Activision throws smack at ‘imitators’ Harmonix
Let’s assume for a minute you’re a big games publisher, and have just spent a lot of money to acquire a game developer that’s been known for a rather successful franchise. Let’s assume that franchise would be Guitar Hero, and the developer RedOctane. Would you be bad-mouthing the other half of the wonderboy duo already, calling Harmonix ‘imitators’ for doing their own thing later this year with Rock Band? Activision surely would.
Gamasutra posted a roundup of Activision releasing its yearly results, and the company has been doing fine, more than doubling its profits from $40.3 million to $85.8 million. Major forces in this were of course Guitar Hero II and Call of Duty 3, both selling millions of copies across their respective platforms. Some notable quotes were caught on the subject of GH2 downloadables:
Last year saw less than $10 million in downloadable sales, but it said this year that number should double, adding that in the first quarter alone, it has seen over 200,000 downloads for the Guitar Hero II Xbox 360 song packs. The Guitar Hero franchise, and to a smaller extent Call of Duty, is expected to be a major contributor to its downloadable revenue.
While this seems to conflict with the widespread frustration about aggressive pricing for underdelivering DLC, we couldn’t help but snigger at the remark we found on one forum stating “That’s 200k confirmed idiots on Xbox Live”. That could be wildly off the mark though, since many people have probably downloaded several song packs. Remaining on the subject of funny remarks, Activision couldn’t resist slinging some mud at Guitar Hero driving force Harmonix, that was acquired by MTV itself:
Asked how the company felt about impending competition by the end of the year, referring to Harmonix and MTV Games’ Rock Band, company officials took a curious stance in saying that it “wasn’t surprising that [the franchise] has attracted imitators” — seeming to imply that Harmonix was somehow now simply imitating the game it had itself helped build.
Especially considering that new GH3 developer Neversoft is currently rewriting and retuning all game code, one might wonder who the imitator is.
How is Harmonix imitating? They are allowing the users to create an entire band and play multiple instruments, how is that imitating? It would be different if it was another GUITAR ONLY game.
Even if it were a guitar-only game, Harmonix worked on the first 2 Guitar Hero games itself. Hard to imitate yourself is it?
I just wish they would put Joker and the Thief on this game!
From what I have heard about Harmonix, sounds more like improving than imitating.
Activision always makes me laugh. Harmonix has been doing great music games since Frequency on the PS2. No way can they be imitators.
what is stupid about this whole thing is that RedOctane arent even developers, they made the guitar for GH2, just like they made the dance pads for dance dance revolution. Harmonix was the original developers of GH1 and GH2 before being purchased by MTV. Activision purchased RedOctane and has assigned Neversoft to develop GH3
easy kenny, i think its just a typo, im sure he ment to say harmonix, not redoctane. There’s so many company’s involved with one game, it’s easy to get confused. In my Opinion, Guitar Hero will never be the same, in the end, the game play wont feel like it used to!! example, call of duty 2 vs call of duty 3!!
cujoe, i wasnt bashing the editor of this site or the original quote, my comment is geared towards activision. activision published the first two and now that harmonix isnt on the project anymore they call them “imitators” when they are the team that originated the game.
GH3 should be fine, the gameplay is already all set in place and is not that complicated like CoD3. so all neversoft really needs to do is get new songs and spruce up the graphics and call it a day.