The feeling of losing my Aunt Dolly is beyond what feels right to share. Our most sacred moments were private and they’ll stay there behind the stage, beneath the glamour & between our hearts.
What I KNOW is Dolly would want me to feel it, write a song about it, and then continue on and be strong. I have an angel by my side. I always have. One of our last conversations was about music and metamorphosis. 🦋
I will always love her and want to make her proud. My heart breaks for the world, her family and friends who will miss her deeply. We’re in this loss together and we will see her in all of the most beautiful things. 💖 @dollyparton
Activision paid $99.9 million for Guitar Hero's publisher in 2006, made over $2 billion off the franchise, then killed the entire genre in four years. Today that publisher's name came back from the dead to sell plastic guitars again.
RedOctane was two brothers, Kai and Charles Huang, who started out selling dance pads. They published the first Guitar Hero in 2005 and it hit $1 billion in North American sales in 26 months, faster than any franchise before it.
So Activision did what Activision does. Annualize.
In 2009 alone they shipped Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, DJ Hero, and Guitar Hero editions for Metallica, Van Halen, and Smash Hits. Six music games in twelve months.
That playbook works for Call of Duty because a sequel only asks for $60. A Guitar Hero sequel asked you to justify the $100 plastic guitar already in your closet, and every new SKU competed with the last one on the same shelf. Genre revenue went from $1.7 billion in 2008 to about $300 million in 2010. Activision shut down RedOctane, then the whole Guitar Hero business unit.
They strip-mined ten years of demand into three.
Now the Huang brothers are back as advisors at a revived RedOctane, the studio head is a Guitar Hero veteran, and Stage Tour launches December 10 with 90 licensed songs and 180 real Gibson guitars. Fifteen years of untouched demand, and the people who invented the genre finally get a second run at it.
Hate that we live in a timeline where Miss Piggy has to post Instagram tributes to a bestie (Dolly Parton) and an ex-lover (Tim Curry) within a 24-hour span
Ohio, for the love of god, vote for Dr. Amy Acton @amyactonoh. Unless you’re ok with a dude who’s actively supporting a guy who beat the shit out of his wife, broke his daughter’s collarbone, and psychologically tortured her by keeping her stiffed bunny from her. Ohio deserves way better than this carpetbagging clown.