A Moogle  🏳️‍🌈 💻 🎮 🎶 🇸🇪

Thus began the development of Guitar Hero III. I joined Vicarious Visions shortly before it was released, and found that I rather liked what they were about to release. So, too, did many gamers - the title absolutely flew off the shelves, and the bonus bought a coworker a car.

I should clarify at this point that Vicarious Visions were the developers of the Wii version of Guitar Hero. The entire ATVI-based series was based on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater engine. The Neversoft-developed primary SKUs were on Skate 9, and Wii/PS2 were on Skate 7.

Thus began a long-running saga of VV developing the next Wii version of Guitar Hero alongside Neversoft and Budcat Creations (the PS2 devs), essentially reworking the art assets but backporting as much of the engine code as possible, making use of the Wii hardware as appropriate.

In particular, the Wii version of Guitar Hero: World Tour included a band logo editor that the PS2 did not have (it had simple pre-made designs), and the later versions even included back-ports of certain next-gen UI shaders that could still comfortably run on a Wii.

During this time, there was a hand-over of tech leadership, from the venerable Dave Calvin (who had shipped such titles as Doom 3 on the Xbox) over to Eric Anderson (I wish I could tag him on Twitter, but I can't find any account he has). Eric took things to the next level.

Eric's reign during the later Guitar Hero games - namely Band Hero, Guitar Hero 5, and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - marked a sea change in how the coders were treated. Rather than being micro-managed, we were trusted to do the right thing, and largely left alone.

It should be no surprise, therefore, that those titles were some of the only Wii versions to come in on time and under-budget. This bucking of the managerial trend at VV did not make Eric very many friends among upper management.

Towards the beginning of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, it was announced through an internal meeting that our market analysts had determined that as many people who could buy a cheap plastic guitar, had, so we wouldn't be releasing a new guitar controller with WoR.

Imagine our collective (lack of) surprise, then, when a couple of months before shipping, we were told that RedOctane would in fact be making another guitar controller. Even better, this one mounted the Wii Remote in the opposite direction, so would need special-case code. Great!

Now, towards the end of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, we had been told internally that the folks at Neversoft were starting to run out of ideas on directions to take the series. As such, after WoR, Vicarious Visions was to be taking over primary development on the series.

Thus began the development of a new title on the down-low, called "Guitar Hero: Phoenix". It was to be a somewhat radical departure from the existing menu-driven UX. You would have your own apartment, and could upgrade/decorate it as you hit it big.

The fixed venues would be replaced with a feel more akin to being on the set of a music video shoot, something which Activision apparently appreciated, as they largely retooled this concept for Guitar Hero: Live some years later.

Lastly - most importantly - there was to be one additional button added to the controllers - a purple button - as well as the addition of a six-string strum attachment on the body of the guitar. A sort of middle ground between Rock Band 3's Pro Controller and the traditional one.

In late 2010, shortly after the release of Warriors of Rock, there was a minor layoff at VV involving about 8 people, one of whom was my good friend, mentor, and long-time associate Mike C. He was a senior designer, and had worked at such powerhouses as Looking Glass in the past.

Fast-forward another couple of months, and in late January, there was an executive review of our progress on Phoenix. It went well. It went so well, in fact, that we were told we would be getting an extra year to polish the game up to a mirror sheen.

Unfortunately, this meant that as our only next release was to be Spyro Skylanders 3DS in September, we would be knuckling down on expenses by way of laying off a bunch of the studio's testers. Thus my other friend and roommate, Bonafede, was laid off as well.

Finally, a couple of weeks later, one cold February morning, an e-mail went out to everyone at the studio from HR: "The Q4 2010 earnings call is today at 4PM (our time). We will have an all-hands meeting in the kitchen at 3PM to discuss what this means for the company."

Anyone who could see the writing on the wall could immediately clock what this meant. Some people were numb. Some were worried. But there were still some folks who wanted to believe that the company would do the right thing.

Eric himself, an unending font of positivity, even told me during a quick chat outside the office: "I can't see how they would be cancelling the project. We just had a glowing executive review! It probably won't be that bad."

I myself wanted answers, thus I went about trying to find a studio executive to give me some straight talk. After a good hour or so, during which the executives where nowhere to be found, I found the VP, Guha. Karthik (his brother) and Guha were co-founders and always good folks.

"Guha," I said, "I'm freaking, man. Just tell me: Will I still have a job tomorrow?" With a sigh, he said, "Ryan, you know I can't tell you that. It could be considered insider trading. But if you are freaking out, take a long lunch with your roommates, but be back before 3."

At that point, I pretty much knew what was going on. I drove home, had a long lunch with my friends who'd been previously laid off, talked about our plans for Bat Country Entertainment, and then drove back in time for the news.

I ended up sending HR an e-mail pointing out that being on the autism spectrum, it was hard for me to process surprises, so if they would please come get me a few minutes before the studio meeting, that would be best. They did. Kathy led me to her office in silence.

When I saw the director of coders in her office, I knew the score. I was told that the "Hero" Business unit was shutting down, given a document to sign for some severance pay, told that 500 people across Activision were being laid off - including 50 at VV - and that was that.

Thus began one of the simultaneously best and worst years of my life - 2011. Where I taught myself Java, dabbled in some technically impressive Minecraft mods, released some games with Bat Country Entertainment on Xbox Live Indie Games. The rest is history.

Am I bitter that the series ended up going down in flames the way it did? No, not really. Anyone could have seen the writing on the wall that Activision were pushing the music/rhythm genre too far, too fast, in too exploitative a manner.

But that is, to paraphrase @zefrank, how capitalism do. It's all about making as much as possible as quickly as possible, and the realities of "Hey, we've sold music/rhythm games to everyone interested in music/rhythm games" be darned.

In the long run, the majority of us have come out unscathed. I've moved onward and upward. I know that Eric certainly has - he now works for a small little company known as "Rockstar Games", and has worked on such obscure titles as "GTA V".

And if I'm being perfectly honest, had it not been for me getting laid off, I never would have learned to mod Minecraft. I never would have gotten hired by Mojang and moved to Sweden. I never would have left and gotten hired by Arrowhead. It all works out in the end. ~Fin