Twitter is exploding with “I heard Guitar Hero is dead” and “RIP Guitar Hero” and stuff like that. Seems a little dramatic from my understanding.
Here’s what actually happened: On today’s quarterly earnings call, Activision announced that the GH business division was been dissolved, and there’s no game in development for 2011. Having a dedicated division for GH made more sense when the music genre was bigger business; not so much now. Guitar Hero DLC development will continue [Update: No it won't, see below] and the existing games will be supported, but there’s no new game coming in 2011.
Activision Publisher CEO Eric Hirshberg’s exact quote, from a transcript of the earnings call:
After two years of steeply declining sales, we’ve made the decision to close our Guitar Hero business unit and discontinue development on our previously playing Guitar Hero title for 2011.
So, honestly…is that “death” or a much-needed break? For a while there I couldn’t drown out the cries of gamers on forums, blogs, and Twitter saying GH should take some time off, and from all appearances, that’s what this is. Step back, let it breathe for a while, don’t make any major plans, and see what happens in the future. I’m very okay with that, even if the break turns into a long time.
Chapter closed? Sure, okay. Book burned? I doubt it.
Rock, as always, on.
UPDATE: After thinking about it, I went back to the recording of the call and listened to the part about DLC again, and now I’m not so sure my interpretation that DLC will continue is right.
At around the 26-minute mark, Eric Hirschbeg said: “Given the considerable licensing and manufacturing costs associated with this genre, we simply cannot make these games profitably, based on current economics and demand. Instead, what we’ll do is focus our time and energies on marketing and supporting our strong catalog of titles and downloadable content, especially to new consumers as the install base for hardware continues to grow.” Now, I took the “catalog of titles” and “downloadable content” to mean two different things, two different avenues that would get support — but since licensing costs are part of making DLC, now I think he might have been talking about simply supporting the existing 500-some songs available for download and import, and not necessarily generating fresh DLC.
So. I’ll try to get to the bottom of that one, but my instinct is now telling me I read it wrong and DLC development might be stopped too. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, I suppose.
UPDATE 2: It’s official; I was wrong. From the GuitarHero Twitter account, the clarity I was looking for:
We will release the previously announced DLC track and mix packs for February, but we will not be able to release new DLC packs
So there you have it — this will be the last month for GH DLC. Sorry for getting that one wrong, but happy to update with the new info.
Either way, Friday’s playdate is still on.
