If we've learned anything from travesties like the recent Fantastic Four reboot or the continuous retelling of Spider-Man's origin story, it's that pumping out a new entry in order to maintain a license almost exclusively leads to disaster. Now it seems that the incredibly glitchy launch of Activision's new Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 may be another casualty of last minute license renewals. An old deal Activison made with Tony Hawk himself back in 2002 resurfaced on Reddit today stating that the licensing rights for his name and likeness would expire at the end of 2015. That means that rather than paying to renew the deal on what otherwise appeared to be a dying franchise, Activision may have decided to simply pump the game out early.
The unstable launch of THPS5 really disappointed me. I loved the first three games growing up, and I pumped an ungodly amount of hours into the original on my N64. Activision had been promising that this would be the big return to the roots of the old school titles we'd been waiting for... sadly, it just wasn't.
Source: PR Newswire
