Is Activision Being Very Short-Sighted?

Even before this flurry of ____Hero games anylists had aldready been commenting on the over saturation in the music game market, now that activision has announced 3 new games (Van Halen, MJ and DJ Hero [urrgg..]) all of them at the £40 price point and above with DJ hero coming in at a heafty £108. This means we will have had by my last count at least over 10 (please feel free to correct me with exact number, it's hard to count) ___Hero games in the space of 4 years. Thats more than one every six months. Infact it's 12 actording to wikipedia although im not sure if that includes MJ and pearl jam.

All this adds up to one big fact; they are going to cause the series to collapse and burn out. There is only so many ____Hero games people are willing to buy before they get confused as to what is a good quality itteration. people will get so tired of seeing a new GH game every few months that they will just stick to what they know; their previous version.

Quite honestly I don't see the market for a £108 DJ hero, that's more than the Wii fit! And i don't see them being able to keep the GH brnad reputable for much longer, the game could have tured into a staple of gaming with a good quality GH game with new features and innovations coming everyc ouple of years, instead the real innovation moved out (Harmonix) and the re-hash bregade has moved in with glee. This will shorten the life and stunt the sales of the GH line and may well end in a 1983 stlye collpase of the music game market.

There is only so much **** you can shovel down someones throat before they throw it back up all over you and Activision will learn this the hard way; Hell they even attempted to make Tim Schafer TIM SCHAFER make a GH game and then sued hikm when he didn't.

Call of Duty is also losing all meaning of it's original name, I get that you can bring sports games out yearly with changing rosters and what not but big budget FPS games can't work that way sustainably. WaW was a total conversion mod, im sorry but it was just stupid in the way it was a re-skinned CoD4. This aprouch to FPS is tiring to many sections of your audience and wil again lead to decreased quality and consumer confusion. You can only ride the hype train for so long before you break it, or as yhatzee put it "sometimes you screw the pooch so hard it has to be locked in the bathrrom with a tube of soothing cream"

This is what activision will do, They have tuned CoD into "Activision's FPS money spinning Gimp". I have expeicence with companies meddling in peoples ****. EA did it for years, most notably killing off WestWood (i will NEVER forgive them for that) and turing it into its generic TRS making division, haing all the talent leave, with CnC generals having as much resemblence to the original as a pink cactus. No Kane? NO GAME!

Pricing is also an issue, £55?! £55?!!!?!!! Are you ****ing kidding me! I could get the top 4 selling blu-ray's for less than that (one of them being the Band of brother box set)! i know they think they can milk us but honestly you just start eating into you sales with a YEARLY game at £55. Do you expect people to drop that EVERY year? Also PC pricing has gone sky high, with $60 for the PC version in the US. We shall see how this panns out but i think they will get laughed out of the bulding buy PC gamers since anyone with an internet connection can get it free of charge.

This is also present in their stratergy towards DLC, they have alreaft annoced new map packs for MW2 leading to the depressing conclusion they are bing worked on in conjunction and just not being put on this disk Ubisoft stlye.

In short; Activision is taking us rougly from behind but they may well pay for it in the long run.

Very good read. I agree with a lot of that but this Holiday will be the deciding factor of whether they are off their rocker or genuiss with cruddy PR. I hope its the former so they get the picture.

I hope MW2 bombs, but it won't due to the average gamer.

No, Nintendo is short sighted.SMR-Venom

You make such a bad nintendo troll Venom. Just stop, the punchout sig gives it away right off the bat.

Very good read. I agree with a lot of that but this Holiday will be the deciding factor of whether they are off their rocker or genuiss with cruddy PR. I hope its the former so they get the picture.

ActicEdge

[QUOTE="SMR-Venom"]No, Nintendo is short sighted.ActicEdge

You make such a bad nintendo troll Venom. Just stop, the punchout sig gives it away right off the bat.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Very good read. I agree with a lot of that but this Holiday will be the deciding factor of whether they are off their rocker or genuiss with cruddy PR. I hope its the former so they get the picture.

BoloTheGreat

Meh, EA didn't learn anything, they are losing tons of money compared to their own strategy lol. Is this about game quality or company sales and profibility in relation to marketing because if its the former, Activision (as much as I hate to say it) isn't really behind. If its the later, like I said, this holiday will decide whether they are good or not. EA on the other hand is in a poor position and there new strategy is only helping to slow down there loss. And lulz, you can never resist taking jabs at the wii :P

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="SMR-Venom"]No, Nintendo is short sighted.BoloTheGreat

You make such a bad nintendo troll Venom. Just stop, the punchout sig gives it away right off the bat.

Eh, the very long run wouldn't make them short sighted since it would be well, very far off lol. We'll see what happens to nintendo though. Generally speaking though, most of the stuff you post is a good read even if I don't agree with all of it lol.

I honestly think that there will be a big drop in sales for music genre games no matter what anyone does. I think Activision is smart for milking as much as they can while the fad is still here. I still hate them and try to avoid buying any of there games. If there is a can't miss one (CoD4) I buy it used.

I hope MW2 flops hard. Activision is greedy and sue happy. djsifer01

[QUOTE="SMR-Venom"]No, Nintendo is short sighted.ActicEdge

You make such a bad nintendo troll Venom. Just stop, the punchout sig gives it away right off the bat.

Wait a second, there's going to be a GUITAR HERO PEARL JAM? Dammit, I might actually have to buy into that scam.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="SMR-Venom"]No, Nintendo is short sighted.SMR-Venom

You make such a bad nintendo troll Venom. Just stop, the punchout sig gives it away right off the bat.

:p this placve is always entertaining

Totally agree with you. It is a little weird to be honest, at how truly exasperating a pace Activision is saturating the market with their games. It is as if a huge industry downfall is on the horizon that no one but them is aware of, and are trying to make as much a profit as they can before there is nothing left. It really does seem like half the games that are being released are all from this one company and it seems that, unfortunately, they are going the direction of quantity over quality. I used to be excited when I saw their brand behind a game but...The times are a changing

Yes, I hope MW2 doesn't sell squat...even though it'll probably be the highest seller this year ;(. Damn you, AVERAGE GAMER!Lethalhazard

on a side note AciticEdge what came out a year later? hmmm... Somthing that can't possibly be a fad, you know has had a lot of sales on a weak 3rd party software base and fickle audience? what is it, ive gone blank :P

Wait a second, there's going to be a GUITAR HERO PEARL JAM? Dammit, I might actually have to buy into that scam.

nintendoman562

[QUOTE="Lethalhazard"]Yes, I hope MW2 doesn't sell squat...even though it'll probably be the highest seller this year ;(. Damn you, AVERAGE GAMER!BoloTheGreat

on a side note AciticEdge what came out a year later? hmmm... Somthing that can't possibly be a fad, you know has had a lot of sales on a weak 3rd party software base and fickle audience? what is it, ive gone blank :P

I don't know. The wii came out in 06 as well so it can't be a system.

[QUOTE="BoloTheGreat"]

[QUOTE="Lethalhazard"]Yes, I hope MW2 doesn't sell squat...even though it'll probably be the highest seller this year ;(. Damn you, AVERAGE GAMER!ActicEdge

on a side note AciticEdge what came out a year later? hmmm... Somthing that can't possibly be a fad, you know has had a lot of sales on a weak 3rd party software base and fickle audience? what is it, ive gone blank :P

I don't know. The wii came out in 06 as well so it can't be a system.

[QUOTE="nintendoman562"]

Wait a second, there's going to be a GUITAR HERO PEARL JAM? Dammit, I might actually have to buy into that scam.

BoloTheGreat

Wait a second, there's going to be a GUITAR HERO PEARL JAM? Dammit, I might actually have to buy into that scam.

nintendoman562

No, Nintendo is short sighted.SMR-Venom

:D:):D That was very funny but I don't think it was the time for a sarcastic comment like that one.

[QUOTE="nintendoman562"]

Wait a second, there's going to be a GUITAR HERO PEARL JAM? Dammit, I might actually have to buy into that scam.

BoloTheGreat

Even before this flurry of ____Hero games anylists had aldready been commenting on the over saturation in the music game market, now that activision has announced 3 new games (Van Halen, MJ and DJ Hero [urrgg..]) all of them at the £40 price point and above with DJ hero coming in at a heafty £108. This means we will have had by my last count at least over 10 (please feel free to correct me with exact number, it's hard to count) ___Hero games in the space of 4 years. Thats more than one every six months. Infact it's 12 actording to wikipedia although im not sure if that includes MJ and pearl jam.

All this adds up to one big fact; they are going to cause the series to collapse and burn out. There is only so many ____Hero games people are willing to buy before they get confused as to what is a good quality itteration. people will get so tired of seeing a new GH game every few months that they will just stick to what they know; their previous version.

Quite honestly I don't see the market for a £108 DJ hero, that's more than the Wii fit! And i don't see them being able to keep the GH brnad reputable for much longer, the game could have tured into a staple of gaming with a good quality GH game with new features and innovations coming everyc ouple of years, instead the real innovation moved out (Harmonix) and the re-hash bregade has moved in with glee. This will shorten the life and stunt the sales of the GH line and may well end in a 1983 stlye collpase of the music game market.

There is only so much **** you can shovel down someones throat before they throw it back up all over you and Activision will learn this the hard way; Hell they even attempted to make Tim Schafer TIM SCHAFER make a GH game and then sued hikm when he didn't.

Call of Duty is also losing all meaning of it's original name, I get that you can bring sports games out yearly with changing rosters and what not but big budget FPS games can't work that way sustainably. WaW was a total conversion mod, im sorry but it was just stupid in the way it was a re-skinned CoD4. This aprouch to FPS is tiring to many sections of your audience and wil again lead to decreased quality and consumer confusion. You can only ride the hype train for so long before you break it, or as yhatzee put it "sometimes you screw the pooch so hard it has to be locked in the bathrrom with a tube of soothing cream"

This is what activision will do, They have tuned CoD into "Activision's FPS money spinning Gimp". I have expeicence with companies meddling in peoples ****. EA did it for years, most notably killing off WestWood (i will NEVER forgive them for that) and turing it into its generic TRS making division, haing all the talent leave, with CnC generals having as much resemblence to the original as a pink cactus. No Kane? NO GAME!

Pricing is also an issue, £55?! £55?!!!?!!! Are you ****ing kidding me! I could get the top 4 selling blu-ray's for less than that (one of them being the Band of brother box set)! i know they think they can milk us but honestly you just start eating into you sales with a YEARLY game at £55. Do you expect people to drop that EVERY year? Also PC pricing has gone sky high, with $60 for the PC version in the US. We shall see how this panns out but i think they will get laughed out of the bulding buy PC gamers since anyone with an internet connection can get it free of charge.

This is also present in their stratergy towards DLC, they have alreaft annoced new map packs for MW2 leading to the depressing conclusion they are bing worked on in conjunction and just not being put on this disk Ubisoft stlye.

In short; Activision is taking us rougly from behind but they may well pay for it in the long run.

BoloTheGreat

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

[QUOTE="BoloTheGreat"] I think the music game market is a kind of Canary in the coal mine, somone in this thread commented on their being a crash anyway, well i disagree with that. It is the DIRECT result of Activision Flooding the market, Driving Harmonix Away (thus by accident creating the true sequel to GH) and making expensive spin offs (DJ;H). They have turned what could have been a very long lasting franchise into a shoter term fad. This has happened since 2006.

on a side note AciticEdge what came out a year later? hmmm... Somthing that can't possibly be a fad, you know has had a lot of sales on a weak 3rd party software base and fickle audience? what is it, ive gone blank :P

BoloTheGreat

I don't know. The wii came out in 06 as well so it can't be a system.

I know, I just saw the error and said "go for it" lol

I am really not interested in MW2, the past CoD game went for a military feel and the fact that they 'felt' like war was big attraction of them. From the looks of MW2 it seems like they are going for a James Bond approach with the jet ski races and the other high-tech stuff.

I am really not interested in MW2, the past CoD game went for a military feel and the fact that they 'felt' like war was big attraction of them. From the looks of MW2 it seems like they are going for a James Bond approach with the jet ski races and the other high-tech stuff.

Nikalai_88

Even before this flurry of ____Hero games anylists had aldready been commenting on the over saturation in the music game market, now that activision has announced 3 new games (Van Halen, MJ and DJ Hero [urrgg..]) all of them at the £40 price point and above with DJ hero coming in at a heafty £108. This means we will have had by my last count at least over 10 (please feel free to correct me with exact number, it's hard to count) ___Hero games in the space of 4 years. Thats more than one every six months. Infact it's 12 actording to wikipedia although im not sure if that includes MJ and pearl jam.

All this adds up to one big fact; they are going to cause the series to collapse and burn out. There is only so many ____Hero games people are willing to buy before they get confused as to what is a good quality itteration. people will get so tired of seeing a new GH game every few months that they will just stick to what they know; their previous version.

Quite honestly I don't see the market for a £108 DJ hero, that's more than the Wii fit! And i don't see them being able to keep the GH brnad reputable for much longer, the game could have tured into a staple of gaming with a good quality GH game with new features and innovations coming everyc ouple of years, instead the real innovation moved out (Harmonix) and the re-hash bregade has moved in with glee. This will shorten the life and stunt the sales of the GH line and may well end in a 1983 stlye collpase of the music game market.

There is only so much **** you can shovel down someones throat before they throw it back up all over you and Activision will learn this the hard way; Hell they even attempted to make Tim Schafer TIM SCHAFER make a GH game and then sued hikm when he didn't.

Call of Duty is also losing all meaning of it's original name, I get that you can bring sports games out yearly with changing rosters and what not but big budget FPS games can't work that way sustainably. WaW was a total conversion mod, im sorry but it was just stupid in the way it was a re-skinned CoD4. This aprouch to FPS is tiring to many sections of your audience and wil again lead to decreased quality and consumer confusion. You can only ride the hype train for so long before you break it, or as yhatzee put it "sometimes you screw the pooch so hard it has to be locked in the bathrrom with a tube of soothing cream"

This is what activision will do, They have tuned CoD into "Activision's FPS money spinning Gimp". I have expeicence with companies meddling in peoples ****. EA did it for years, most notably killing off WestWood (i will NEVER forgive them for that) and turing it into its generic TRS making division, haing all the talent leave, with CnC generals having as much resemblence to the original as a pink cactus. No Kane? NO GAME!

Pricing is also an issue, £55?! £55?!!!?!!! Are you ****ing kidding me! I could get the top 4 selling blu-ray's for less than that (one of them being the Band of brother box set)! i know they think they can milk us but honestly you just start eating into you sales with a YEARLY game at £55. Do you expect people to drop that EVERY year? Also PC pricing has gone sky high, with $60 for the PC version in the US. We shall see how this panns out but i think they will get laughed out of the bulding buy PC gamers since anyone with an internet connection can get it free of charge.

This is also present in their stratergy towards DLC, they have alreaft annoced new map packs for MW2 leading to the depressing conclusion they are bing worked on in conjunction and just not being put on this disk Ubisoft stlye.

In short; Activision is taking us rougly from behind but they may well pay for it in the long run.

Now, now everyone, no need to be so hostile towards Activision there are better ways to solve this. I mean if a large sum of people did boycott their crap then we can just hurt them financially indirectly.

I think Activision knows its going to collapse like most game series. They're probably thinking lets get as much as we can out of it before it happens. Even though thats speeding it up its like you said, they're a very short sighted company.

One guitar hero game was enough for me, also hope they bomb but with mw and blizz fanatics it's not going to happen :(

I never played the original COD but I'd rank the others like this:

COD2

COD4

COD: WAW= COD3

while COD2 lacks a lot of features and the graphics of later games in it's time it was legendary.

COD3 felt like a rip-off of COD2. COD4 was EXCELLENT but failed to capture the magic of COD2.

WAW is a good game overshadowed by unbalanced multiplayer. its a smg-fest.

[QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Very good read. I agree with a lot of that but this Holiday will be the deciding factor of whether they are off their rocker or genuiss with cruddy PR. I hope its the former so they get the picture.

BoloTheGreat

Good read and i agree they are completely oversaturating the misic genre and i can all of the games flopping in sales. I also agree hey need tio cool it with the Cod and give IW time to getn their creative juices flowing so its not repeat after repeat.

[QUOTE="BoloTheGreat"][QUOTE="ActicEdge"]

Very good read. I agree with a lot of that but this Holiday will be the deciding factor of whether they are off their rocker or genuiss with cruddy PR. I hope its the former so they get the picture.

Makari

If people don't want it, they don't have to buy it. The Call of Duty series has always been good so what's to complain about? Guitar Hero is like karaoke and relies on new songs to keep the gameplay fresh. Of course they'll keep releasing new tracks. Playing fake toy instruments is a waste of life anyway, so here's hoping people will realize this and GH and Rock Band will just die off.

People act like it's forced down their throats. Apparently it's cool to hate what's popular. Counter-culture ftw.

Hell if Activision are ever getting my money ever again. They can go screw themselves. Even knowing all the stupid simpleton casual gamers will be milked by them. Hope all the smart gamers avoid this company like the plague.