Look Who it Was Random video

Guitar Hero Live Who Conceived The Game?

273 views · Published 16 February 2016 · 2:57 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: Rock N' Roll True Stories · 2016 · Gaming

Watch on YouTube

Guitar Hero Live Polygon Article Who Conceived Guitar Hero Live 

http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/2/10/10889480/guitar-hero-live-credit

"When Dilallo got home he was still convinced that Activision had made some sort of an error. The company acknowledged that it had released far too many Guitar Hero games and rhythm spin-offs, and that it had not focused enough energy into changing the basic experience of the series. He believed that his idea could revitalize the genre.

Although he was now unemployed, he decided to spend time continuing to work on his prototype. For him, it had become a personal mission.

"I knew that the prototype belonged to Activision," he explains. "But I had developed the animation-based filming in college. Then, when I joined Activision, I used those ideas in the innovations lab. When I left Activision I was still developing those techniques and expanding on them."

 dilallo
Daniel Dilallo
He figured that Activision would come to its senses and rehire him. "I was working with the mentality that I was going to re-pitch it to Activision as soon as I polished the prototype up and really had a full-fledged design. Not just one little feature. Really show them how it would work with the first-person perspective and the animation-based filming. I spent about a year really polishing it up for Activision."

Very few people, once they are rejected by a company, are willing to still believe in that company's objectives. But Dilallo seems to have harbored no grudge. If anything, his project became something of a personal crusade.

"We just lost so many talented people. There could be a small chance to bring these guys back into VV and we could work on it again and develop a new version of Guitar Hero that the consumer would want.



This was in the middle of 2012. But Activision had not given up on Guitar Hero. In a 2011 interview with Forbes, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said that the franchise would return. "We're going to go back to the studios and we're going to use new studios and reinvent Guitar Hero," said Kotick, adding "that's what we're doing with it now."

Meanwhile, FreeStyle was secretly working on a Guitar Hero reboot. The developer had previously worked on the DJ Hero series as well as Sing Party for Wii U, which was released in 2012.

According to FreeStyle's creative director Jamie Jackson, the developer started work on a new Guitar Hero game straight away. Speaking to Eurogamer last year, he said: "We got tasked with finding [innovation]. It was a small team to start off with while we were putting the other game to bed. We basically set some rules. First, don't you f***ing dare use the old logo. I've got nothing against it, but we need to start from scratch. No " - POLYGON

More from this channel