Why Guitar Hero Died

Summary

This engaging video documents the rise and fall of Guitar Hero, from its origins as a groundbreaking rhythm game sensation to its decline due to market oversaturation and corporate mismanagement. Created by two companies, Harmonics and Red Octane, the franchise revolutionized music gaming but eventually crumbled as developers pushed too many titles too fast, failed to innovate, and faced high licensing costs. It highlights how competitor Rock Band contributed to Guitar Hero's downfall by introducing fresh elements to the genre. The complex story underscores the delicate balance needed in understanding market demands and artistic integrity.

Highlights

• Harmonics and Red Octane created Guitar Hero, shaping a sensational rhythm game revolution. 🎵
• Guitar Hero's initial massive success, with tens of millions of copies sold, faded into obscurity. 📉
• Corporate decisions, like rushed releases and licensing costs, hastened the franchise's decline. 💡
• Rock Band's innovations in adding new instruments shook the rhythm game market. 🥁
• Activision's strategy led to market flooding and fatigued consumer interest in Guitar Hero. 📈

Key Takeaways

• The origins of Guitar Hero began with Harmonics and Red Octane, who created a revolutionary rhythm game sensation. 🎸
• Despite initial success, the Guitar Hero franchise faced decline due to market oversaturation and poor corporate decisions. 📉
• Rock Band emerged as a formidable competitor, innovating and appealing to music game enthusiasts. 🎶
• High licensing costs for original tracks contributed significantly to Guitar Hero's financial struggles. 💸
• Activision's aggressive release strategy led to oversaturation, damaging long-term franchise sustainability. 🕹️

Overview

Guitar Hero once dominated the world with its exhilarating rhythm gameplay, becoming a staple at college parties and family gatherings. However, the rapid rise was followed by a steep decline due to numerous factors, one of which was oversaturation. The market couldn't sustain the barrage of releases, particularly when Rock Band introduced new innovations that captivated audiences. 📯

Within a few years, Activision's high-stakes gamble on aggressive rollouts of Guitar Hero titles led to decreased consumer interest and financial losses. Not helping matters were the hefty costs associated with securing track licenses, which piled on the pressure. In contrast, Rock Band thrived by adopting a customer-friendly approach. 🎸🤝

Ultimately, Guitar Hero's story is a classic tale of how not meeting market evolution can lead to downfall. Though its legacy lives on through enthusiast memories and remaining vigil in pop culture, the franchise's official closure showed a critical learning point in balancing corporate aspirations with audience desires. 🎤

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction Introduction: The Introduction chapter describes the massive rise and fall of the Guitar Hero franchise. Once a popular game series celebrated in college parties and family gatherings, Guitar Hero dominated its domain with over 20 games, selling tens of millions of copies, and cultivating a passionate fan following. However, within a decade, the franchise plummeted into obscurity. The chapter sets the stage to explore the historical narrative of Guitar Hero, beginning with the formation of the two foundational companies responsible for its creation and impact on the gaming industry.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Formation of Harmonix and RedOctane The chapter discusses the formation of Harmonix and Red Octane. Harmonix was founded on May 10th, 1995, by Alex Opolis and Iran Izi, both MIT graduates, with the aim of making non-musicians feel like musicians. Their initial project called The Acts was a joystick music improv system, which wasn't well received and sold only about 300 copies.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Harmonix's Early Challenges In the late 1990s, Harmonix, a fledgling company started by two aspiring creators, encountered difficulties with their initial business model. Observing the booming success of rhythm-based video games such as Beat Mania and Dance Dance Revolution, they decided to pivot their focus towards game development. Their first game, Frequency, was released on November 20, 2001, for the PlayStation 2. Although it was praised by critics, sales were disappointing. Their subsequent releases, Amplitude on March 25, 2003, and Karaoke Revolution on November 4, 2003, faced similar challenges. Despite critical acclaim, commercial success remained elusive. The chapter highlights the early obstacles faced by Harmonix as they transitioned into game development and the initial struggle to achieve market success despite positive reviews.
• 03:30 - 06:00: RedOctane's Entry into Rhythm Games RedOctane's entry into rhythm games was marked by a critical issue faced by Harmonics, the creators behind games like Frequency. These games, though critically successful, failed to achieve mass appeal. The primary problem was not the quality of the games but the marketing strategy. Without a dedicated hardware controller, players used regular PlayStation controllers, which didn't enhance the gaming experience. As a result, despite having great games, Harmonics struggled to draw players to try them in the first place.
• 06:00 - 09:00: Partnership that Created Guitar Hero The chapter titled 'Partnership that Created Guitar Hero' discusses the early beginnings of the business RedOctane, which was founded by two brothers, Kai Huang and Charles Wong, on September 10th, 1999. Initially, RedOctane operated as a digital game rental service, similar to later services like GameFly and Netflix. Customers could rent digital games by loaning their games for a fee, enabling someone else to play it while they rented a title themselves. However, the burst of the dot-com bubble disrupted the business, prompting the brothers to seek out a new direction. During this transition, they started to notice and consider the growing success of a particular niche, which eventually led them towards the creation of Guitar Hero.
• 09:00 - 15:00: The Success of Guitar Hero 1 and 2 This chapter discusses the success and uniqueness of rhythm games in Japan, particularly focusing on Dance Dance Revolution. The games required custom controllers or peripherals to be played, which were not available in the US at that time. A rental service became one of the few ways to access these games, and the company capitalized on this by creating and selling their own dance pads. This strategy not only sustained them financially but also helped in building their reputation.
• 15:00 - 18:30: Activision's Acquisition and Changes The chapter discusses how Red Octane, initially a hardware company, decided to enter the game publishing sector with the release of 'In the Groove' for consoles. It highlights the influence of 'Dance Dance Revolution' (DDR) in proving to Konami the viability of rhythm games in Western markets, despite DDR not achieving the same level of success in the West as it did in Japan.
• 18:30 - 27:00: Guitar Hero's Expansion and Oversaturation Red Octane recognized the limited appeal of dance games in Western markets and sought to invigorate interest in rhythm games by focusing on rock and roll instruments. Inspired by the Japanese arcade series 'Guitar Freaks,' they embarked on developing a rhythm game controller that mimicked a real guitar, aiming to captivate the American audience.
• 27:00 - 32:00: Rock Band as a Competitor The chapter "Rock Band as a Competitor" discusses the challenges faced by Red Octane, a company that manufactured gaming hardware. Despite having innovative ideas, they struggled to find a game developer to create software compatible with their controllers, as many companies believed music games were not profitable. Cory Fong, Red Octane's senior brand manager, highlighted this misconception. Ultimately, Harmonics was one of the few companies that took their proposal seriously.
• 32:00 - 40:30: The Decline and End of the Franchise The chapter discusses the decline and eventual end of the Guitar Hero franchise. Despite the initial challenges, Harmonics partnered with Red Octane to produce controllers for their music game. Red Octane funded the development of Guitar Hero, requiring Harmonics to complete it in just nine months with a budget of less than $2 million. The short development cycle was a significant challenge, reflecting the industry's common dilemma of choosing between speed, cost, and quality.
• 40:30 - 44:30: Guitar Hero Live and Further Decline The chapter 'Guitar Hero Live and Further Decline' discusses how Harmonix, the company behind Guitar Hero, managed to quickly develop the game thanks to retaining the rights to their previous game's code. This strategic move allowed them to utilize existing systems from their prior rhythm games such as Amplitude and Karaoke Revolution, which significantly expedited the creation of Guitar Hero. This foresight in negotiations proved beneficial in saving time and resources.
• 44:30 - 50:00: Rock Band's Continued Success The chapter discusses the importance of saving time to pursue personal interests, highlighting how using meal services like Factor 75 can help achieve this. Factor 75 delivers fresh, chef-crafted, and dietician-approved meals that are ready in just two minutes, making it a convenient solution for those tired of cooking. The narrator has been a satisfied subscriber of the service for about a year.
• 50:00 - 54:47: Conclusion: The Fate of Guitar Hero The chapter titled 'Conclusion: The Fate of Guitar Hero' discusses meal planning and options provided by a service named Factor. It highlights the variety of meal options available, including low-calorie, high-protein, keto, and vegan or vegetarian meals. The transcript emphasizes how Factor simplifies the process of meal preparation, reducing stress and the need for grocery shopping, while also supporting the channel through promotions. A discount offer for first-time users is mentioned, encouraging them to take advantage of Factor's meal service.

Why Guitar Hero Died Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 - Once touted as an impressive franchise that dominated college parties and family get togethers to one that modern teenagers probably don't even know about. Guitar Heroes Fall from Grace was massive. How did a franchise with so much potential, 20 plus games, tens of millions of copies sold in a massive cult-like following vanish into complete obscurity within the span of a decade? Well, to tell this story, we need to start at the very beginning with a game that would change the industry forever. The origins of Guitar Hero began with the formation of two scrappy companies.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Harmonics and Red Octane Harmonics was established on May 10th, 1995 by Alex Opolis and Iran Izi, two new graduates from MIT. The company was created with the goal of making non-musicians feel like musicians, although they had yet to figure out how to achieve this. Their first project was titled The Acts, and as Alex Opolis put it, it wasn't a game, it was a joystick music improv system. And by this description alone, you can understand why it was a cataclysmic failure selling only about 300 copies.
• 01:00 - 01:30 Fast forward to 1999, and the duo had noticed the success of rhythm video games such as Beat Mania, Parapa, the Rappa and Dance Dance Revolution. As they faced the reality of their latest business model failing, they decided to shift gears to developing video games. Their first video game Frequency released on November 20th, 2001 for the PlayStation two. It was well received critically, but it sold poorly. Their subsequent titles Amplitude on March 25th, 2003 and Karaoke Revolution on November 4th, 2003 met similar
• 01:30 - 02:00 fates, critically successful, but not quite reaching mass appeal. The issue that Harmonics had with Frequency and their other early titles was that people just didn't care about the ideas these games brought to the table. So this meant that the company could make great games that people loved but couldn't get people to see and try these games to begin with. They had a marketing problem and it stemmed from the fact that they didn't have a dedicated hardware controller. You just played their games with a normal PlayStation controller, and that wasn't very fun.
• 02:00 - 02:30 Around the same time, red Octane was established by two brothers, Kai Huang and Charles Wong on September 10th, 1999. It began as a digital games rental service predating the likes of GameFly and Netflix. The premise was that you loan them games for some cash, then somebody gets to play it while you rent out a title yourself. Shortly after opening the service up, the.com bubble Burst knee capping the entire operation, the brothers scrambled to find a new niche, and as they search, they noticed the success
• 02:30 - 03:00 of Rhythm Games in Japan. What was unique about games like Dance Dance Revolution, for example, was that they required custom controllers or peripherals to be played. Neither the games themselves or the peripherals were sold anywhere in the US at the time, which positioned their rental service as one of the few ways to play them. Of course, you wouldn't have a controller to play them with, so they decided to create and sell their own dance pads to go along with their game rentals. It wasn't much, but it brought in enough cash to help the company weather the storm and build a reputation for themselves.
• 03:00 - 03:30 Through this, they also proved to konami that there was a market for dance dance revolution on consoles in the west, helping to bring the title overseas. Around this time, ROR games had just released a similar arcade title to DDR called In the Groove as Red Octane was looking to expand their operations beyond making hardware, they decided to enter the world of publishing within the Grooves console release. Still Red Octane saw that even though Dance Dance Revolution had found some success in the West, it wasn't to the explosive degree that Japan saw.
• 03:30 - 04:00 Red Octane wanted to capture that popularity in the us, but the writing was on the wall. Dance games just weren't very popular in Western markets. They had to think outside of the box and find a way to make rhythm games interesting for American audiences. So designing hardware centered around rock and roll instruments like guitars and drums were their best bet. They got a lot of inspiration from a Japanese arcade cabinet series called Guitar Freaks and began their foray into making an exciting new rhythm game controller that felt like a real guitar.
• 04:00 - 04:30 They had great ideas, but they needed someone to develop the game that these controllers worked with because remember, red Octane was not a game developer. They just made the hardware, and this sounded like a simple task, but most game development companies dismiss Red Octane by simply claiming that music games don't sell. But according to Cory Fong, the senior brand manager at Red Octane, they just didn't know any better. So very few companies gave them the time of day, except of course Harmonics.
• 04:30 - 05:00 While their music games didn't sell, their work did catch the attention of Red Octane. So Harmonics needed a controller, and Red Octane needed a game, and the perfect partnership was formed. Red Octane agreed to create the peripherals for this new game titled Guitar Hero and Fund Its Development, but Harmonics had to finish it and nine months and for less than $2 million would they be able to deliver. As we all know, short development cycles always come at the cost of something. After all, they say, you can only pick two quick, cheap,
• 05:00 - 05:30 or good, but somehow Harmonics had to do all three. Fortunately, they had the foresight when negotiating contracts with past publishers to allow the company to retain all rights to the code used in their other games. This meant that they weren't working off of a blank slate. They could use the systems from their past rhythm games to quickly craft a working build, and their past titles, amplitude and Karaoke Revolution were basically the perfect combination to create something like Guitar Hero and the amount of time that they saved by having this code on hand would be extremely beneficial
• 05:30 - 06:00 to everything else the team had going on. Saving time is one of the most important things when it comes to enabling you to do what you truly wanna do, which is why when I get tired of cooking, I use the sponsor of today's video. Factor 75. Factor 75 brings delicious, ready to eat meals right to your door, and every meal is fresh, never frozen, crafted by chefs dietician approved and ready to eat in just two minutes, and the meals are really good too. I've actually been a Factor subscriber for about a year now.
• 06:00 - 06:30 Basically, you get to pick from 35 different menu options every week, including low calorie meals, high protein meals, keto meals, and vegan or vegetarian meals, and they are really good too. Factor takes the stress out of planning your weekly meals so you can skip the chaos of the grocery store and all of that midweek cooking fatigue help to support the channel, keep these videos possible and eat better by checking out Factor. Get 50% off your first factor box and 20% off your next month of orders by using my link.
• 06:30 - 07:00 Click the link in the description or scan the QR code on the screen with your phone to switch today to save time and money and eat healthier. Thank you to Factor for helping me to keep my food costs down and sponsoring this video. And let's now talk about the cost involving Guitar Hero in order to keep licensing costs down. Harmonics only purchased the rights to do covers of songs and had Wave Group try to recreate them as closely as possible for the game. This was a great solution for the early days of the franchise as it allowed them to save money, but licensing would become a bigger issue later down the
• 07:00 - 07:30 line throughout Guitar Hero One's development, the game was an absolute hit with the staff. Not only did they enjoy developing it, they enjoyed playing it. Harmonics was largely composed of musicians, which allowed them to create a game that more accurately represented rock culture, and it was awesome. They even added their own band songs as bonus tracks. Things were looking great, but only time would tell if the customers felt the same way. Prior to release Guitar, hero's Big Break was when Red Octane's senior brand manager,
• 07:30 - 08:00 again, Corey Fong, contacted IGN and asked them to check out the game. The team at IGN loved it and people flocked in droves to try it out. At that year's, E three Guitar Hero released on November 8th, 2005, and the reception was nothing short of massive. It made $45 million in the first two months. The demand for the game was so high in fact that Red Octane couldn't keep up. Stores would request as many as 80,000 guitar units, and the best the company could do was 2,500 at a time.
• 08:00 - 08:30 It was obvious that the two studios had a smash hit on their hands, so naturally a sequel was the next step. Harmonics and Red Octa knew that Guitar Hero two had to be bigger and better in every way imaginable. It needed to include new modes, characters, guitars, venues, and of course new songs, which worked out great for them because with the success of the first game, they had far more power when negotiating licensing deals. This allowed for some of the most requested bands to be featured in the track list.
• 08:30 - 09:00 It was even possible to license a few master recordings, something that was completely impossible for their first game. In the end, there were 64 songs at launch, 17 more than its predecessor, and each of them came with a base and rhythm track that could be played separately with a different note chart. This feature essentially doubled the catalog and allowed players to perform as a band and multiplayer, instead of just facing off the game, even included a practice mode where players could review specific sections of songs as much as they wanted. It had just about everything players could have
• 09:00 - 09:30 wanted in a sequel. So when Guitar Hero Two released on November 7th, 2006, it was no surprise it was yet another resounding success. It grossed over $200 million in only two months, more than four times what the first game made in the same amount of time. It wasn't too long before bigger publishers wanted to cut and made offers to purchase Red Octane in Harmonics. Activision bought Red Octane in the Guitar Hero brand in May of 2006 for a whopping $100 million while MTV games owned
• 09:30 - 10:00 by Viacom bought Harmonics for 175 million later that year. But there was a catch, for whatever reason, likely bad Blood between Activision and Viacom higher ups. Red Octane was forbidden from working with Harmonics again on another Guitar Hero title. As a result. Their last title together was Guitar Hero Rocks the eighties, the Follow-up to Guitar Hero two, as they were still contractually obligated to see a spinoff until completion. But after this, Activision would be in charge of all upcoming Guitar Hero games,
• 10:00 - 10:30 and while this seemed good at first, it would quickly take a turn for the worst. As a result, guitar Hero Three Legends of Rock was the first title in the series developed by Neversoft instead of Harmonics. While they were well equipped for the job based off of their experience with the Tony Hawk series, they lacked the same musical experience that Harmonics had. This led to many small personal touches being lost in subsequent titles. Examples include note charts, poorly matching the music, and a focus on providing a challenging experience
• 10:30 - 11:00 instead of one that's fun. Neversoft also decided to play extremely safe for their first title in the series, barely Innovating Anything with the sequel. Apart from New wireless controllers, online multiplayer and the games increased difficulty, there really wasn't much to set it apart from past titles except of course the soundtrack. The song Count was a whopping 73 tracks. Over half of them were master recordings instead of covers, and it included many iconic bands, even Better Guns N Roses, legendary guitarist slash was featured in the story
• 11:00 - 11:30 with a song he created exclusively for the game. The track selections were by far the best of any game yet as many critics would go on to confirm. However, there was one other element that elevated the game's popularity to unfathomable Heights, and it came in the form of a new console breaking into the market. The Nintendo, we was a cultural touchstone when it first came out on November 19th, 2006. Not only did it end up becoming one of the best selling consoles in gaming history, it managed
• 11:30 - 12:00 to appeal to new audiences. It was a massive hit with casual players becoming a console that was synonymous with families and get togethers. While the Xbox 360 and PS three became the consoles for hardcore gamers, it had a very particular brand that was a match made in heaven for the likes of Guitar Hero. So when Guitar Hero three released on October 28th, 2007, copies were flying off the shelves. It was Activision's most successful launch at the time, making a hundred million dollars in the first week alone.
• 12:00 - 12:30 And even though the game was released on six different platforms, the we version made up over half of the game's sales. The figures don't even begin to scratch the surface of how it impacted social gatherings either. The game seemed to be everywhere, and everyone who saw it wanted to give it a shot. When they did, they were hooked. It didn't matter that the title didn't innovate in a lot of areas because to almost everyone playing the game, the franchise was completely new to them. And frankly, it was just a really good game, even if it had some blemishes here and there.
• 12:30 - 13:00 But despite that, over the next few years, the Guitar Hero franchise would decline almost as quickly as it started. In typical AAA game publisher fashion, Activision decided that they needed to bring more guitar hero titles to the market with sequels, ports, expansions, and spinoffs being released annually. While things weren't as charming as they used to be, there was still some hope Activision's access to resources drastically reduce the shortages of guitar controllers. Titles could be ported to more consoles simultaneously, and most of these new games did bring some
• 13:00 - 13:30 improvements to the series. To many, the shift wasn't even noticeable. Out of the millions playing these games, there weren't exactly a lot of people who were familiar with the underground culture they were originally based on. All they knew was that the series allowed them to connect with friends and family in completely new ways, especially after the enormous success of the we, which already managed to bridge generations unlike any console ever had before. The sales figures alone speaks to the impact that this franchise had on pop culture being the first
• 13:30 - 14:00 to have an individual video game generate over $1 billion in revenue, it was a monstrous success, but things would soon go downhill relatively quickly. While all of this was going on, harmonics didn't wanna step away from the genre after Guitar Hero two, they immediately got to work making a title with the same formula, but with new instruments added into the fray. This resulted in Rock band as a competitor franchise sprouting from the foundation of Guitar Hero Two. In 2007, the company's drastic innovations ended up becoming an
• 14:00 - 14:30 astronomical, critical and financial success bringing in over $600 million. Despite the additional peripherals bringing the price tag up to 200 Rock Band wasn't made with the intention of killing Guitar hero either. In fact, the individuals at Red Octane and Harmonics never actually held any grudges, but the Rhythm Game Arms race had officially heated up because of rock band's innovation and success. Only a year later, guitar Hero four World Tour adopted the drum and microphone instruments. While this was largely a good thing, it meant none
• 14:30 - 15:00 of the songs from past games could be imported, including their DLC. This also marked the first title in the series to be able to feature every single song as the original master recording. Instead of covers like Guitar Hero three, the game was criticized for poor note charting. And even with the new improvements, people considered this game to be the worst guitar hero game. Yet it had a lot of flaws. But most importantly, the game poorly communicated when a band mate was failing a song and there wasn't a way to save them from failing. Unlike in rock band, this would lead
• 15:00 - 15:30 to frustrating situations where the entire team loses the game because one player was struggling. Guitar Hero four tried to innovate with the introduction of an in-game music creator, but it was predictably quite limited. Overall. Critics wrote it off as an inferior replica of rock band, which was problematic. The game was still a huge success in terms of sales, albeit a bit less than Rock Band two. But the cracks in the series were definitely starting to show. The two franchises were largely able to coexist over the course of 2007 and 2008.
• 15:30 - 16:00 In fact, they had almost a symbiotic relationship with how they could innovate upon each other and give back to the bands that they were licensing tracks from. Between 2005 and 2008, a total of six guitar hero titles were released, and what the success of Rock Band, the Rhythm Game Market would soon be extremely oversaturated. To fight this oversaturation, Activision would do something that would begin the downward spiral that would eventually kill this beloved franchise. In 2009, six new Guitar Hero titles came out.
• 16:00 - 16:30 Remember, there were six mainline titles released by the end of 2008, and by the end of 2009, that number had doubled. It was a mad dash to capitalize on market share and compete with rock band, and all intentionality was thrown out the window. One of these new games smash hits didn't even feature new songs. It was just a combination of the most beloved and played songs of the series. Critics called it The Definition of Milking a franchise. The excitement for each of these new guitar hero games began
• 16:30 - 17:00 to fade, and people were quickly becoming overwhelmed with the number of titles on the market. This was indicated by Guitar Hero five, barely selling a million copies by the end of the year, less than a third of the past entry in the series, despite actually being a pretty decent game. But to make matters worse, rock band released three titles in 2009, further compounding to the oversaturation of the genre. You couldn't go into any game store without being met with an onslaught of rhythm game titles like it or not. And let us not forget the elephant in the room,
• 17:00 - 17:30 the 2008 recession was still being felt heavily by many. Even if you were interested in all of these titles, there were very few people who could actually afford to buy all of these AAA rhythm games, plus the expensive peripherals that they called for. Three of the Guitar Hero titles that were released in 2009 were minor expansions coming with less songs and overall polish than mainline releases, but still being sold at a full $60 price point. The last of which Guitar Hero Van Halen was ripped to shreds by critics and fans, IG N's.
• 17:30 - 18:00 Eric bvi said No effort was put into making it good. It's a step backwards for the franchise and a totally unnecessary release with other critics like the ones at Game Pros tearing into it as well. Unsurprisingly, all 2009 Guitar Hero and Rock band games performed worse than their publishers had expected. For context, the music genre produced 200 million in 2006, 1 billion in 2007, 1.6 billion in 2008, and now 900 million. In 2009.
• 18:00 - 18:30 Half the profits with four times the titles of past years. It was clear the genre as a whole was on the decline. Going into 2010, Activision realized this and immediately started to cut back on the franchise. On February 11th, 2010, news broke that Activision was shutting down. Red Octane, one of the original creators and moving staff responsible for developing Guitar Hero controllers directly into Activision. Even worse, never Soft's guitar Hero team was set to be dissolved after completing development on Guitar Hero six.
• 18:30 - 19:00 The future of the franchise seemed grim, even if Activision claimed that they were just putting Guitar Hero on hiatus, if these remaining titles didn't perform well, Activision was sure to pull the plug entirely. So when Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock came out on September 24th, 2010 and received mediocre reviews, it was a death sentence for the series. The title failed to break even. 1 million Sales and reviews were at an all time low, a stark contrast to the glory days of the series.
• 19:00 - 19:30 The game was meant to be returned to the series roots, but it had an incredibly weak set list that could barely be considered rock. A number of songs didn't even feature guitars as the dominant instrument, a pretty big oversight for a game called Guitar Hero. All in all, the game felt aimless and underwhelming. The last DLC for it was released on April 12th, 2011, barely six months after the game came out. And on March 31st, 2014, all of the DLC for Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock were permanently removed from storefronts due to Activision, no longer holding the licensing rights
• 19:30 - 20:00 for many of the tracks. In fact, the track licensing was a consistent problem for the Guitar Hero franchise from the very beginning. In a sense, guitar Hero relies on the works of other artists who exist. The issue with this is it costs money to license the work of artists for your product. The cost depends on many different factors and can be negotiated with the respective licensing companies. But there are a few points that make cost go up what you need the song for, whether it's the master recording or not, and how famous the song is. Early on into the franchise,
• 20:00 - 20:30 the developers circumvented this issue by creating covers of the songs instead of using the originals. But as the franchise grew, the set list had to as well. Master recordings and famous songs became a must, and neither of those came cheap. The company's responsible for licensing. The songs want to ensure its profitable and that it won't reflect badly on the artist in any way. This issue would only get worse as DLC was released for later titles because now they can't just ask for a one-time license. It has to be renewed every so often, and you also need the rights to distribute the song.
• 20:30 - 21:00 It lit a fire under the entire franchise that compounded the need for a guitar hero to always be successful to combat the rising licensing costs. With this in mind, it's more apparent why the poor reception to Warriors of Rock was such an issue to the company. Activision determined that Guitar Hero was no longer the flagship franchise that it used to be, and Neversoft, the Activision studio that developed all of the guitar hero games since Activision acquired the rights to the franchise was in rough waters, too. Between the declining guitar hero sales figures
• 21:00 - 21:30 and the disinterest in the Tony Hawk franchise that put them on the radar, they were no longer profitable and Activision deemed that it was time to consolidate them to mitigate losses. So Neversoft was shut down in 2014 and merged with another Activision studio, effectively pulling the plug on all future guitar hero projects on the other side of the coin. While Warriors of Rock was a disappointing release Rock Band three, which came out around the same time, fared infinitely better with critics receiving three perfect ratings in all and over a 90% on meta critic.
• 21:30 - 22:00 But even with the positive reception, the sales of this game were also only a modest success reaching a mere 1.2 million units. Over the course of five years, the rhythm game market was officially oversaturated. And no matter what new gimmicks these franchises brought to the table, people just weren't going to be buying Guitar Hero and rock band games like they used to. Rock Band three did manage to maintain profitability due to the increased price points surrounding the peripherals and the constant barrage of DLC releases, at least
• 22:00 - 22:30 for a little while longer. But the truth of the matter was this guitar hero and rock band were in an arms race flooding the market with expensive, somewhat repetitive rhythm games that required upwards of a few hundred dollars worth of peripherals. There's only so much demand for music games, and when there are 20 plus games released in less than a decade, people are going to lose interest. So while Guitar Hero's Fate was sealed a bit sooner than rock bands, the failure of both franchises was inevitable. With Neversoft Shut down, guitar Hero fell off the radar
• 22:30 - 23:00 after Warriors of Rock. But in a last ditch effort, Activision released Guitar Hero Live in 2015 using another one of their subsidiaries called Freestyle Games, who worked on another series of rhythm games called DJ Hero. In 2009, this new title was supposed to make Guitar Hero exciting again by switching to a six finger controller to more accurately represent real guitar strumming instead of the five finger controller that was used from the very beginning. And while this sounded great in theory, fans hated it. Plus, because of this change, no songs from past games were backwards compatible,
• 23:00 - 23:30 and you were also forced to buy an entirely new guitar controller making the barrier to entry even higher than it should have been. The visuals were also completely changed, losing the character and flair that made the game feel fun and exciting, and the notes were all entirely redesigned to a weird three note system that made the whole thing feel bland, corporatized, and uninteresting. The game also only had 42 songs by default, and you had to play to earn tokens and hero cash to temporarily unlock the ability to play the good parts of the catalog.
• 23:30 - 24:00 The whole system was terrible, and it was honestly a disgrace to longtime fans of the Guitar Hero series. So of course, the game flopped and caused half of the Freestyle game staff to be laid off only four months after the game's initial release. And this failure marked the final straw for the future of the Guitar Hero franchise. And believe it or not, rock band never quite met the same fate. Instead of changing everything, rock Band Four largely stuck to the same formula, but for next gen consoles and saw a huge success resulting in around a hundred million dollars in sales.
• 24:00 - 24:30 By early 2016. The games catalog, thanks to allowing the importing of past songs and purchasing of previous DLCs spanned over 1500 songs. They operated on the philosophy that if you bought a rock band song, it should still be yours and Rock Band four. In 2021, epic Games purchased Harmonics, and they worked on Fortnite Festival. Rock Band Four would continue to be supported with New Weekly DLC all the way up until January of 2024. And all the DLC from Rock Band three was also available
• 24:30 - 25:00 to purchase, allowing players who also utilize the extensive free importing features to potentially amass a catalog of over 3000 songs. We don't know what the future holds for harmonics and future rock band titles, but we do know that guitar hero's fate is sealed, at least for the foreseeable future. I'm sure Activision will bring Guitar Hero back sometime over the next few years, continuing the same cycle of greedy AAA developers ruining franchises just to bring them back from the dead. And the name of profit.