Activision sues to protect Guitar Hero investment

by Alexander Sliwinski { Feb 10th 2007 at 1:30PM }

Activision is protecting the intellectual property of their $100 million Red Octane acquisition with great fury and righteous fervor befitting a corporation. Activision is suing former Guitar Hero series producer, brand manager, hardware member, Red Octane's PR firm, and, for a second time, peripheral manufacturer The Ant Commandos.

Brendan Sinclair over at Gamespot does a good job laying out the very intricate plot of this future courtroom drama -- although it'll probably all be settled out of court, just like the last round of Activision v. The Ant Commandos. The over-simplified version of it is that some of the major people behind Guitar Hero II left Red Octane and began their own company, teaming up with The Ant Commandos. Of course, this means that these people leave with all the intimate knowledge that made Guitar Hero a success, making Activision's $100 million purchase lose some value. Harmonix was the soul, but Red Octane was the brain of Guitar Hero ... and some major functions of the brain just left for another body. Not just any body either, but the direct competitor.

This situation is almost as strange as Marvel waging superhero wars with Cryptic Studios over City of Heroes and then offering the company the chance to create the Marvel MMO. At the moment, everyone involved in the Activision super-terrific-happy-lawyer-overtime-case is keeping their mouth shut.

Tags: activision, guitar hero, lawsuit, red octane, the ant commandos

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

copa @ Feb 10th 2007 2:18PM

Cool, so now Activision has the IP rights to the Guitar Hero franchise, but no Red Octane and no Harmonix.

GH3 is shaping up to be a real winner!

FSK405K @ Feb 10th 2007 2:18PM

So, they're sueing their competitors who now are working with their former employees? Sounds like they have their copyrights in order but not their employee pay & benefit plans.

DeadPlasmaCell @ Feb 10th 2007 2:36PM

GH3 should be great.. Can't wait to hear what shi*tty EMO bands will make the cut (hah) and you just know they're going to ef it all up by throwing in some Hip-Hop for whatever reason.

Shibathedog @ Feb 14th 2007 10:51PM

Wait i thought Activision was publishing it but Neversoft was making GH3. I didnt see this as that much of a bad thing because Neversoft has previously done a good job with music choice in the tony hawk games (Any by good job with music choice, i mean picking music that fits the genre, the type of people who like skateboarding tend to like that type of music) So I mean i think they have a chance of doing GH3 right.

geekzapoppin @ Feb 10th 2007 5:43PM

The ultimate irony. Activision began as a bunch of rebel game designers who left Atari when they felt they were not being given a fair shake. They were then sued by Atari for making cartridges that worked with the VCS but weren't made by Atari itself. Their win in court ushered in the era of third-party development. Well, that and the great video game crash of 1983, but that wasn't their fault. Back in the day, Activision games were the shiznit.