What Killed Guitar Hero

This week marked the end of Guitar Hero, one of the most influential series of our generation. In its life, Guitar Hero saw all sides of the gaming industry’s spectrum: A modest debut, an amazing peak, a mediocre phase and finally a decline that led to Activision’s axing of the beloved series.

It’s 2005. RedOctane, a peripheral manufacturing company, approaches the software group Harmonix with a proposal: A music game based off of a guitar shaped controller. Harmonix, who had designed a few rhythm games including Karaoke Revolution, jumped on the idea. Thus gamers saw the creation of Guitar Hero. Even though it wasn’t the first guitar based game in the world, it certainly was the most influential. At this point, Japan had these types of games in arcades for about 6 years. But never had they been brought to the home consoles. Guitar Hero featured a number of popular songs by big name bands from Black Sabbath to Incubus. Every one of its 30 songs was a cover, as Harmonix lacked the financial backing to justify paying royalties for master tracks. Regardless the game was well-received, selling over 1.53 million copies.

Ozzy’s right…I AM Iron Man!

Only a year after their first success, Harmonix struck gold a second time with their sequel, Guitar Hero II. For their second venture into the series, the company began to improve rather than re-invent the series. The set list was effectively doubled and even included 26 master recordings.  The timing of the notes was simplified, creating a much easier game than the previous installment. The title also included many classic bands and songs including the elusive anthem Free Bird. The fact that you could now master your favorite songs on a guitar (albeit a plastic one) brought the game into popular light. The game sold 1.3 million copies, just a few thousand under its predecessor.

FREEEEEEEE BIRD!

By this time, GH had become a gaming icon. The plastic guitars were fast becoming a well known item in households across the world. Both old and new generations of music lovers were jumping on the rockin’ bandwagon. Activision purchased RedOctane for $100 million, leaving Harmonix to move on to bigger and better projects. They left the series in the hands of Neversoft, the company behind the Tony Hawk games. In 2007, the company released Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. This installment marked a shift in the series’ focus. Instead of looking more towards the song list for sales, Neversoft began to use big name musicians. The game included Slash of Guns N’ Roses, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and even Bret Michaels of Poison. The game was still well liked by critics, though it received lower scores than previous titles.

I’ve always wanted to dual Guitars with Slash…

Here we are in 2008. Given the great success of GH, Activision decided to try something a little different. They released Guitar Hero: Aerosmith in June, marking the first game to focus on a single band. In the end, whether you enjoyed the game depended on how much you enjoyed Aerosmith as a band. This also marks the first year two GH titles are released. A few months after Aerosmith, we see World Tour which capitalizes off the success of full band games like Rock Band. While it received positive reviews overall, it fell behind Rock Band in ratings and sales.

Now I’m dyin’ to forget you

2009 marked the decline of Activision’s music game. By the end of the year, three titles were released including a new pop-centric version of the game called Band Hero. Each game continued to focus on big name musicians. Kurt Cobain was a playable character inGuitar Hero 5, causing controversy amongst fans. Taylor Swift and the band No Doubt both appeared in Band Hero. It seemed that the focus was less on the musical experience of the player. Rather, the big names were the selling point.

Band Hero…Swift-ly losing interest

We saw the last of the series in 2010 with Warriors of Rock. The company made one last ditch effort to save the falling sales by switching to a story-centric game. Still, the musical experience wasn’t the main point and the game received lukewarm reviews. It only sold 86,000 copies in the first month, well below the 500,000 Guitar Hero III sold.

Rush-ing to the bottom

So what killed Guitar Hero? By releasing several titles per year, Activision destroyed any demand for the game. Fans didn’t have time to get excited. Add in the de-emphasis on the musicality and GH was doomed. On February 9 Activision announced that it will discontinue the series, citing “…declining interest in the music genre.”

In 2005 in would have been hard to see such a great game facing the chopping block. But by over marketing the title, Activision may well have killed the music game genre all together. Rock Band continues to be successful but will have to re-invent the genre to save it. The future of music games is uncertain but the fate of Guitar Hero is sealed. Hold up your lighters; it’s time to say good-bye to our plastic guitars.

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About the Author

Blake Anderson A gamer/writer/bass-player who's studying Electronic Media journalism