Ever since its first iteration hit store shelves back in 2005, the Guitar Hero series has helped thousands of nerds fulfill their rock and roll fantasies. The jump from original developer Harmonix to former Tony Hawk design studio Neversoft merely increased the momentum of the crazy train, with Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock becoming the first single game ever to produce over $1 billion in sales (gameinformer.com). The biggest year for the franchise was 2009, with the release of not only Guitar Hero 5, but also Band Hero, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, and spin-off title DJ Hero (gamespot.com). It appeared that the line had reached the peak of popularity.
Such a massive quantity of releases is quite unusual for a single game line in a single year for a reason, however. Few but the most hardcore of rhythm gamers were willing to cough up the $360 necessary for the purchase of all of the 2009 Guitar Hero titles. Instead, the series sold poorly across the board, possibly because of a loss of touch with its main fanbase. Consider: Guitar Hero 3, by far the series’ best-selling title, features the hardest song in rhythm game history: “Through the Fire and Flames,” as well as metal masterpieces “One,” by Metallica, and Eric Johnson’s “Cliffs of Dover.” Band Hero’s biggest contributions: “You Belong With Me” and “Wannabe.” Wannabe, indeed.
After the up-and-down year that was 2009, Guitar Hero publisher Activision decided to reduce the sheer quantity of titles flooding the market, instead opting to release only two music games in 2010: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and DJ Hero 2. Unfortunately, Activision’s track record of bad release scheduling held true, and the two games were unleashed on the market on September 28 and October 19, respectively. Neither sold particularly well, with Warriors of Rock becoming the worst sales performer in series history, selling only 86,000 units in its first week, compared to 500,000 units for Guitar Hero 5 and 1.5 million units for Guitar Hero 3. After minimal earnings from the series through the holidays, Activision decided to cancel the 2011 entry in the series, thus effectively terminating the brand.
Based on the above sales numbers, it might be inferred that genre fatigue was to blame for Guitar Hero’s decline, and with 12 titles already in the marketplace, that unquestionably had something to do with it. But genre decline cannot explain the success of rhythm gaming’s other 800-pound gorilla: Rock Band. Developed by original Guitar Hero founders Harmonix, the first game to feature full-band support is still trucking along, with its third major release, that of Rock Band 3 in October, managing to sell over 200,000 copies in its first week (vgchartz.com).
In response to the breakup of Guitar Hero, Harmonix designer John Drake did not waste his opportunity to stump for Rock Band, saying, “We…will do our best to serve all loyal band game fans” (usatoday.com). While substantially better than the last Guitar Hero’s, though, Harmonix’s sales numbers still pale in comparison to those of the original Rock Band and Rock Band 2.