Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., also known as Harmonix, is an American company that creates video games. It is located in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded in May 1995 by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy. Harmonix is most well-known for creating the music video game series Dance Central and Rock Band. The company originally created and developed the Guitar Hero series before the development of the games was moved to other companies, Neversoft and Vicarious Visions.

History

Harmonix was founded on May 10, 1995, by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, who met while studying at MIT. Egozy was an electrical/computer engineer who liked music, while Rigopulos was a music composition major who liked programming. They met while working at the MIT Media Lab. After creating a computer system that could automatically generate music, they explored using a joystick to control the system. They demonstrated the system to others at the Lab, which sparked interest. They realized that after graduation, they might not be able to pursue these ideas at other companies, so they decided to start their own. The company aimed to make music performance accessible to people who might struggle learning traditional instruments.

The company was initially funded with about $100,000 and had nearly no income for the first five years. Its first product was The Axe on PC CD-ROM, which let users perform unique instrumental solos using a PC joystick. This product sold only about 300 copies, and the founders noticed that people lost interest after playing it for about 15 minutes. Harmonix then created CamJam, which used simple body gestures to trigger music sequences. CamJam was used at Disney theme parks. This led them to consider selling their products to entertainment businesses like Dave & Buster's, but they realized this would take too long. They then focused on Japan, where in 1997, karaoke bars and music video games like PaRappa the Rapper, Beatmania, and Dance Dance Revolution were growing in popularity. They tried selling CamJam equipment to Japanese entertainment centers but found little interest. They realized that games like karaoke were popular because they encouraged players to accurately recreate songs through their actions, not for personal expression. These games also used simple, game-like interfaces to introduce music to players. With this understanding, they returned to the United States and reorganized their company as a video game developer, though they had to let about 40% of their staff go.

Harmonix' first major video game was Frequency, developed with funding from Sony Computer Entertainment and about $2 million in investments. A key part of their contract with Sony was that Harmonix could keep its intellectual property, allowing them to use the game's ideas for future projects. Development began in 1999 with a larger team, many of whom were musicians. The game featured songs by underground electronica artists and let players perform and remix music. It was supported by Sony Computer Entertainment Vice President of Product Development, Shuhei Yoshida. Released in 2001 on the PlayStation 2, Frequency received critical praise and won awards but was not a mainstream success. Harmonix later created a sequel, Amplitude, released in 2003. Changes were made to improve its appeal, including a more mainstream soundtrack. Amplitude also received awards and praise but was not financially successful. The founders believed the games' lack of mainstream music and difficult gameplay limited their popularity.

After Amplitude, Harmonix was approached by Konami to create the Karaoke Revolution franchise. Konami, known for its Bemani line of music games, wanted to distribute its games in the United States, and Harmonix was the only music game developer in the country at the time. Konami published the Karaoke Revolution titles, with Harmonix developing and releasing three "volumes" between 2003 and 2004. The series was more successful due to its mainstream music and marketability.

Also in 2004, Sony Computer Entertainment released EyeToy: AntiGrav, a Harmonix project. This game used the PlayStation 2 EyeToy camera to let players use their body as a controller for a futuristic extreme sports game. Despite selling four times as many copies as Frequency or Amplitude, the game was poorly received by critics. These results made Rigopulos and Egozy feel discouraged about the future of music games.

At this time, RedOctane, a company that had previously worked with Harmonix, asked them to develop software for a game based on a guitar-shaped controller inspired by Japan's GuitarFreaks. This led to the creation of Guitar Hero, published by RedOctane in 2005. The game used a guitar-shaped controller with five color-coded "fret" buttons and a "strum bar." Guitar Hero was very successful, both critically and commercially, and a sequel, Guitar Hero II, was released in 2006.

In early 2006, Activision acquired RedOctane, and several publishers expressed interest in buying Harmonix. In September 2006, MTV Networks, part of Viacom, announced 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, fulfilling their contract. Before leaving the series, Harmonix had already planned to expand Guitar Hero to include multiple instruments, an idea that would later lead to Rock Band, developed under MTV. Shortly after the MTV acquisition in December 2006, discussions between Dhani Harrison (son of George Harrison) and MTV President Van Toffler led to meetings with Apple Corps, Ltd., resulting in The Beatles: Rock Band, though this was not publicly announced until late 2008.

Harmonix released Rock Band in November 2007. As MTV's first game, Rock Band expanded on Guitar Hero by adding three peripherals: guitar/bass, microphone, and drums. Harmonix continued supporting the game by offering downloadable songs to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players weekly. By March 2013, over 4,000 songs had been made available as downloadable content, with more than 100 million songs downloaded.

In October 2008, Harmonix and MTV Games announced an exclusive agreement with Apple Corps, Ltd. to create a standalone game based on Rock Band featuring The Beatles' music, to be released in late 2009. The Beatles: Rock Band included 45 songs from their 1962–69 EMI recordings, using UK-released versions of their albums Please Please Me through Abbey Road. The developers worked with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr for input and used Giles Martin, son of Sir George Martin, as the game's music director. Harmonix stated the game would not be branded as Rock Band and that the songs would not be available for download.