Friday, February 11, 2011

The Death of “Guitar Hero"

The curtain has finally fallen on “Guitar Hero." The video game that let people pretend to be rock stars, it created a whole new subgenre for music video games. However due to declining sales, Activision Blizzard Inc will halt all development on the franchise.

Yes, sales have decline for “Guitar Hero" but Activision Blizzard Inc has no one to blame but themselves for it. My reasoning is simple. When “Guitar Hero" became a global hit in 2005, Activision decided to make money from it by crunching out different “versions” of the game. So instead of games which provide something new, gamers got versions like "Guitar Hero: Metallica," who provide nothing but new songs for specific bands.

Since 2005, other franchises like “Rock Band” also hit the market. However they are also facing the same problems “Guitar Hero” is facing. I think between “Guitar Hero" and “Rock Band”, there must be over 20 versions of the games. That’s just too many versions of a genre that is only 5 years old!

Frankly, in the chase for consumer dollars, Activision killed their own franchise by flooding the market.

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