In a financial statement released Wednesday, Activision Publishing announced that it will discontinue development on its popular Guitar Hero game and completely disband the business unit devoted to the game. The statement cited “continued declines in the music genre” as the reasoning behind the decision, despite high ratings for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and a handful of competing titles, such as Rock Band 3. The costs for manufacturing and licensing associated with producing games like this were hard to manage in the present economy, and to continue would no longer be profitable.

I know you’re just heartbroken over the news, since you were having so much fun with it. A shame to see it go.

Also on the chopping block is United Front’s True Crime: Hong Kong. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg stated that the game’s development “wasn’t going to lead to a title at or near the top of the competitive open-world genre.” Basically, it wasn’t going to be good enough for them to continue throwing money at.

I guess the company now intends to devote more of its resources to marketing its power houses, World of Warcraft and Starcraft II.

In related news, Freestyle Games, the developer of DJ Hero, has reportedly suffered “severe layoffs.” Talk about feeling the crunch. With stories like these cropping up, it’s a little hard not to feel pessimistic about the future of video games in the present economic climate.

Image: Guitar Hero screencap, via Wikimedia Commons

Tags: Guitar Hero, Activision Publishing, Activision Games, Blizzard, Activision Publishing discontinues Guitar Hero, goodbye Guitar Hero, RIP Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero discontinued, True Crime: Hong Kong, True Crime canceled, Eric Hirshberg, Freestyle Games, Freestyle Games suffer layoffs, unusual events, video games, gaming

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