Jan 172007
 

The headline says it all: GameDaily BIZ: Breaking: Guitar Hero Development Goes to Neversoft.

I suppose this might be a side effect of Harmonix getting acquired by MTV while Red Octane got bought by Activision. And Neversoft is a talented shop. But either way, it’s still dismaying…

  11 Responses to “Ack, no more Harmonix Guitar Hero games?”

  1. once an innovative franchise in its own right, though after sixteen variations of the same gameplay, you have to wonder when they’re going to stop milking it. (Hat tip: veteran developer Raph Koster, who muses, “I suppose this might be a side effect of Harmonix getting acquired by MTV while [original Guitar Hero publisher] Red Octane got bought by Activision. And Neversoft is a talented shop. But either way, it’s still dismaying…

  2. […] Bloggers January 18, 2007 06:34 Dynamic spawn system Once upon a time in a classic MMORPG there was a camp of 10 foozles. And as there was a quest to hunt them for foozle pelts, often players came to that camp and started killing them. Using a classic… Source: Tobold Categories: Bloggers 01:00 Ack, no more Harmonix Guitar Hero games? The headline says it all: GameDaily BIZ: Breaking: Guitar Hero Development Goes to Neversoft. I suppose this might be a side effect of Harmonix getting acquired by MTV while Red Octane got bought by Activision. And Neversoft is a talented shop. But either way, it’s still dismaying… Source: Raph's Koster Website Categories: Bloggers 00:32 ‘Flation With the launch of Burning Crusade, people are already commenting on how much the value of older items has dropped. I’ve seen folks who are new to the whole expansion thing wondering about past games, and whether the same was true, and how much the buying power of past currencies fell in the wake of […] Source: Raph's Koster Website Categories: Bloggers 00:19 Be Ready to Launch MMO Development Lesson #1, more or less just said: Don’t launch before you are done, unless you have to, even though you’ll probably fail unless players can’t tell what’s a bug and what’s by design. Do things that you think are helpful, because then if your game fails, maybe you won’t feel so bad. But c’mon! That’s […] Source: Jeff Freeman – Dundee Categories: Bloggers 00:03 One server to rule them all I’m looking for an Everquest II server to call home for a few months. End game guilds do not matter, my only request is a bustling server during evening pst times. I don’t have many readers, but it is worth a shot before taking the plunge. There has to be one reader out there who […] Source: Pitfalls – Krones Categories: Bloggers […]

  3. Yup. Although Harmonix was bought by MTV, the Guitar Hero trademark was obtained by Red Octane and therefore the name and game stay at Activision.

    In related news, Activision has filed trademark applications for “Guitar Villain” and “Drum Villain”.

  4. But expect more games like Guitar Hero. We got dance, drums, and guitars.

    Hmm, I’m thinking a singing game or a producer/remixer game is next.

    Frank

  5. And would Beatmania do as a starting point for the producer/remixer genre?

  6. Just because it won’t have the name on the box, doesn’t mean that Harmonix will not (is not) making Guitar Hero-ish III right now.

    Will be an interesting test of how knowledgeable consumers are, to purchase GH III/Stars/Revolution/Country/Idol or the next Harmonix product.

  7. The same happened with Championship Manager, the brand went one way and the developer another. The developers version is currently winning in sales, and it considered a better game.

    It will be nice to compare the difference in effect on the markets for football management games and guitar games, although it does depend on how good each game is.

  8. Freeing up Harmonix to work on different (new) projects is definitely a good thing IMHO. The game model for GH is done and done (fantastic, mind you, but not in need of any more big features)… handing it of to a shop with vast experience getting games into multiple platforms is the way to go.

    I can’t wait to see what Harmonix comes up with next.

  9. RE: all the singing games…

    Oh shoot, how did I missed all of theses? Particularly the American Idol one.

    I must have skipped over certain parts of Time-Space.

    What’s next, a violin game? OR a co-op jam session game called… The All American Band! There are some people writing music analysis software which I can see bleeding into an AI program for judging music creation, e.g. sounds like Tina Turner, plays like Dylan.

    Frank

  10. This is actually the SECOND American Idol game. The first one came out during the first or second season. I remember being at E3, they had Paula Abdul there or something.

    But this one just came out. Last week maybe? Or maybe it comes out shortly.

    I didn’t even list all the Karaoke Revolution games… I missed the first one in the list, I see now.

    And Singstar is a huge series in Europe — up to 6 volumes or something.

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