Activision has shut the doors on Guitar Hero publisher Red Octane today as well as an in-house development studio, Underground Development, a Kotaku report says.
The news arrives in the wake of Activision’s promise to release fewer Guitar Hero titles in 2010 and just weeks after Guitar Hero COO Dan Rosensweig stepped down.
Red Octane, most famous for believing in Harmonix enough to publish the original Guitar Hero, with its plastic guitar peripheral and all, is now gone.
According to Kotaku, about 30-40 have lost their jobs, with the remaining staffers headed to Activision’s Santa Monica offices to work under the fist of the publisher.
Underground Development, the studio responsible for Guitar Hero: Van Halen, got the boot entirely, as Kotaku reports the studio is shut down 100 percent. Gasoline is currently being poured all over the building.
This news is certainly hard to take, as the cynic in me believes if Activision didn’t whore out the franchise as it has in the past years, no one would be out of a job and all studios would remain intact. Ouch.
Source: Kotaku
So, are we not to expect a new Guitar Hero at all?
So, are we not to expect a new Guitar Hero at all?