Former RedOctane Employees Banned from Music Games for 1 Year

Just as I finished writing the article about the banned Xbox 360 TV commercial, I found that two ex-employees for RedOctane, John Tam and respectively Corey Fong, have to sit back, relax and not try to show off what they might have learned during their "stay" with the company making Guitar Hero, because they're not allowed, as Activision has filed a lawsuit against them. Not for a year anyway. Apparently, the two tried to develop a game that would compete heavily with RedOctane's Guitar Hero series, doing so in conjunction with Reverb Communications and The Ant Commandos.

Thus, Tam and Fong are likely to become best beer friends, as they aren't to develop anything containing a drum, a piano, a guitar, not even a lousy flute, for no more, no less than one year's time. Hey, I wonder how a game where there's blowing involved would even work. A special blowing controller perhaps: "Tutorial: blow holding your tongue stiff, for better results." More than that, 1UP says that the pair must return any and all documents pertaining to Activision's "proprietary information," wait six-months before they start developing anything and retrieve their demo of the competing product. So that's that for the two, their hands are tied and there's nothing they can do.

Nothing in terms of music products that is. Why, Tam and Fong might just consider a change in career due to this unfortunate happening or, if they're so dedicated to their work, they'll have to continue whatever it is they've been doing until now after one year's time.

You shouldn't be surprised of this at all. There's already one Guitar Hero clone out there and that helps neither RedOctane, nor Activision one bit, so we can understand the attitude. Plus, the story must be more complicated than this so no jumping to conclusions.