I like video games. I like turntables. I like DJ Shadow, I like the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, the Scratch Perverts. Yet I've thought DJ Hero was a stupid idea from the moment the series was first announced.

Publisher Activision put its Guitar Hero business on ice earlier this year, signaling the end of a genre that was once white hot, but quickly flamed out. Why did Activision just bail on this formerly billion dollar business instead of taking it in a radical new direction?

Publisher Activision is getting out of the Hero business. That means no new DJ Hero and Guitar Hero games (at least for 2011), but it also means no new downloadable songs for the games it has already released.

Publisher Activision has just added a few more games and maybe one more development studio to its kill count. A now partially confirmed report says that the mega-publisher has axed the Guitar Hero franchise, killed its True Crime reboot and fired much of Freestyle Games.

That's what a lawyer representing Universal Music Publishing Group told the creator of 8-Bit DJ Hero, which resulted in one of the year's best parody games being yanked off the internet.

Eric Ruth's 8-Bit version of Activision's DJ Hero is now available to download and play, complete with six chiptune mashups that put DJ Hero 2's soundtrack to shame. Who's up for some Dead or Alive Vs. Siouxsie and the Banshees?

There once was a time when music games were the biggest - and in some cases best - thing to happen to the video game industry. Oh, how those times have changed.

The man responsible for the 8-bit version of zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has turned his "de-make" skills to another recent franchise—Activision's DJ Hero. Pixel Force: DJ Hero, as it's known, is musically true to its 80s roots.

One of the ways celebrities are different from you and me is that they might spend their 21st birthday party with their model girlfriend on a 140-foot yacht. And DJ Hero would be the sponsor.