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Evening Reading
by Jeff Mattas, Feb 10, 2011 1:00am PSTWell, ladies and gents, it would seem as though the heyday of plastic instruments (and their associated games) might finally be appearing in our rear-view mirror. It was bound to happen, eventually.
The beginning of the end, so to speak, seemed to be when Harmonix -- the developer that founded both Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises -- was put up on the chopping block by Viacom late last year. Harmonix elected to, in effect, purchase itself, and remains an independent entity that continues to churn out Rock Band DLC at a regular clip.
Couple that with today's news that Activision is not only canceling the 2011 installment of the Guitar Hero franchise (which it's owned since 2006), but is pursuing the "discontinuation of the development of all music-based games," due to "anticipation of a continuing weak environment for casual and music-based games," and the trend couldn't be more obvious.
Don't get me wrong. I still fire up Rock Band on a semi-regular basis, and it still does an exceptional job of making someone who can't play any real instruments (like myself) feel like a rock star. Granted, it's been three years since I've purchased a plastic guitar. If peripheral sales are built into your expected profit margin, factors like a plateauing or declining user-base and making an increasingly iterative product make it harder to meet those numbers each year.
And, in case you missed it:
Video games leviathan Activision has laid off around two hundred staff, resulting in the closure of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen developer Luxoflux and heavy losses for Prototype creator Radical Entertainment and frequent Guitar Hero contributor Neversoft, with GH: Van Halen dev Underground rumoured to shut, Gamasutra reports...
"As we discussed on our earnings conference call yesterday, we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities. At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead."
And today, pretty much the same theme, except the company lost $233 million in Q4 2010. They're apparently concentrating on Call of Duty, Blizzard titles, and... Tony Hawk? ( http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/66756 )
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