7 Video Game Developers KILLED After Corporate Takeovers

If you went into a gamer’s living room in the late 2000s, chances are you would’ve found several plastic instruments belonging to the Guitar Hero franchise lying around the place. Though its core mechanic was lifted from a Konami arcade title called GuitarFreaks, the combined efforts of RedOctane and Harmonix created an addictive and sociable phenomenon that seemingly everybody wanted to get in on.

RedOctane were quickly purchased by Activision and turned into one of their many subsidiaries in the wake of the first Guitar Hero’s success. A split with Harmonix then followed the release of Guitar Hero II, with the Boston-based studio opting to use their development expertise to create a rival product, Rock Band, which jostled with subsequent Guitar Hero games for market supremacy

As the oversaturation of the market increased through the likes of Band Hero, DJ Hero and Guitar Hero titles for individual bands, the level of interest from gamers seemed to die down. Activision had seemingly less and less use for a middleman. Having engaged Redoctane to engage Neversoft to take over Harmonix’s role for Guitar Hero III onwards, Activision subsequently gave them nothing else to work on, eventually dissolving the studio less than four years after they paid $100 million for it.

Unlike many studios that dissolve, there was no successor that rose from RedOctane’s ashes, with most of their workforce absorbed into other elements of Activision. Their impact on gaming history is hugely understated.