Activision Blizzard Announces Guitar Hero 5, New Call of Duty

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."

Comments

Awesome

[skam240]

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

Re:Awesome

[binarylarry]

Yep, thank god for capitalism and free markets.

You can always take your business elsewhere.

Re:Awesome

[Walpurgiss]

It wont. Rock Band clearly supports Sonic.

Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name

[sunami]

I fucking hate slashdot. Who the fuck likes mashing buttons on some plastics shit keyboard for fun? Might as well learn the real world. Dumbasses.

Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name

[Gunslinger47]

Would you mock someone for playing Tomb Raider in lieu of earning a doctorate in archeology and physically raiding lost tombs themselves?

Re:Blizzard? Guitar Hero?

[michfreak]

Who is driving? Blizzard is driving! How can this be?

Re:Game pricing with ads

[Gunslinger47]

Did ticket prices drop with the introduction of in-theater ads?

Making sense of in-game ads.

[Toridas]

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:Making sense of in-game ads.

[hairyfeet]

Even then it would be iffy since the temptation would be to wallpaper the damned game with them instead of fitting them to the story. I don't mind seeing a Pepsi machine in the break room in a FPS instead of a "grape cola" machine, but can you imagine if EA, the kings of crappy in game ads, would have bought 2K before Bioshock came out? All those great ads that added such a feel to Rapture being replaced with modern Burger King and coke ads would have just sucked the big wet titty.

And the part that pisses me off is with all other forms of entertainment I can bypass the ads, but in games you pretty much have your nose rubbed in it. And then to add insult to injury they don't lower the price by a single cent, if anything they are going up, and then they ream us out with DLC or lame expansions that try to squeeze us for every last cent. I for one am glad there are still plenty of games released in the last 8 years I haven't played, because frankly with all the DRM bullshit, crappy beta quality code, and half baked console controls being passed off as PC game controls I'm about ready to just wash my hands of the whole thing for a few years and hopefully some of these crappy game manufacturers will just fucking die already.

Lets be honest here: If Activision and EA were to die out how many of us would really miss them? I know I certainly wouldn't miss the crappy EA sports games with the horrible collision detection and AI that hasn't improved since 1995 or Activision beating every franchise into the ground with 5 bazilion sequels. Would you?

Re:Blizzard? Guitar Hero?

[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' in its name exists as *it* always has). I would not worry too much about the quality of either of their offerings much until I am given a reason.

Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name

[Haeleth]

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:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name

[Haeleth]

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?

Excuses - a rant

[Joe Jay Bee]

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:Excuses - a rant

[VendingMenace]

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 laws (sometimes even notifying authorities that he was going to ahead of time) and then when prosecuted, not only did he admit that he broke said laws, but requested that he be sentenced to the MAXIMUM penalty allowed by the law.

This then would provide the model for illegal downloading at civil disobedience. In such as case, one should

1) Download content illegally.
2) Notify the authorities that you are doing so (if only by advertising the fact in public forums such as newspapers etc.)
3) When put on trial, admit to the fact that you performed actions that were against the law.
4) Ask, during the sentencing phase, to be given the maximum punishment allowed by the law.

Only in such a case can the injustice (if it really an injustice) be brought out into the light. If the laws are really unjust, then a rash of people being unfairly sentenced will only outrage a moral public. This truly is the only way to change the laws effectively. I tell you the truth, the only way that these laws will be changed is for people to realize that they are absurd. This will only happen when people are confronted by the absurdity. And the fastest way to accomplish this will be by Gandhi-esque civil disobedience.

So, in conclusion, it seems to me that those people that claim that they are downloading files illegally in order to fight "the man" ought to consider doing so in the open. Those that try to hide their downloading, but think that they are performing civil disobedience are just fooling themselves.

Activision Blizzard

[mqduck]

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

This shit is depressing

[denton420]

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.