Guitar Hero franchise is finished

Gamers, take your time to mourn, as it is a sad day in video game history. Prep up on those air guitar skills because that is all of what you will be getting soon enough.

On Wednesday, the video game producers, Activision, have announced that the Guitar Hero franchise is to be discontinued. Instead of producing more Guitar Hero games, the makers will concentrate on producing the Call Of Duty franchise. Mainly due to the large success and surge of Rock Band, Guitar Hero has experienced severe drops in sales and continuing poor results compared to the Rock Band franchise.

In a statement released by the CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick: “Blizzard significantly evolved its direct digital distribution capabilities with the launch of its new Battle.net® service and saw players embrace its service offerings in record numbers,” Kotick continued. “Notably, since Call of Duty: Black Ops was launched in November players have spent an average of 52 minutes per day playing online, roughly equivalent to the 55 minutes that the average user spends each day on Facebook. As of February 2, 2011, more than 27 million gamers have played Call of Duty games online, logging more than 2 billion hours, or the equivalent of more than 229,000 years of gameplay.” Kotick concludes, “Online gaming continues to broaden its appeal. Our shareholders continue to be well positioned to benefit from these trends and the focus of our incredibly talented employees around the world continues to allow us to lead our industry. We expect to continue to drive long-term growth, increase our return on invested capital and generate strong cash flow as we have over the last few years. Our strong balance sheet affords us the financial flexibility to invest in games that few companies have the ability to create and allows us to provide our shareholders with value through dividends and share repurchases.”

Guitar Hero has launched six versions and a few band focused versions of the game since its debut in 2005. The company also rumors it may also discontinue the ever popular DJ Hero franchise which has produced two games since its debut in 2009. Hop on board the Rock Band bandwagon, and let "I Love Rock and Roll" remain a fond memory in our hearts.

 R.I.P. Guitar Hero (2005-2011)