Miller also touched on the issue of the Guitar Hero franchise's recent demise, which he attributes to the transition of the video game industry from physical retail distribution to deigital distribution. Activision announced during its most recent earnings call that it was shelving the popular rhythm game franchise due to licensing and hardware costs.

As Miller sees it, the Guitar Hero franchise was more deeply affected by the shift to digital distribution due to its reliance on its proprietary guitar-shaped controllers which further drove up the price points of the series' retail releases.

"It's hard to be a game publisher, and constantly create entertaining products," he said. "Activision has actually been pretty prescient about the importance of online through the merger with Blizzard - that's the most highly-valued independent publisher now, with a stock market valuation of $13 billion as of last week, which is two or three times more than others such as Electronic Arts.

"The problems that Activision is having right now in the limited area of Guitar Hero is reflective of the massive change going on in the games industry, as it transitions from retail to electronic distribution.

"Guitar Hero specifically had a big problem in that it required pretty expensive peripheral prices to really enjoy it - and that's a much more viable sale at retail, where the peripheral can sit right next to the box. It's hard, in my opinion, to get a lot of the more casual players to spend US$ 100 for a guitar, just to play a game."

Via [Games Industry]

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