I think that at this point it goes without saying that the music gaming industry is in a free fall. Even the brand that jumpstarted the genre on consoles, Guitar Hero, has seen stagnant sales with their most recent installment in the series. How bad are things, you ask? Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock launched to the sound of a resounding thud, selling 86,000 copies in the first month. It was further reported that Rock Band 3 suffered an even worse fate, and hence, the developer Harmonix was dumped by MTV owner, Viacom.
When we say dumped, this doesn’t necessarily mean taken out to the back pasture for a meeting with Old Yeller. What went down was far more public and ultimately more humiliating: they were put on the sales block.
From the moment that news hit that Harmonix would be going to the highest bidder, speculation has swirled about what publisher would be a better fit for the developer. Soon thereafter Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello asserted they had no interest in making a purchase and was quoted as saying:
“I’m sure some smart investor will buy [Harmonix] feeling that they can catch a falling knife, but more people have been cut trying to catch falling knives than have benefited from getting the timing exactly right.” — John Riccitiello VIA GamePro
Around the same time that EA bowed out of contention for the company, rumors started circulating that Activision was interested in possibly reuniting the brains that actually FOUNDED the Guitar Hero brand with their long last baby. Though this seemed far fetched at the time, Publishing’s CEO Eric Hirshberg went on the record saying that he could not comment on the possibility of joining the house that Azeroth built, but did note:
“But I can tell you I’ve got a ton of respect for Harmonix. They’re a hell of a developer, very innovative and I’ve got nothing but love for them.” — Eric Hirshberg via MCVUK
This was an interesting switch from the war of words that used to take place between the to companies over who had the better music gaming brand. Activision had even went as far as to try to make Guitar Hero axes incompatible with the first version of Rock Band. So as you can imagine, a sudden flip-flop like this started to raise some eyebrows.
Luckily Viacom saw the fork in the road that split between EA and Activision, and decided to just drive straight, instead opting to go the route of Microsoft three years ago with Bungie, and allowing Harmonix to purchase their own independence. Today the newly solo company proudly spouted this pronouncement in their forums:
“We’re happy to confirm the news today that the sale of the company is complete. We appreciate all of your support, comments and warm wishes in the preceding few weeks… We’re excited to be returning to our roots as an independent and privately owned studio.”
It is hard to say what this will mean for the future of the Rock Band and Dance Central brands, but they have assured fans that they will continue to support the games with their usual weekly assaults via DLC. They also went on to say that they have more unannounced projects in the work that they look forward to announcing down the road. Looks like Santa finally brought them what they wanted, some freedom!
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