Guitar Hero Gone: What Went Wrong?

by Chris Taylor

The premiere plastic guitar game just flamed out. Activision, beset by falling sales, has decided to shutter the division that created Guitar Hero and its sequels.
It’s an ignominious exit for a title that was once touted as the first great game franchise of the 21st century. Guitar Hero was created in 2005 by indie studio RedOctane, in collaboration with Harmonix, which had previously found success with the Karaoke Revolution franchise. Karaoke Revolution, where players plugged microphones into their consoles and were scored on the accuracy of their singing, was the first game to show a significant number of videogamers were interested in making “music.” RedOctane’s Guitar Hero proved they were equally interested in shredding a plastic guitar. Activision purchased the franchise in 2006 for $100 million; to date it has shipped more than 25 million units for a roughly $2 billion ROI. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock made $1 billion on its own. Harmonix went on to publish the highly successful Rock Band franchise, which added drums, microphones and keyboards to the plastic guitar mix.
How the mighty have fallen. The holiday season was a disastrous one for the music game genre. First Harmonix was sold by Viacom to a consortium of shareholders; the terms were undisclosed, but it was reported to be a fire sale. MTV Games, which collaborated with Harmonix on Rock Band, was shut down. Guitar Heroes: Warriors of Rock, the sixth title in the series, received lackluster reviews and even more lackluster sales. Activision posted a $233 million net loss for the fourth quarter. Its decision to lay off the 500-person Guitar Hero division was, Activision said in a press release today, “due to continued declines in the music genre.”
So what stopped the music? The first culprit: oversaturation. There are just too many games competing in the genre (Band Hero and DJ Hero, anyone?), with too many pricey controllers. A Warriors of Rock guitar bundle will set you back $80. Considering many of the controllers do not play nice with similar games, that’s a lot of dough to drop on pretend jamming.
Secondly, there’s the novelty factor. The dynamics of the game changed little from one title to the next, despite the introduction of innovations such as a touch-sensitive slide bar on later guitar controllers. At a certain stage, users are going to be more interested in picking up a real guitar. The series also felt like it was running out of great rock anthems for users to emulate. Reviews of Warriors of Rock complained that the set list seemed dull and full of synth-heavy tunes.
Finally, of course, Activision isn’t going to stop actually selling Guitar Hero titles any time soon. If you’re interested in becoming a maestro of the pretend Gibson, you can still pick up the Guitar Hero back catalog and buy extra songs online. Guitar Hero and Rock Band may one day be seen as a classic party game, pulled out of the closet at holidays and special gatherings, the way we play Monopoly or Scrabble today. Maybe it’s time you introduced Grandma to the plastic guitar.

Video will dominate mobile data traffic by 2015, forecast says

By Amy Gahran, CNN

(CNN) -- According to a new Cisco forecast, in just four years two-thirds of the world's mobile data traffic will be video.


How will wireless carriers keep up with this demand? The major providers are pinning their hopes on 4G wireless networks, which they say will be able to handle greater data loads.Will consumers end up paying much more for mobile video? Probably.


Smartphones, laptops, and tablets are expected to drive nearly 90% of mobile traffic by 2015. In particular, "mobile-connected tablets will generate more traffic in 2015 than the entire global mobile network in 2010."


Another factor that will contribute to this growth, which Cisco overlooked: More and more feature phones (non-smartphones) will be operating on faster wireless networks. The new LTE network from MetroPCS is already handling traffic from some feature phones, such as the Samsung Craft.

As I wrote earlier, feature phones are getting more sophisticated -- streaming video will be available on many models before long. This is important since feature phones are generally far more affordable (up front and in monthly bills) than smartphones or tablets.


What's driving this growth? Faster mobile access. According to Cisco, the average mobile network connection speed doubled from 2009 to 2010 -- and a tenfold increase is expected by 2015.


Cisco also predicts that within four years there will be a mobile device connected to a wireless network -- not counting Wi-Fi connections -- for nearly every person on the planet."Today, the average mobile connection generates 65 megabytes of traffic per month -- which is equivalent to about 15 MP3 music files," the forecast says. "By 2015, the average mobile connection is anticipated to generate more than 17 times that amount, to a total 1,118 megabytes of traffic per month -- equal to about 260 MP3 music files."


Doug Webster, Cisco's senior director of worldwide service-provider marketing, told Fierce Wireless, "The lines between fixed and mobile will converge, and the trends we're seeing on the fixed will be seen on mobile."


In the U.S., however, there will probably be one key difference between fixed and mobile internet access: consumer protections and costs.The FCC's new "net neutrality" rules, passed in December, exempt wireless carriers from most requirements. This leaves the door open for U.S. wireless carriers to charge customers extra for access to certain kinds of content and services, such as YouTube, which are available for free over fixed connections.


Furthermore, as VentureBeat explains, the new rules mean that "wireless companies are free to stop some smartphone users from taking advantage of their data plans by throttling download and upload speeds."This could be a key concern for consumers as wireless network congestion mounts in the coming years.


Already, two U.S. carriers (Metro PCS and Verizon) are suing the FCC over the requirements the new rules impose on them. This week, the FCC filed motions to dismiss these lawsuits.

Digital Trends observes, "Humorously, it was Verizon and Google's net neutrality proposal that appears to have formed the basis for the recently passed FCC regulation."According to Cisco, in 2010, total mobile data traffic, including video, grew by 159% -- more than three times faster than internet traffic traveling over wired ("fixed") communications. Earlier, Cisco predicted that growth would be 149%, so this trend is moving faster than expected.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 'still has problems' online

By Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat technology reporter

Call of Duty: Black Ops was the biggest video game of last year.

It broke records on launch day in November 2010 and made £400 million in its first week on sale.

However, nearly three months later hundreds of gamers have told Newsbeat it's still suffering from glitches.

That's despite the game's publisher Activision having released several updates, or patches, designed to fix the problems that were reported in December.

Mike Hadgkiss from Aylesbury is a big fan of the Call of Duty franchise and plays on the PS3.

"I've been thrown out of games, had games freeze on me, not been able to connect to buddies online, and those sorts of things really.

"It's just been incredibly frustrating. It's not acceptable is it?

"People spend their hard earned cash on a game and they expect it to work from the very first day, but this one clearly doesn't."

PS3 'worse affected'

The problems affecting Black Ops seem to have affected PC, PS3 and Xbox users.

According to the hundreds of gamers who got in touch with Newsbeat, PS3 has been worst affected by a clear majority of about three to one.

There's been no comment from Sony for the PS3, or Microsoft for the Xbox 360.

However, Activision, as well as the game's developers, Treyarch, have released a statement.

It read: "Activision and Treyarch are committed to providing the best gaming experience for our Black Ops players.

"To that end, we've worked closely with our community through official forums and social media to solicit feedback and actively engage them, which we factor into every update and will continue to do so."

'Not acceptable'

But Mike's not impressed.

"No game is going to be without its faults," he says. "But the amount of faults that this game had since the day of release really isn't acceptable."

"I don't understand how a company like that [Activision] can release a game that's faulty from the first day."

It is difficult to get a real sense of the scale of the problem.

Hundreds of gamers got in touch about problems, but Black Ops is regularly played by millions of people around the world.

While those suffering from problems might be a relatively tiny minority, it is a significant number.

Even worse for the company is that Gamers' Voice, a group representing video game fans in the UK, has written to the Office of Fair Trading complaining about the PC and PS3 versions of the game.

Chris O'Reegan, from the organisation, said: "The overriding feeling that we're getting from people is immense dissatisfaction and anger.

"The multiplayer version of the game, which is a key selling point, doesn't function as intended."

As for Mike, he says he rarely plays Black Ops now and has moved onto other games.

"When it first came out I was on it every night.

"But now I haven't really touched it over the last few months, only bits here and there to see if the game has been fixed.

"In my view is hasn't."

How video games can make you smarter

By Scott Steinberg, Special to CNN

(CNN) -- Critics often accuse video games of making players lazy, inept and socially awkward. Contrary to popular belief, though, many build, not burn brain cells by requiring extensive problem solving, teamwork and dynamic decision-making skills.


Also capable of building players' confidence and helping them see the world from multiple viewpoints, games can be powerful learning tools.


At minimum, they readily encourage fans to fall on their face then pick themselves up and try again, promoting hands-on learning without the fear of ridicule or embarrassment.


Following are four ways that video games can actually help make you smarter. The next time some cretin demands you drop the controller, consider citing all as you strike a wounded pose and educate the poor Neanderthal.


Hands-on experience
More interactive and absorbing than passive forms of entertainment like movies and TV, video games promote higher levels of engagement because observers are actively and enthusiastically involved with on-screen activity.


It's a point author James Paul Gee emphasizes in "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy," which argues that digital diversions promote more substantive learning. As he once told UK newspaper The Guardian, "good video games ... are complex designed systems that players have to learn to engage with reflectively and strategically." Many children can pass biology and physics tests, he points out, but few can apply that knowledge to solve real-world problems.


Job training
Businesses and universities are increasingly turning to interactive simulations and virtual worlds as training tools to educate employees.


From Cisco to NASA, the U.S. Army to IBM, numerous corporations, government organizations and colleges have all employed interactive learning solutions.


Consider Loyalist College in Ontario, which offered students a simulation of U.S./Canada border crossings where they played the role of guards, and actually saw the rate of successful test scores jump from 56% to 95%. Or the Hilton Garden Inn, which built a custom 3-D hospitality training game for the PlayStation Portable, reasoning that it's more informative and reasonable for staffers to experiment by interacting with virtual customers.


Contextual learning
Video games may soon save lives as well.According to Dr. Jeffrey Taekman, the director of Duke University's Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center, "serious games and virtual environments are the future of education."


Besides offering medical students the ability to practice on patients (which is much safer in the digital world), simulations offer health care providers several upsides. Chief among them, he says, are the abilities to make choices, see results and apply information immediately.


Beyond allowing for greater scalability and group collaboration than traditional classrooms, every decision made in a virtual world, he continues, can be tracked and benchmarked against best practices, then standardized or archived for others' review. "The traditional textbook will soon become passé," he suggests. "Gaming platforms will offer an interactive way for students to learn and apply information in context."


Teamwork and collaboration
Massively multiplayer games such as "World of Warcraft," "EVE Online" and "City of Heroes" may seem like idle fantasy and sci-fi escapes.


But many require active teamwork and high-level project management to do well. Collaborative elements often take the form of loose alliances disguised as in-game guilds, factions or virtual corporations where players join forces to complete objectives such as seizing territory or battling otherwise unstoppable opponents.


As Georgia Tech professor and Persuasive Games founder Ian Bogost explains, these titles frequently require advanced mastery of resource allocation and practical leadership techniques.


Requiring direct management and informed decision-making at multiple levels, group heads quickly learn to delegate responsibility, direct personnel and steer allies toward a common goal. Actively promoting teamwork between seemingly disparate individuals located states or entire countries apart, he says, all ironically offer preparation for a job in today's increasingly virtual workforce.


So, beware. Your superhero-obsessed buddy or Harry Potter-loving child may be tomorrow's next genius inventor or corporate mogul in disguise.