Goodnight, Guitar Hero

Not so many years ago, suits at the record companies believed that the enormous popularity of Guitar Hero was going to save the music business. Way too many updates got shoved out the door and no one seemed to realize that the gameplay was pretty much the same no matter how many Disturbed or Smashing Pumpkins songs you plugged in to replace Foghat and Guns N' Roses.

So it probably shouldn't have been a big surprise when recent versions of the game were greeted by a yawn and rapidly declining sales. This week Activision finally admitted the truth and pulled the plug on development of future updates to the game.

No one understood or wanted to admit that music was more like the soundtrack to the game than the reason anyone actually wanted to buy it. Still, not much can replace the original thrill of playing along with Slash.