Guitar Hero Has Died

I saw on the news last night where Activision was discontinuing its Guitar Hero line of music video games. I must say that I am disappointed by this news. As I've mentioned before, I think the Guitar Hero games are quite genius. I can't think of a gaming series that has involved non-gamers quite like the Guitar Hero and subsequent Rock Band games. This past new year's was a perfect example of the power of these games to get a whole room full of people involved in a game. Even my dad has picked up a Guitar Hero guitar and rocked. I have the pictures to prove it.

In the end it might have been the mass appeal that killed off this series. I really think that Activision made each subsequent game to appeal to the average person by including more pop type music, party modes, etc. Unfortunately, the average person isn't who buys video games. Gamers buy games, and gamers make up a small percentage of the general population. I know I found the older Guitar Hero games to be better than the newer ones (GHIII was the best in my opinion).

This is just all a matter of my opinion. I really don't know what was driving down sales. It could be the expensive hardware or the fact that it is a pain in the butt to store or set-up. All I know is that this news saddens me a bit. Sarah and I made a small collection of friends in Erie who we hung out with a lot and I think the friendships took off around Guitar Hero. This is an example of how powerful this game is in terms of getting people to hang out and interact together. It's also an example of how big of a dork I am.