Activision cancels Guitar hero franchise

Activision Blizzard have suddenly decided to not only cancel the Guitar Hero game that was in development for 2011, but they decided to cancel the whole franchise.

The reason behind this move is the significant decline in the music game business:

In 2007: Activision sold 1.5 million copies of Guitar Hero III

in 2010: Activision sold 86,000 copies of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

Therefore, Activision said that the decline of the genre, plus the high cost of licensing music and producing the games, led it to close the business.

“There was nothing that Activision or anybody could have done to save Guitar Hero,” said Jesse Divnich, vice president of analyst services for Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, in an interview with Wired.com.

Divnich said that Activision realizes the “opportunity cost” of continuing to make Hero games when it could instead be putting those resources towards more profitable games.