Harmonix Music Systems
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Video game industry |
| Founded | 10 May 1995 in Boxford, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Founders |
Alex Rigopulos Eran Egozy |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
|
Key people
|
Steve Janiak (CEO) |
| Products |
Guitar Hero series Rock Band series Dance Central series Fantasia: Music Evolved |
| Owner | Viacom (2006–2010) |
| Parent | MTV Networks (2006–2010) |
| Website | Official website |
Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., doing business as Harmonix, is an American video game development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, best known for its music video games.
Harmonix is perhaps best known as being the developer of Dance Central, Rock Band and Fantasia: Music Evolved, as well as being the original developer 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 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, where 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 through 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.
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Wikipedia