UK developer FreeStyle Games, the studio behind last year’s Guitar Hero Live, has suffered from layoffs by Activision due to the game selling lower than expected. FreeStyle Games, which has over a hundred employees, has had to layoff about 50 employees.
In an interview with MCV, Activision stated that it would “rebalance staff” within FreeStyle Games and that “the decision has been made to restructure FreeStyleGames to better align the studio resources with future business needs.” Activision also added “The UK remains a key market for Activision Blizzard and FreeStyleGames continues to be great partner.” There are no plans to have a new Guitar Hero Game for this console generation, but new content will continued to be added to Guitar Hero Live.
It was reported in February that Activision would have to layoff a number of employees after both Guitar Hero Live and Skylanders: Supercharged underperformed during the 2015 holiday season. Activision reports the underperformance of Skylanders: Supercharge was due to increased competition in the toys-to-life market from Disney Infinity, Amiibo, and Lego Dimensions. Activision had great success with its core audience, but failed to attract the casual audience due to the their “shift to mobile devices.” Activision stated last February, “As announced in our earning call, our games for core audiences did extremely well, but the casual audience has not yet emerged on next-gen consoles.”
It’s always a shame when a company has to layoff employees. Guitar Hero Live was supposed to be the reboot to the then abandoned franchise, but it looks like the market has moved on from Guitar Hero completely. Hopefully Activision’s vision to “rebalance” the studio will help them achieve more success in the future.