Kotick: Activision neglected Guitar Hero

By Fred Dutton Published 20 July, 2011

Reveals resuscitation plan is underway.

Sales of the Guitar Hero series crashed because Activision had stopped listening to its audience, CEO Bobby Kotick has admitted.

Speaking in an interview with Forbes, Kotick explained how the publisher had grown complacent following the series' early flush of success and subsequently starved it of innovation.

"We didn't really take the time that we usually take to understand audience behavior," he said.

"It was one of those things where we were resting on the idea that one of the essential fantasies of video games is to unleash your inner rock star. And it didn't really matter how you did that, but as long as you were allowing people to unleash their inner rock star fantasies, you’d continue to be successful. So we went off on a passion project that had a point of differentiation – which is called DJ Hero.

In hindsight, he conceded, that was probably a mistake.

"We should have said, 'Well, how many people really want to unleash their inner DJ?' And then out of the people who do want to unleash their inner DJ, how many want to do it in the context of a game where you earn points, versus just taking a DJ deck or tools on their Macintosh and actually being a DJ? And it turns out it's a very small market."

Kotick explained that the enthusiasm and creativity the publisher poured into DJ Hero meant Guitar Hero went neglected.

"These are the hardest failures, when you put your heart and soul into it and you deliver an extraordinarily well received game, and nobody shows up to buy it. So that’s what happened with DJ Hero.

"At the same time we were so excited about going down this new direction with DJ Hero, I think we abandoned a bit of the innovation that was required in the Guitar Hero franchise.

"And so it was the double whammy of DJ Hero was unsuccessful, and then Guitar Hero became unsuccessful because it didn't have any nourishment and care. So we made what I think was exactly the right decision last year [to cease development]."

He revealed that work is underway on reinventing the Guitar Hero series, with an unnamed studio currently exploring "technology pathways" and working on "a variety of different prototypes."

"We said, you know what, we need to regain our audience interest, and we really need to deliver inspired innovation. So we're going to take the products out of the market, and we're not going to tell anybody what we're doing for awhile, but we're going to stop selling Guitar Hero altogether.

"And then we're going to go back to the studios and we're going to use new studios and reinvent Guitar Hero. And so that's what we're doing with it now."

Freestyle Games' DJ Hero 2 scored an impressive 9/10 from Eurogamer last year, whereas the most recent Guitar Hero iteration, Warriors of Rock, managed 7/10.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • darkmorgado #1 10 months ago

    Well that didn't bloody take long, did it?

    Perhaps the problem was that the people who would be interested in being DJs would have a primary interest in dance music, not endless mashups of hip hop and pop music. I love dance music, but I didn't buy DJ Hero because the tracklist had zero appeal to me. Gwen Stefani? Fuck off.

  • darkmorgado #2 10 months ago

    Oh, and the ridiculous pricing didn't help either.

  • joelstinton #3 10 months ago

    And that you released 5678945 guitar hero games in quick succession. You just hashed out song packs on disks thats what really suffocated your GH series. Didn't take the time to make a true sequel.

  • Ryze #4 10 months ago

    Er.. OK.

    Just make better and more varied games, and price both them and the peripherals fairly.

    Then I'll open my wallet. If not, then it's easy to ignore Activision.

  • riceNpea #5 10 months ago

    'Sales of the Guitar Hero series crashed because Activision had stopped listening to its audience, CEO Bobby Kotick has admitted.'

    they listen to their audience? oh yes i remember how we continue to insist that £12 for DLC is reasonable.


  • InvisibleCrane #6 10 months ago

    My guess is that Activision will probably look at what Harmonix did with Rock Band 3 (specifically the pro instrument mode) and try to apply that to Guitar Hero if they really are wanting to bring back the franchise...at least if anything if they do this then I know it will be easier to find pro six string guitar controllers for Guitar Hero than the ones for Rock Band (let's face it if GH had anything over RB it was that you could at least find GH controllers pretty much anywhere compared to RB ones)

  • acuratebob #7 10 months ago

    Dunno about even wanting a new guitar hero game. Rock Band is clearly better. It gets better with each game. Rock was amazing to start with. RB2 was bettered overall, plus all RB songs worked. RB3 is epic with the keyboards on pro. Keep it up Harmonix, Activision can't compete.

  • JadedSoul #8 10 months ago

    Post deleted at 08:10:55 26-04-2012

  • elvenscroll #9 10 months ago

    Guitar Hero: Rammstein...

    Make it happen.

  • 32768Colours #10 10 months ago

    "These are the hardest failures, when you put your heart and soul into it and you deliver an extraordinarily well received game, and nobody shows up to buy it.

    Kotick has a soul? o_O

  • Ikaros_O #11 10 months ago

    Or maybe it had something to do with you over saturating the market. 5 Guitar Hero games in one year? That screams milking the cow till there's nothing left, then jumping on it's corpse to try squeeze the little juices that are left inside the damn thing.

  • RobTheBuilder #12 10 months ago

    Don't forget bleeding it dry by releasing a new one every year plus special editions, plus the heavy pricing.

  • dsmx #13 10 months ago

    Activision you didn't neglect Guitar hero you decided that the market could take 5 of them being released in 1 year instead of just releasing 1 game then selling the DLC for it. Thanks to your "efforts" you killed the music game genre by saturating the market to the point that no-one needed or wanted to buy another music game.

  • Scopeh #14 10 months ago

    Kotick apologising? Kotick accepting Activision did wrong?... Has the world ended?

  • darkmorgado #15 10 months ago

    Kotick accepting Activision did wrong?

    Nope, Kotick shifting blame to the devs and away from criticism of ruthless milking of the franchise and ridiculous pricing.

  • kinth #16 10 months ago

    it wasnt neglected it was milked to death, just like every other major activision franchise.

    same game year after year. where as rock band sought to improve it each time.

    the same is going to happen with CoD if they dont slow down with it.

  • TudeScud #17 10 months ago

    @Colours He's talking about other peoples' souls, of course.

    Muhahahahahahaa

    OT: I really like the shift to real musicianship. How will Activision 'innovate' in that direction given that Rock Band 3 (almost there) and Rocksmith (all the way there?) have already taken the initiative?
    Edited by TudeScud at 21/07/11 @ 00:18

  • shadowdogg #18 10 months ago

    Kotick, I just hate you. Will you piss off please?

  • thebaron #19 10 months ago

    Guitar Hero Iron Maiden , Guitar Hero Rush or Guitar Hero Dream Theater - Will buy any of these instantly! Stop messing around with lesser bands - Aerosmith WTF !!!

  • urban #20 10 months ago

    Wow, now I know you're crazy Kotick.

  • Subdominator #21 10 months ago

    Why did they make DJ Hero 2 when the first one failed so miserably? But thanks, I recently ot DJ Hero 1 and 2 plus turntable controller for 15 €. New.

    I think they didn't kill Guitar Hero (and Rock Band) with too many games. They killed it with too many DLC songs. If you can select your favorite tracks for one game - why would you want to buy a new version with 90 songs of which 30 are interesting? Why not stick with the old version instead? And both games never managed to get difficulty right for the not so gifted players. Easy and normal modes were ridiculously easy, when you were trying hard for a challenge it was like you hit a wall. The jump from normal to hard is way too hard, you can 5star normal mode songs and fail them one difficulty up in the first thirty seconds.

  • A_Nonny #22 10 months ago

    Translation: "We invested time, care, and effort into a new and creative franchise instead of making sure one of our annual cash cows was still delivering. We won't make that mistake again. Out with the new, in with the old!"
    Edited by A_Nonny at 21/07/11 @ 05:26

  • madmaardigan #23 10 months ago

    Rock Band 3 was amazing, innovative and polished and still it only brought in minor sales.

    Does anybody know if the RB3 squier stratocastor will every materialise in the UK, incidentally? I've been looking out for one since March :S

  • Rack #24 10 months ago

    *Splutter* Neglected? Guitar Hero? The one thing that series was not was neglected.

  • fabio78 #25 10 months ago

    Cunt

  • PixelPirate #26 10 months ago

    "We didn't really take the time that we usually take to understand audience behavior

    hahahahaa.

    WHEN have they EVER listened?

    What they mean is, we created an artificial gap in the market, and created a desire for the games by widthdrawing them and now we are going to reintroduce them to the market to make more money.

    Kinda like a drug dealer would, to artificially control price and supply....

  • gjgjg #27 10 months ago

    Den, dj hero was the only bit of innovation in the series. It was the persistent rehashing of expensive plastic junk that flopped it.

  • Toothball #28 10 months ago

    @TudeScud

    I'm curious, you say that RB3 was 'almost there' with regards to real musicianship. What do you think is missing?

    @madmaardigan

    The Squiers have been and gone unfortunately. A few music stores got a batch of them in, but allocation filled up fast. The store I ordered from had a shipment of 100 or so, and when I ordered in February 75 had already been spoken for. Had to wait until May until I actually got my hands on it.

    If you want one now you might have some trouble getting one. Fender have discontinued them (link so music stores largely haven't been able to obtain any more. There seem to be stocks of them in Best Buys across the US, so you might be able to track one down on ebay or similar if you're desperate.

  • Lee_Morris #29 10 months ago

    Activision killed DJ Hero as soon as they slapped a £120 price point on that thing. Should have cost no more than £70. Maybe that's what Kotick meant by over enthusiasm, in that Activision put a ton of cash into the project and lost sight of the buisness of selling the thing. I bloody love that game. It was soo fresh and original, in gameplay and content.

  • irve77 #30 10 months ago

    i love this .. i'm going to translate that into "where going to do to Guitar hero exactly what we did with tony hawks ... release a revamped and expensive car crash of a game after a years hiatus and kill the series stone dead"

  • Gizzle #31 10 months ago

    @subdominator €15?! Where? My old decks are destroyed from too much attempted Scratch Perverts and Galvanize on Expert. I stress the word attempted.

  • hygraed #32 10 months ago

    Guitar Hero started sucking long before DJ Hero came out.

  • metalangel #33 10 months ago

    Oh my fucking god, Kotick in understanding something correctly for once. Didn't I say all along that DJ Hero was pointless, and that you'd be far better off (and have more fun) with some proper DJ kit or software, instead of pretending with the fake turntable and game?

  • jebus #34 10 months ago

    @Jaded Soul "I grow ever more concerned with this industry when I see business men being the mouthpieces for so called creativity and innovation. The business men do all the talking while the artists remain caged and silenced; their voices are rarely heard. Does this seem like a healthy industry?"

    The industry is utterly fucked imo. Big console games are dying on their arse both creativley and in terms of numbers. All I can see in the future is shitty facebook games and lame iPad/phone games.

  • Lord_BeeJee #35 10 months ago

    Just leave the genre alone, rock band has it covered.

  • TitusCrow #36 10 months ago

    One of the best comments I have read in ages Jaded Soul

  • TudeScud #37 10 months ago

    @Toothball Sorry, my comment could have been interpreted a tad glibly. To clarify: Those using Squiers, keyboards and mics (electric drumkits... am I missing anything?) are engaged in real musicianship, even if some small details are missing (no bends, etc.). What I meant was that I was a bit disappointed to find out that Rocksmith, which is coming down the line supports real guitars (any electric guitar, I am lead to believe) with an adapter, whereas Rock Band 3 does not, with the exception of the late (relative to the game's release) and production dependent Squiers (Midis too, but a niche market).

    It may be a tad unfair, but I don't like being tied down to one guitar, choice-wise.