Show’s Over for Guitar Hero

Activision Blizzard Inc. is discontinuing the iconic video game only five years after it debuted.

Looks like kids will have to learn how to play actual guitars again. After an initial surge in popularity when it was introduced in the mid 2000’s, “Guitar Hero” became unprofitable and Activision announced Wednesday it will stop making the game. Industry analysts say music video games are fundamentally flawed from a commercial perspective because they are much more expensive than the average game and once a consumer purchases one edition of the game, there’s little incentive to buy another. This contrasts with franchises like Activision’s “Call of Duty” or Nintendo’s Mario series, which sell like hot cakes with every new edition. Activision lost $233 million in the last quarter.