Guitar Hero is no more
Music game fans, let’s spend a moment in silence to contemplate the loss of the pioneering Guitar Hero game.
Courtesy of Activision Blizzard
That’s right, Guitar Hero has been axed from the Activision Blizzard line up with the company confirming that they will discontinue development of the title in 2011 and disband the game unit responsible for the development. This comes in a statement from Activision where they have cited a sharp decline in sales of games from this genre as a contributing factor.
Guitar Hero was the first to bring plastic guitars and drumkits to our living rooms. It is the ultimate party game, where friends not only have the opportunity to get together and enjoy some great and classic music, but also to “create” music together.
The game burst onto the market in 2006 with gamers snapping up the mock instruments like hotcakes. Some gamers had the game on pre-order for in excess of 12 months after announcement of it’s pending release. In North America alone, Activision stated in 2008 that the game had sold in excess of 16 million copies and generated over $US1 Billion.
So many famous musicians have featured in the game including games dedicated solely to bands like Metallica and Aerosmith.
For those of us who still love belting out some great tunes on our plastic drumkits and guitars, there will still be sales of the Guitar Hero games in stores for some time to come. There are also a number of songs available to download and play online for the Guitar Hero series which will ensure that gamers can continue to play new content.
Is this the beginning of the end for music genre games?
Yours in Games,
Trish
