A screen grab from Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, the latest instalment in Activision's mega-selling video game franchise. (Activision)

There was a time when you couldn't escape Guitar Hero. Hard-core gamers and casual players alike were freaking out over the new sensation, which let them strum and shred along to popular songs on a plastic guitar. The game allowed people to unleash their inner rock star, and as such, it was everywhere. Like Cabbage Patch Kids and Elmo before it, Guitar Hero even enjoyed one Christmas season as the It gift.

Since hitting it big with Guitar Hero II in 2006, Activision has put out nine releases. To say they have overdone it would be an understatement.

In the world of television, previously hot shows that have begun to decline are said to have "jumped the shark" – a reference to an episode of Happy Days where Fonzie leaped over the dangerous predator while on water skis. In that case, the writers of the show had clearly run out of ideas and were resorting to cheap gimmicks to drive storylines.

In the case of Guitar Hero, you could say the franchise "jumped the Slash," where the descent began after the former Guns N' Roses guitarist joined Bill Gates on stage to promote the game at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2008. Once the eminently nerdy Microsoft founder was seen playing the game, it was hard to make a case that it was still cool.

Guitar Hero sales have been declining since. Despite allowing gamers to play Rush's entire 20-minute opus 2112, the latest game, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, has seen disappointing sales since its release in September. Estimates pegged the game as selling fewer than 100,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release, a far cry from the 1.4 million sold by Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock — which, ironically, had Slash on the cover.

But it would be wrong to shoot the guitarist, or the messenger, as it were. The real reason for the franchise's decline is over-saturation. Since hitting it big with Guitar Hero II in 2006, Activision has put out nine releases – more than two a year. To say the company has overdone it would be an understatement.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, right, plays Guitar Hero as Slash plays a real guitar during Gates' pre-show keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2008. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

When I spoke to him recently, Activision chief executive Eric Hirshberg said the company has learned some lessons in overexposing the franchise. He thinks Warriors of Rock will still sell well over Christmas, but since Guitar Hero is a strong "gift" game, it looks like the company is taking the idea back to the drawing board.

"Yes, we are looking at innovations and reconsiderations of that category," he said. "I think that category is based on a universal human insight. The idea of unleashing your inner rock star is very appealing and evergreen, so I don't think the game is based on a faulty premise. But we need to find new ways to express it."

Call of profit

At the other end of the spectrum, Activision is reaping the rewards from another of its franchises: Call of Duty. The latest release, Call of Duty: Black Ops, raked in $650 million in its first five days, toppling the previous one-week record set last year by its predecessor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The first Call of Duty game was released in 2003 and there have been six since, or one a year. For the past few years, Activision has had two development studios – Treyarch and Infinity Ward – rotating on releases, which have become the company's Christmas tentpole. Aside from fewer releases, Hirshberg attributes the franchise's growing success to the fact that first-person shooters are a well-established genre, while music games are relatively new. Indeed, shooters have been one of the most popular genres of video games since Wolfenstein 3D was released for the PC in 1992.

Call of Duty is also benefiting from an ever-increasing following among gamers who like to play shooters against each other, with millions now online.

"The genre has shown tremendous staying power," Hirshberg said. "We're entering an era where being part of an online community of players is becoming a huge driving force for the game experience. I think that changes the equation a little bit."

Dodging overexposure

When examining the risks of overexposing a franchise, it's impossible not to think of sports games. The genre has developed a reputation for being repetitive, where new releases simply slap on a new coat of paint in the form of updated rosters, with perhaps a few bells and whistles added here and there.

A screen grab from the game FIFA 11. This Electronic Arts series is one of the few game franchises that shows no signs of player fatigue. (Electronic Arts)

Some franchises, however, have managed to buck that trend. Electronic Arts' FIFA 11, created by EA Canada and released in September, sold 2.6 million units in its first five days to become the fastest-selling sports game ever. This despite the fact that EA has released a new soccer game every year since 1993.

Matt Bilbey, vice-president and general manager of soccer at EA Sports, said this is because of the extensive research the company does into what fans of the sport want.

"We've invested more research in football than Nike or Adidas," said Bilbey, a Brit who calls the sport by its European name. The company monitors how gamers play FIFA online. With more than a billion games of FIFA 10 played online last year, EA has a huge data set from which it determines what players like and don't like, and what might work well in the next release.

EA spent more on research and development as a percentage of revenue in 2009 – about 35 per cent – than any other technology company, including hardware heavyweights such as Intel and AMD, according to a recently released report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. That R&D, combined with a direct competitor in sports games in the form of Konami, forces EA to continually revise and innovate with its franchises, Bilbey said.

Still, burnout among developers does sometimes happen, he added. Declining sales are a good indicator that a franchise is losing steam, but usually the team behind it knows it well before a game is even released. In that case, Bilbey said, EA gives them some more time to recuperate before putting together the next game.

A little R&R is probably a good thing – as long as they don't go near a pair of water skis, and certainly nowhere near a shark.

Peter Nowak is a writer based in Toronto.