There will be a DJ Hero 2. Yes, I realize that saying that—Activision will make a sequel to one of its games—is akin to saying earthquakes are bad, or that candy is delicious, but there you have it. The sequel was confirmed as part of a contest.
The deal is that Activision is giving musicians at the MIDEM 2010 show a chance to appear in “a future installment of DJ Hero.” If your song is picked, then it’ll be in the next version of the game. This really isn’t too hard to follow.
So, DJ Hero 2: bank on it.
The original game didn’t do too well, either commercially or critically, so it is something of a surprise to see Activision give it another shot. Then again, this is Activision we’re talking about here, and Lord knows how much money it sunk into the game’s development and marketing. So, release another game that’s technologically the same as its predecessor (read: much smaller development costs), and just market the hell out of it. If the numbers work, the numbers work. Light cigars with $100 bills, et cetera.
What could be a problem for Activision is that I’m pretty sure music games have peaked in popularity. (Is it safe to say Rock Band was the genre’s highest point, commercially and critically?) So if Activision keeps throwing money down this hole (music games), it might find that it’s not working out like it had planned.
In other words, Activision has squeezed all the money out of this genre, as was expected from Day One. Time to find a new cash cow.
What will the investors say?