Activision shuts down RedOctane, Underground Development

that had great controllers
a moment of silence please...

This is unfortunate news.

But perhaps we can all take solace in the fact that there will be less GH this year.

I think everyone would prefer one maybe two new GH's this year instead of 5..

so basically they popularized the music gaming genre, then got their ass kicked out the door? WTF activision?
also i loved dave mirra on ps2

So they essentially bought their creation, whored it out and milked it as much as they possibly could, then fired 'em.

Yep.

If they are fired, why not Tony Hawk?

Activision buying Red Octane was a pretty huge deal which opened up a lot of opportunities. Them buying the IP owner and peripheral maker as opposed to the content creators and software developers could possibly be both the best and worst thing that happened to music games.

Kind of sucks to see them close, interesting to see the way this is turning out and where it goes from here.

Mercy Killing

God forgave RO's sin of selling their souls to Activision but they could no longer be allowed to live among mortals

I remember using them for game rentals when they had all of those PS1 games. After they sold them all, I went to Gamefly because they were cheaper.

With Viacom laying off Harmonix teams, and Activision laying off most of Neversoft and all of Red Octane, this does not look good for rhythm games.

Going to redoctane.com just redirects you to guitarherostore.com now with all of Red Octane scrubbed out with the exception of a picture of the DDR mats with the logo in the middle.

Activision executives finally see the writing on the wall that they played a massive part in super-saturating the market*, but at the expense of laying off large groups of people while still bragging about profits. (*EA is also guilty of this, my Walmart is stuffed with $10 RB drum kits.)

As for Tony Hawk, they likely sunk too much money into the hardware to just let it be and rather try again. Though the likelihood of it failing again and Robomodo getting axed is sadly a likely possibility.

Red Octane took a big, big chance bringing rhythm games to the US market, which was considered nuts at the time. Guitar Hero debuted in Kentia Hall, the back alley of E3 in the day, where all the small companies with weird crap were gathered. That's all Red Octane could afford. But thanks to teaming up with the talented folks at Harmonix, their oddball title was a sleeper hit, and the music craze in the US started rolling. Then Activision saw the money to be made, and the rest is history. It's sad to see Red Octane shut down by the giant that swallowed them, but that's par for the course in this day and age.

Wow...wtf indeed.

Bobby said he was going to take the fun out of game making. He's keeping his word.

The music game market is way over saturated. You've got the guitar games, you've got the band games, you've got the special edition games highlighting specific bands, you've got games featuring DJs and turntables, you've got singing games, you got music games featuring legos. There were too many in the last year, and I think people are starting to get tired of seeing more of the same so often and in so many iterations. It's kind of like when everyone was releasing WWII games.

I'm a little unclear if RedOctane still exists, or they're being relocated and reduced, or being relocated, reduced and no longer considered RedOctane and assimilated into Activision. It would be incredibly stupid on Activision's part to shutter RedOctane in my opinion unless for some reason they consider the music game industry completely dead.

Activision was too big for it's own good. It was bound to happen soon, and coincidentally this news is not that far behind the recent continuing of EA layoffs

I will always remember them for the best DDR pads

People question whether or not there will be another console generation due to the longevity of the current generation.

I question it because I don't know if there will be anyone to develop new games next generation!


Very sad to see this happen to RedOctane.

KOTIIIIIICK!

What staff did RedOctane have that WERE'NT directly involved with instrument development? Um, isn't that all they ever did? And no great loss, while the GHWT guitar was good, pretty much every thing else they made (especially the drums) was crap. Maybe GH sales are down because the charting sucks? Nah, couldn't be that...

My first experience with Red Octane was with their short-lived fight stick. Ordered one, defective. Returned it, got another. Also defective. They sent out a third. Also defective. Sent sticks 2 and 3 back together. They claimed they only received one of them, which was ridiculous since they were sent back in the same box. The next two months were spent emailing their atrocious customer service (most of the emails being something like "Oh hi, it's been two weeks, still haven't heard back from anyone, please advise, thanks.") to try and get my $80 back. I eventually printed everything out and filed a dispute with my credit card company, which was found in my favor.

My first experience with Guitar Hero was 2-3 years later. I saw it on a shelf at Best Buy, picked it up, and said to myself, "Ooh, this looks neat." Then I saw the RO logo and put it right back down again. I eventually bought it, after much research, and had loads of fun. But I wasn't the least bit surprised when the SG broke before I had even made it to expert.

My inner bitter bastard wants to feel some sort of satisfaction at this turn of events, but knowing that a. the weaselly ass-inhalers responsible for my first encounter with RO are likely long-gone (unless of course the Huangs themselves were manning customer service back then, in which case DIAF) and 2. this came about due to Activision's gleeful teat-wrenching of a genre it would happily bury if it meant a better bottom line, the most I can manage is a meh and a hope that things don't get any worse for this sector of the industry.