Harmonix

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.

Harmonix was founded on May 10, 1995 by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, who met while attending MIT. 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. This led the two to consider approaching entertainment businesses like Dave & Buster's to include their products, but they soon realized that this would be a year to a year-and-a-half effort, too long for their 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.

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, 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, 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. These results left Rigopulos and Egozy depressed about the prospects for music games.

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.

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's last Guitar Hero game for RedOctane, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, was released in July 2007, thus fulfilling their contractual obligations with the publisher. Before they 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.