Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., doing business as Harmonix, is an American video game developer company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in May 1995 by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy. Harmonix is perhaps best known as being the developer of music video games series Dance Central and Rock Band, as well as being the original developer and creator of the Guitar Hero series before development moved to Neversoft and Vicarious Visions.
History Formation Harmonix was founded on May 10, 1995, by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, who met while attending MIT.Interview with Alex Rigopulos at GameCritics.com Egozy was an electrical/computer engineer with an interest in music, while Rigopulos was a music composition major with an interest in programming; both met while working in the MIT Media Lab. After building a computer music generation system that could algorithmically create music on the fly, the two considered how one could use a joystick to control the system, and set up a demonstration of the unit for the Lab, which gained interest from others in the Lab. The two realized that after graduation that they probably couldn't pursue such ideas working at any existing companies, so they chose to start their own. The company was built on the premise that the experience of performing music could become accessible to those who would otherwise have trouble learning a traditional instrument.
The company was initially funded with about US$100,000, and for the first five years, had nearly zero revenue. The company's earliest product was The Axe on PC CD-ROM. The Axe enabled consumers to easily perform unique instrumental solos by using a PC joystick. This product only sold about 300 copies, with Rigopulos and Egozy realizing that people, while initially entranced by the game, lost interest after 15 minutes of playing with it. Harmonix then designed "CamJam", which performed similar functions, this time using simple body gestures to trigger music sequences. CamJam was utilized at Disney theme parks.The Roar of IAAPA at livedesignonline.com This led the two to consider approaching entertainment businesses like Dave & Buster's to include its products, but it soon realized that this would be a year to a year-and-a-half effort, too long for its needs. They then considered the entertainment industry in Japan, which in 1997, was taking off with the introduction of karaoke bars and music video games such as PaRappa the Rapper, Beatmania, and Dance Dance Revolution. They attempted to sell their CamJam equipment to these entertainment centers but found little interest for it. They came to a realization that games like karaoke were popular not due to personal expression, but because they encouraged players to try to accurately recreate the songs through their actions. These games also focused on bringing musical experiences to gamers through simple, understandable interfaces commonly found in games. With this realization, the two returned to the United States and regrouped their company as a video game developer, though they had to let about 40% of their current staff go.
Early titles Harmonix' first major video game was Frequency, with its development funded by Sony Computer Entertainment along with about $2 million in investments in the company. A key factor of Harmonix' contract with Sony was that it was allowed to keep its intellectual property, which allowed Harmonix to build on the game for its future endeavours. The game's development began in 1999,Behind the Scenes: Alex Rigopulos at GameSpot backed by a larger team at Harmonix, many of whom were musicians. Featuring songs by a number of underground electronica artists, FreQuency allowed players to perform and remix a variety of music. The game was backed by Sony Computer Entertainment Vice President of Product Development, Shuhei Yoshida. Released in 2001 on the PlayStation 2, FreQuency was critically acclaimed and won numerous awards,FreQuency at Harmonix.com though it failed to become a mainstream success. Harmonix developed a sequel, Amplitude, released in 2003. Several changes were made to its predecessor to broaden the game's appeal, from gameplay tweaks to a more mainstream soundtrack. And again, Amplitude achieved awards, critical praise, and a small cult following, but it was not a financial hit. The two attributed the poor response to the games due in part to the lack of a mainstream soundtrack and that the gameplay was difficult to connect to if one was not playing the game.
After Amplitude, Harmonix was approached by Konami to create the Karaoke Revolution franchise. Konami, known for their Bemani line of music games, wanted to distribute their games in the United States, and Harmonix was the only music game developer in the country at the time. Konami was responsible for publishing the Karaoke Revolution titles, of which Harmonix developed and released three "volumes" between 2003 and 2004. The series was much more successful due to its mainstream music and its marketability.
Also in 2004, Sony Computer Entertainment released the Harmonix project EyeToy: AntiGrav. A departure from music games, the title used the PlayStation 2 EyeToy camera peripheral to enable one's body to perform as a controller for a futuristic extreme sports game. However, the game was poorly received by critics, despite selling four times as many copies as FreQuency or Amplitude.
At this time, RedOctane, a peripheral manufacturing company that had enjoyed Harmonix' previous games, approached Harmonix about developing the software for a game that would be based on a guitar-shaped controller, inspired by GuitarFreaks which was popular in Japan. This relationship led to the creation of Guitar Hero, published by RedOctane in 2005. The game features similar gameplay elements to FreQuency and Amplitude. Guitar Hero uses a guitar-shaped controller designed uniquely for the game. Specifically, the Guitar Hero controller was designed with five color-coded "fret" buttons and a "strum bar". Guitar Hero became largely successful, both critically and commercially, resulting in the well-received 2006 sequel Guitar Hero II, also developed by Harmonix.Totilo, Stephen. (14 December 2005) 'Guitar Hero': The Video Game That Literally Rocks - Music, Celebrity, Artist News. MTV.com. Retrieved on 1 June 2013.
Purchase by Viacom In the early part of 2006, Activision acquired RedOctane, and several publishers became interested in acquiring Harmonix. In September 2006, MTV Networks, a division of media conglomerate Viacom, announced that it was acquiring Harmonix for $175 million.Harmonix Harmonix's last Guitar Hero game for RedOctane, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, was released in July 2007, thus fulfilling its contractual obligations with the publisher. Before it left the series, Harmonix had already envisioned expanding the gameplay of Guitar Hero to multiple instruments, a concept that would eventually lead to Rock Band that would develop under MTV. Shortly after the acquisition by MTV in December 2006, the initial discussion between Dhani Harrison, son of George Harrison, and MTV President Van Toffler occurred that would eventually lead to meetings between Harmonix and Apple Corps, Ltd., leading to the creation of The Beatles: Rock Band, though this was not publicly revealed until late 2008.
Harmonix released Rock Band in November 2007. As Harmonix's first game as a part of MTV, Rock Band expanded upon the design of Guitar Hero by incorporating three different peripherals: guitar/bass, microphone, and drums. Harmonix continued to support the game after its initial release by offering a variety of downloadable songs to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players on a weekly basis. As of March 2013 over 4,000 songs have been made available as downloadable content, with over 100 million songs downloaded.
In October 2008, Harmonix, along with MTV Games, announced an exclusive agreement with Apple Corps, Ltd. to produce a standalone title based on the Rock Band premise and featuring the music of The Beatles, to be released late in 2009. The Beatles: Rock Band features a visual and musical history of the Beatles, and includes 45 songs from their 1962-69 tenure with EMI, using United Kingdom-released versions of their albums Please Please Me through Abbey Road. The developers have worked with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to gain input on the game, and were using Giles Martin, son of Sir George Martin who produced most of the Beatles albums, as music director for the game. Harmonix stated, despite building on the Rock Band gameplay, this would not be a Rock Band branded title, and that the songs would not be available as downloadable content for the Rock Band series. The agreement had been in discussion for more than 17 months before the announcement.
In November 2008, Viacom paid Harmonix a $150 million bonus as part of the terms of the company's 2006 acquisition. The previous quarter's bonus was $150 million.Bloomberg. Bloomberg. Retrieved on 1 June 2013. In a 2009 survey of the best places to work in the Boston area, the Boston Globe ranked Harmonix as the 3rd best workplace overall, and the top mid-size business in its poll.
On 10 December 2009, Harmonix laid off 39 of its employees, primarily in the QA department.
Sale by Viacom On November 11, 2010, Viacom stated that it was in talks with potential buyers for Harmonix, having already marked the unit as a discontinued operation to write off a $299 million loss for its 2010 third-quarter earnings statement. Such talks had been in place since September 2010, before the release of either Rock Band 3 or Dance Central. Viacom president and CEO, Philippe Dauman, stated the reason it was selling the company was to refocus Viacom as an entertainment creator, and that "the console games business requires expertise [Viacom doesn't] have". Viacom also recognized that without dedicated resources to support video game development, the company was not able to take advantage of efficiencies the dedicated video game publishers have. Martin Peers of the Wall Street Journal noted that Viacom lacked the physical distribution channels that other entertainment companies like Time Warner have, and instead were forced to rely on Electronic Arts to distribute the game and cut into its potential profits. Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, commenting on the potential purchase of Harmonix by his company, called Harmonix a "falling knife" in regards to the diminishing size of the rhythm game market since 2009, and stated that "more people have been cut trying to catch falling knives than have benefited from getting the timing exactly right". John Drake of Harmonix affirmed that Viacom would continue to support Harmonix until the sale is complete, and the developer would still continue its normal operations for its games which is unaffected by the sale.