre possible. DJ hero was a failure outta the gate . .[/QUOTE]
You obviously never played DJ Hero. It was not a bad game at all, I was playing a DJ Hero II demo at Best Buy and it was actually FUN. I was considering buying the first game with the turntable until I heard this news.
 
[quote name='ninjalunchbox79']Yea . . good riddance to GH , since its been a downfall since III. DJ hero . . LOL . . that game is a pile of crap that should've never been produced!!! Yea lets make a music rhythm game about every damn genre possible. DJ hero was a failure outta the gate . .[/QUOTE]
:roll: DJ Hero and DJ Hero 2 are both very solid games. DJ Hero 2 specifically is one of the best music games ever made.
 
Activision could sell every franchise minus COD and still make billions of dollars, Blizzard prints million dollar bills daily.

I'm not sad to see GH go, Rock Band can only benefit from this.
 
[quote name='lordopus99']With people off GH and True Crime, it looks like Activision is planning to flood the Call of Duty franchise like they flooded GH.

Hopefully DJ Hero though keeps going. That would be the only sad news for me.[/QUOTE]

DJ Hero is done too man, I guess we are stuck with what we have.
 
This may sound a bit backward, but I might consider buying DJ Hero now that it has a finite amount of DLC. I've always heard good things about it, but I didn't want to open a whole other set of floodgates as far as DLC is concerned (I'm already buying Rock Band songs almost every week).

EDIT: does DJ Hero 2 have the ability to import songs from the first game? Or at least use the same DLC? I'm thinking of getting the game for PS3 and setting up a gameshare group for all the DLC.
 
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I'm wondering if Rock Band will be the next one on the chopping block. It's better, for sure, but have people mostly moved on from these games? I'm not making a claim here, rather wondering aloud.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']I'm wondering if Rock Band will be the next one on the chopping block. It's better, for sure, but have people mostly moved on from these games? I'm not making a claim here, rather wondering aloud.[/QUOTE]
I am thinking the exact same thing. Didn't RB3, Beatles, and Green Day all sell well below expectations? The biggest problem facing the Rock Band series is not competition from Guitar Hero, it's disinterest in the music game genre as a whole.
 
[quote name='BustaUppa']
EDIT: does DJ Hero 2 have the ability to import songs from the first game? Or at least use the same DLC? I'm thinking of getting the game for PS3 and setting up a gameshare group for all the DLC.[/QUOTE]

they released a patch to let you use djh1 dlc with djh2 back in November, they never made it so you could export djh1 songs to djh2, but djh1 is still worth playing for the mixes even though djh2 is a superior game
 
Harmonix was sold by Viacom and MTV Games was closed down too. this whole genre isn't doing so well. Apparently Viacom never actually made any money off the Rockband games either.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']I'm wondering if Rock Band will be the next one on the chopping block. It's better, for sure, but have people mostly moved on from these games? I'm not making a claim here, rather wondering aloud.[/QUOTE]

Well, Harmonix was in the music genre well before Guitar Hero made it explode. I would be shocked if anything about that were to change now...it's just what they do. But since they're back to being an indie company, I could see them having to scale back though. Whether this means fewer games or less DLC, I don't know.

I have no idea how much bands were getting paid to use their songs in the game or if they'd even be willing to acknowledge that the market isn't the same as it was a year ago. If that becomes too pricey, I could see things going down hill fast. I guess it just depends how much musicians have changed their perspective on Rock Band and it being an avenue for promoting their music.

If anything, I think Harmonix needs to just stand pat right now. See what the public reaction to GH's demise is. Will more people flock to Rock Band? Or will people see this as a sign of the end and give up on the genre entirely? Anything Harmonix can do to reassure people that they're still a strong company will work in their favor. The strength of the DLC over the next couple months should give us a good idea of where Harmonix stands. Although, I have to admit, part of me wonders if that Pro RB Strat will be nothing more than a collector's item.
 
as long as there's recording artists that continue to put out tracks, there's going to be a very long list of DLC for RB. also did RB's ownership just change hands recently?
 
[quote name='Clak']Apparently Viacom never actually made any money off the Rockband games either.[/QUOTE]

It's a bit more complex than that. Viacom made promises for performance payouts that they were unable to manage when the game was doing well, they needed to use EA to publish the games which cut into their profits, sales have declined more than 50% for music games in general since 2008, add to that the music licensing and who gets a cut on the DLC fees and Viacom just had no clue on how to deal with a video game developer.

I think the genre will rebound when Activision isn't dumping out a new title every few months, and licensing fees will hopefully be lower with less competition for exclusive rights.
 
Harmonix will be fine for thanks to Dance Central, so they got MS support for now

the better question is how long will the DLC for GH stay up. Since it cost them a lot of money for the songs, which keep them up if you are not selling the game?
 
I'm hoping a lot of the GH songs that aren't on the RB track list will get freed up and available down the road.
 
Hopefully some of the songs that were in Guitar Hero will trickle into Rock Band now, and future artists will turn to Rock Band. Maybe this will even mean eventual Metallica in Rock Band; I'm just salivating at the thought. Guitar Hero has been shit since III though, I agree, and the only enjoyment I got out of the series was playing as my Avatar in GH5. The game had a cool style and some neat features, but the notepaths and charting were still shit, and that's ultimately what matters most.

DJ Hero is fucking awesome though, and I'm disappointed they aren't going to support it. I don't remember seeing a lot of ad's for DJ Hero 2, and what I did see made it look like shit, but when I picked it up I was pleasantly surprised how much it was improved, and how good the mixes were, despite me not knowing that many just reading the setlist. I think they focused too much on the "Party Mode" aspect with a vocalist and two turntables, instead of the improvements and sleeker look.

I guess the only good thing to come from this is *hopefully* an eventual sale on more DJ Hero DLC.
 
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