One the greatest challenges in our modern world is to become the master of whatever hill you happen to be climbing at the time. Of once you have accomplished this great feat you face a much bigger problem, suddenly becoming the bad guy.

 A few years ago Electronic Arts were the biggest publisher in the business. As a result everything they did angered somebody, somewhere. There was talk of boycotts (except for Spore of course, because boycotting a title you would actually play is just silly), people wrote to the NFL to complain about the exclusivity deal (remember that?). In short they were despised by gamers.

But then something changed, first Harmonix, the creator of the popular title, Guitar Hero jumped ship and released Rock Band, a title which became very popular despite containing many of the things that gamers supposedly hate (microtransactions, exclusive, lack of innovation). Secondly they lost their number one position to Activision.

This of course has meant that all of the rage that was directed at EA is now firmly pointed over at Activision. This is to be expected but I think that there have been two recent events that show that this whole thing has gone a bit too far.   They are the recent trouble at Infinity Ward and the myth that Activision’s handling of the Guitar Hero has destroyed the rhythm game market.

The “incident” over at Infinity Ward was a dream for all commentators everywhere. With the whole picture very cloudy it was easy to portray the story as “two plucky guys get backstabbed” and paint a picture of a corporation doing great evil. This seems a bit harsh to me as what little facts we know show there is a lot more to it than that.

There has been so much misinformation on this situation flying around so it is difficult to get a clear picture but it seems they were dismissed for breaches of contract and insubordination. At this stage it is difficult to say what exactly those breaches were but what we do comments from both camps point to at least one set of secret talks with another publisher and the fact that both guys have been very critical of the top brass working at their parent company (even going so far as calling Activision employees incompetent). These charges have not been denied by the two ex employees, they instead have decided to play up the fact that they are being picked on and “exploited”. Regardless I guess all of the facts will come out in late June when this thing goes to court.

 It is worth mentioning that these two people have a history of leaving a company as soon as things stop going their way, indeed they did it with Electronic Arts which is how they ended up working with Activision in the first place. After reading the various legal documents flying back and forth it seems that they were caught trying to do exactly that behind Activision’s back and paid the price. At this point I can’t see what Activision has done wrong in this whole thing. That kind of thing is serious enough to cause a person to leave no matter what job you do in any industry. What were they supposed to do? Turn a blind eye?

At this point I must draw a comparison to another company which found itself in a similar situation. Bungie was bored of working on their big franchise, Halo and wanted to move on. However unlike these two guys they sat down and chatted to their parent company and made a deal. This lead to Bungie making one more Halo title and then going off to do whatever it is that they want to do. This highlights what can happen when two disagreeing companies take the professional approach which has worked out well for both parties. Instead the guys over at Infinity Ward started grumbling to the press when they wanted out and did some things to try and get what they wanted. A tactic that clearly did not go according to plan.    

 My point is that when all of the facts are known (if they ever are) then I am sure that there will be plenty of blame to throw around and I doubt either side will exactly come out of this with any dignity. Clearly Activision handling of this whole thing has been less than stellar but to assign them all of the blame in a knee jerk fashion simply because they are a large corporation is a tad unfair.

The whole running a franchise into the ground thing is a particular bugbear of mine. It is particularly a business model for some publishers for one thing. But this whole Guitar Hero thing is another area where it becomes easier to simply blame one thing and be done with it. First of all I agree that the whole rhythm game genre has become worn out and a little stale. This is largely due to the fact that over the past three years twenty titles have been released across various formats. This has lead to a lot of criticism thrown at Activision because they have apparently run the whole into the ground. Again this is at best a lazy observation to make and at worst totally wrong.

 Here is a list of Guitar Hero titles that have come out in the last three years.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock       
Guitar Hero World Tour          
Guitar Hero 5  
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith           
Guitar Hero: Metallica             
Guitar Hero Smash Hits           
Guitar Hero: Van Halen           
Guitar Hero: On Tour 
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades            
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits 
Band Hero   

That is a lot and there is no doubt that this has had a negative effect on the market, however here is a list of what the competing franchise, Rock Band released in the same time period

Rock Band       
Rock Band 2    
The Beatles: Rock Band          
Green Day: Rock Band           
Lego Rock Band          
Rock Band Unplugged            
Rock Band     
Rock Band (iPhone)

Yep they released a whopping three less titles than Guitar Hero, a gap they will close by the end of the year once Rock Band 3 gets released and if the anticipated Jimi Hendrix Rock Band sees the light of day.

The point is that both franchises are at fault for this saturation, but it seems that only Activision is getting any heat for it. At least Guitar Hero 5 had some cool innovations such as being able to join a song mid way through. Activision have also come out and admitted that things have gone too far and scaled back their plans for 2010 onwards. Something that cannot be said of Harmonix who have been working talking to bands such as Pearl Jam, Queen and U2 among others to release further titles.

No one is saying that Activision is completely blameless in all things. In fact I am sure that have done some disagreeable things in the past (their handling of Brutal Legend comes to mind). But bear in mind that they are a company simply trying to do what they are supposed to do, make money. Simply because they are the biggest games company out there (for now) does not mean that they are to blame for everything that happens.