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Games Entertainment

Activision Blizzard Announces Guitar Hero 5, New Call of Duty 85

Posted by Soulskill from the axes-and-guns dept.
MTV's Multiplayer Blog reports on recent announcements from Activision Blizzard which confirm that sequels to several popular franchises are on the way. The games include a new Guitar Hero, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and a new Tony Hawk, which will use some kind of non-standard controller. "At the meeting, Activision Blizzard showcased new games that would make sense for in-game ads, including the vaguely titled "Guitar Hero 5," which included a screen shot of gameplay with a Burger King ad to the right of the note highway."
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Activision Blizzard Announces Guitar Hero 5, New Call of Duty More

Activision Blizzard Announces Guitar Hero 5, New Call of Duty

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  • I realise they've merged but isn't it diluting the brand by associating stuff that is largely, out of their hands? Still, I guess the lure of cashing in on Blizzard's good name was too much.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sunami ( 751539 )

      That's the first thing I noticed from this headline, while Blizzard is in the name and mentioned several times in the story, they have nothing to do with the development of the mentioned games...

      Curiously, the lineup included absolutely no Blizzard Entertainment games.

      I hope Blizzard will be able to keep themselves above all the stuff they have no control over, as their name along with Valve are the only two games studios that I feel deserve all the praise in the world. If Blizzard becomes synonymous with

      • I held Blizz up as the best of game development until WOW. There is so much frustrating and annoying about that game, and they just don't give a shit, and they're too scared to do anything major lest it upset the customer base too much. Their huge success is also their biggest failing.

        Then they said "Starcraft 2 will see 3 different games, but we're not milking you, honest!" Like they won't include multiplayer content exclusive to each one to leverage the additional releases. Anyone who thinks Blizz are doi

        • Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Haeleth ( 414428 ) on Sunday December 07, 2008 @06:04AM (#26019045) Journal

          As far as I'm concerned, having advertising rammed down your throats in a game that retails for $60 is adequate grounds for piracy.

          No, it's adequate grounds for not playing that game.

          If the games have ads in, they will know how many people play them. If lots of people play them, they will make more games with ads in. If fewer people play them, they will abandon the idea.

          After all they're still going to make money off of you.

          That's all the more reason not to play the games! If they make money out of pirates, then an ad-infested game might end up being more profitable than one that respects its players. Then everyone would start putting ads in their games. Is that really the outcome you want?

          • The number 1 reason not to play CoDX (everything after CoD4) is because all you are getting is a mocked up recycled version of CoD4. CoDWW is a giant piece of shit, like CoD4 turned out to be. Since I'm not all that old, this isnt a get off my lawn type of rant, but for the love of cheeseburgers, wtf is up with non stop explosions just killing everything all game long... its like watching a Pink Floyd video, but instead of random colors, its just random explosions.

            The appeal of the old CoD games was that yo

            • You and I are playing a very different version of the same game. I play in a couple of realism leagues in both CoD4 and CoD:WaW, and believe me, teamwork is critical. We use the open warfare mod http://www.openwarfaremod.com/ [openwarfaremod.com] to make the game far more realistic, and remove the hardpoints and perks that make the game cartoonish and silly. You can also check out our realism league: http://www.realism1.com/ [realism1.com] for our rules and gameplay. Basically if you can't do it real life, wearing an 80lb pack on your bac

        • Excuses - a rant (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Joe Jay Bee ( 1151309 ) <jbsouthsea AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday December 07, 2008 @06:56AM (#26019299)

          As far as I'm concerned, having advertising rammed down your throats in a game that retails for $60 is adequate grounds for piracy. After all they're still going to make money off of you.

          You know, I swear half of Slashdot keeps its fingers crossed for someone to do something objectionable with something they'd like to buy, just so they've got an "excuse" to pirate it. Every time someone does something that goes against the Slashdot groupthink - DRM, advertising, supporting the RIAA, saying they don't want people warezing their stuff, reporting statistics saying whatever they make has a high piracy rate - there's always a load of people who come out with "Well I guess that means I have to pirate it."

          It's like a little kid faced with a huge cake, which he really, really wants, then he sees it has an expiration date of today. And he sees the date and sorta says, out loud, so nobody is in any doubt as to that he really doesn't want to, "Oh well, I guess I'll just HAVE to eat this delicious cake all by myself, because the cake-maker's actions have FORCED ME TO." Of course, we all know what the kid's original intention was, and the expiration date was just as convenient an excuse as possible. Same with this.

          Examples:
          "Ads? In my game?! NO THANKS! I'll pirate instead!"
          "SecuROM? Really? I guess The Pirate Bay will be getting MY business!"
          "Guitar Hero Eleventybillion doesn't have CCR's Fortunate Son? Warez time!"
          "They're not releasing for Linux?! To Mininova?"
          "They won't produce downloads in the obscure format and insanely high bitrate which I demand?! Well, I'll just download the MP3 instead! They should listen to their customers, i.e. me."
          "RIAA doesn't care about quality! So I'm gonna download this album because it's probably going to be crap anyway." (Real argument - my response is that if you know it's shitty, why are you downloading it?!)

          Urgh. You fool nobody. While I don't like piracy in general, I have more of a respect for people who come right out and say they just want the Hot New Shinies for free, rather than trying to look like Gandhi with some shitty little protest - a protest which conveniently allows them to get Hot New Shinies for free.

          Rant over.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Dobeln ( 853794 )

            +10 Insightful

          • It's like a little kid faced with a huge cake ...

            I call bullshit. We all know it's more like a car.
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • I want Hot New Shinies for free.

            But HNSes are typically Hotter, Newer and Shinier if the people who make them get paid to make them. So someone has to pay if I get my need for Hot New Shiny satisfied.

            For software, Google pays Firefox. Support contracts with Red Hat pays for my kernel. For brevity, I omit the rest ;)

            For music, someone pays more for the concert tickets (or I do, if I find the time for concerts again). I get to download the promo material (i.e. the songs) for free. Or: I pay for my user a

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by VendingMenace ( 613279 )

            A very good post. I especially like your comparison at the end to Gandhi -- which raises a very interesting point. How would illegal downloading look more like civil disobedience than just trying to get stuff for free?

            I think the answer lies largely in the actions of Gandhi himself (and that of his movement). In his movement, when laws were disobeyed they were done so out on the open, not all sneaky-like. He did not try to hide is actions or even to defend himself when arrested. Rather, he openly broke

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kneo24 ( 688412 )

          Then they said "Starcraft 2 will see 3 different games, but we're not milking you, honest!" Like they won't include multiplayer content exclusive to each one to leverage the additional releases. Anyone who thinks Blizz are doing gamers a favour by giving us a "trilogy" and won't make it damn near mandatory to buy all 3 is deluding themselves.

          The size of each separate campaign is expected to be as big or bigger than SC1+broodwar. So what do you expect them to do? Give us three games for the price of one? Starcraft actually had a decent story going. If they'd rather not dilute the story by cutting out two thirds of it and cramming it into one disc, all the more power to them. I don't know about you, but I do enjoy my games having a solid story along with good gameplay.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by iainl ( 136759 )

            Indeed. Although I don't remember reading Tolkein claiming "The Lord of the Rings will see 3 different books, but I'm not milking you, honest!" he might as well have done.

        • They're selling 3 single player campaigns. Each one is the length of a full game (30+ missions).

          If you only want to play multiplayer, you only have to buy one of them to receive all of the multiplayer content.

          I don't see a problem here. If anything, they're being gracious by NOT including unique multiplayer content in each one. If they had, it would practically be a requirement for a complete multiplayer experience.

          In other words, they're only charging you for the first $50, for which you receive a compl

        • /looks around /sniffs Hmm. /goes back to leveling his Warlock

      • Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Haeleth ( 414428 ) on Sunday December 07, 2008 @06:00AM (#26019027) Journal

        If Blizzard becomes synonymous with a chain-shitty-sequel-churner I'll be annoyed to sad.

        Yes, how would the world survive if the team behind such original franchises as Warcraft II, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, Diablo II, and the upcoming Diablo III and Starcraft 2.1, Starcraft 2.2 and Starcraft 2.3 was ever reduced to chain-sequel-churning?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ink ( 4325 ) *

          You forgot Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, Starcraft: Brood War, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, WoW: The Burning Crusade, and WoW: The Wrath of the Lich King.

        • I'm guessing you meant 'company', not 'team'. The people that created the Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft titles have all long since departed Blizzard.
      • Are you saying they might become the next Capcom?

    • What? YOu mean like, Square Enix?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jZnat ( 793348 ) *

        Square Enix is just unoriginal when it comes to naming games. Each Final Fantasy game, for example, is an entirely different story with different characters and often different gameplay mechanics.

  • Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Sunday December 07, 2008 @03:49AM (#26018567)

    Awesome! Not only do I get crappy, mediocre sequels to successful franchises but I also get Burger King Ads!? Fuck! America is awesome!

  • He will always be remembered...but only for a couple of minutes at a time...

  • What? The Blizzard that made Diablo, WarCraft, WarCraft II and StarCraft? Is it related to Guitar Hero and Call of Duty now? Nooo, how can this be, what did I miss? Where is the small company that made brilliant games, gone? *sobs*

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by michfreak ( 1413469 )
      Who is driving? Blizzard is driving! How can this be?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Blizzard hasn't existed as an independent company since 1994. They have existed as a subdivision of other companies; being bought out, sold, or merged six times. See wikipedia for the full series of transfers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment . Most recently Vivendi (which they were under) merged with Activision. The name of this new company is Activision Blizzard.

      In short its a naming thing; the small company exists as it always has. The large company (which now happens to have 'Blizzard'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      Activision Blizzard (or as we like to call it here, Blizzactivision, or Tough Actin' Blizzactin) is the company who owns Blizzard, not Blizzard themselves.

      Blizzard was bought out in 1994, and bounced around as their parent companies themselves were bought out or merged. Eventually they ended up owned by Vivendi Games, so they've had seven different owners in total, not including the original self-ownership.

      Anyhow, Activision merged with Vivendi Games. Vivendi's biggest studio was Blizzard, so Activision dec

      • Yeah, but that doesn't matter much. The whole point of naming themselves Activision Blizzard is so they can try to whore out Blizzard's 'good' name. Smart people will know the difference you point out, and every one else who plays WoW will be duped. And that is the idea.

      • Activision Blizzard (or as we like to call it here, Blizzactivision, or Tough Actin' Blizzactin) is the company who owns Blizzard, not Blizzard themselves.

        They should change it to AB, much shorter.
        Then we would have EA, AB, 2K, ID, UB, ...

    • Guitar Hero Craft and Diablo of Duty.

      It'll be like the intersport play in Baseketballs.
  • A logo next to the note highway? How does that make sense at all? Making sense would be putting in-game ads where ads would be in real life. Such as billboards, posters in subway stations, etc.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      they do that already in GHWT.

      • They also did something similar in Guitar Hero III, it wasn't that obvious.

      • Yes, for those wondering, World Tour has one level where you see a bucket of KFC sitting on the table before the song starts. It's very obvious, but it doesn't take up screen space while the song is playing. It's just there during the introduction. It doesn't provide any inconvenience or annoyance (unless you are the type to get annoyed at the mere idea of product placement, even when done unobtrusively).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      I agree, because then I could ignore them just like years of seeing them in real life in such places has tuned me into ignoring them there too.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday December 07, 2008 @07:05AM (#26019335)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Meh. I don't think they would have done that to bioshock. You're more likely to just see the full screen ads during loading screens.

    • Agreed. I love the idea of the in-game advertising/product placement being dynamic and making sense in the environment, and consider the Obama billboard in Burnout to be a great implementation of the idea. Having billboards makes sense in an outdoor driving game, and if you have a console that's internet-connected, why not have them updated with fresh content? I mean, when I play Crazy Taxi on my Dreamcast the passengers still want to go to Tower Records, you know?

      The only thing I'd ask of publishers is

  • New Guitar Hero?
    New Call of Duty?
    New Tony Hawk game?

    SHOCKING, I say...who would have thought they are releasing sequels to their money-generating machines.

    • I read that as "Guitar Hero 5: New Call of Duty", where you were a rock star raising the morale of the Iraq troops. Star power gives them more ammo.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hal2814 ( 725639 )

        Just wait. The new Rock Band will have a USO mode where you can do old Bob Hope stand-up.

  • Activision Blizzard (Score:3, Informative)

    by mqduck ( 232646 ) <mqduck@mqduck3.1415926.net minus pi> on Sunday December 07, 2008 @09:22AM (#26019969)

    I realize they changed their name to capitalize on Blizzard's reputation, but can't we just call them "Activision"?

  • They get the current call of duty to work first? A massive portion of the player population still can't do minor things like adjusting the resolution, or playing at all because of issues with the bink video files. Check the Activision/Treyarch forums. Is it so hard to get something right before they move on to a new product? Sheesh.

  • This shit is depressing (Score:3, Informative)

    by denton420 ( 1235028 ) on Sunday December 07, 2008 @01:53PM (#26022503)

    One my last hopes for the gaming world was blizzard. Now that they have whored out, its down to just Bioware and Bethesda...

    If we are lucky EA will buy them out and siphon all of the edge and creativity right out of them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JediLow ( 831100 ) *
      At this point my hope is just on Stardock.

    • Your attitude makes almost no sense to me. Could you explain it a little further? I started off assuming it was the usual geek-bullshit "I don't like anything anyone else likes" but your examples don't really fit with that too well.

    • This isn't Blizzard, this is Activision. The core Blizzard team isn't involved with Guitar Hero, CoD, etc. at all.

      When Vivendi acquired Activision, they decided to attach Blizzard (also owned by Vivendi) to the end of Activision's name.

      Activision's expertise is with console titles. Blizzard's expertise is with PC games. Blizzard still acts like it has been acting for years, as a small developer for the PC that focuses on quality, not quantity.

    • If we are lucky EA will buy them out and siphon all of the edge and creativity right out of them.

      That can't happen. Activision Blizzard actually posts revenues HIGHER than Electronic Arts. If anything, AB will buy EA.

    • Actually, I think Bioware is already owned by EA. And since I cannot support EA, I won't be able to play the new star wars MMO :|

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