I worked for an internal studio during the late 90's that was owned by Activision. ATVI wasn't doing too well, and then suddenly Tony Hawk Pro Skater came out and sold a bajillion copies.

Tony Hawk was a legitimately great game. Unfortunately, the moment the money started rolling in, rather than thinking, "Hey, we should really work harder on making sure we let our developers make great and ground-breaking games like this more often", the Activision response was, "Dear god - we can be the Electronic Arts (makers of Madden football) of EXTREME SPORTS! Let's go make surfing and biking and inline skating games, get some pros to endorse them, and then we can make guaranteed money every single year... the holy grail of game publishing! Let's start churning that crank!"

Needless to say, Activision turned the generic game crank a number of times, lots of extreme sports games fell out, and then it rapidly became clear that extreme sports do not have the business model that Madden football statistics upgrades provide, no one wants to play a surfing game (as the levels aren't really all too interesting to explore), and if you milk something good too often too soon, people stop liking it, even if it's good.

I liked Guitar Hero a lot. I have high hopes for Rock Band. Part of me is certain there are executives at Activision THIS VERY SECOND jumping up and down, exclaiming, "We can be the Madden football of Guitar Rhythm games!" And this thought makes me sad.

I'm friends with a handful of the Harmonix folks, so I'm not un-biased, but I think Lange does a disservice to Harmonix by the way he hand-waves aside their progression. I am sure GH3 and the 80s compilation will be great fun and I'll certainly buy them when they come out. But the fact that the true developers of the game have moved on to a more cutting-edge and ambitious project, Rock Band, while they let the publishers take over the continuation of the Guitar Hero franchise ought to clue people in to which "line" of these musical games will be more interesting to watch.

Thanks for the conversation with Ted Lange. The final question, however, is worded in a confusing way which obfuscates (and perhaps aids Mr. Lange in further obfuscating) the situation regarding Red Octane, Guitar Hero, Harmonix and Rock Band.

On the first two GH games, Harmonix was the developer and Red Octane the publisher; in other words, Harmonix made the game and Red Octane marketed and distributed it. Subsequently, Harmonix was bought by MTV Games and Red Octane was bought by uber-publisher Activision.

As is too common in the games industry, ownership of the IP went with the publisher; this is the price for most developers of getting a publisher to cover the lion's share of game development costs, which can be considerable and beyond many developers' means. (Another common price is the inevitable tendency of publishers to take credit for the games their developers are most responsible for making.) Thus GH: The 80s and GH3 are being made by another developer in the Activision stable, NOT by Harmonix, the developer responsible for the brilliant first two games.

Further, Rock Band IS being made by Harmonix - the concept is basically Guitar Hero for a whole band full of instruments - and thus is, in an important sense, the true successor to the first two Guitar Hero games. For Lange not to acknowledge this, to imply Rock Band is merely a knock-off of GH, smacks of disingenuity; of course, he has a material interest in confusing consumers on this point.

It's unfortunate that David Marchese didn't challenge Lange's implication, but important nonetheless to make sure people understand the truth. Guitar Hero: The 80s and GH3 may end up being great - here's hoping they are - but they're being made by different people than those who made the first two, beloved games in the franchise. Harmonix's Rock Band isn't just a "competitor" to GH, but rather the true next step in its evolution.