News

Activision Going to Great Lengths to Assure DJ Hero is the Only Virtual Mix Game in Town

11:35 a.m. · May 5, 2009 · by Mike Burr

Given the declining sales of Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour, interest in the first wave of music video games has peaked. As Activision prepares DJ Hero to give gamers something new to play with, the company is correcting the one major flaw with Guitar Hero, which is, basically, the existence of the Rock Band franchise. Small market developer Genius Products has found itself beset on all sides by Activision after announcing its own virtual DJ game, Scratch. The larger company first tried to buy the rights to the game outright, and when that failed purchased 7 Digital, the software developer working with Genius. A judge has recently ordered Activision to return the source code for Scratch, but Activision may have made a more fatal error in trying to eliminate the competition. Rock Band had success because MTV was behind it; the only publicity Scratch is getting is from this legal flap. [Billboard]