In 2006, Activision bought Red Octane, publisher of Guitar Hero, resulting in series developer Harmonix launching the rival game Rock Band and starting one of the uglier public feuds in gaming. Today, Activisionâs CEO said shunning Harmonix was a mistake.
âWhen we were buying Guitar Hero, or buying Red Octane, the makers of Guitar Hero, we knew about Harmonix,â Activisionâs Bobby Kotick said today during a surprisingly warm and self-deprecating speech made at the DICE gaming convention. âWe had always known them as sort of somewhat a failed developer of music games. They always had really great ideas but nothing that was really commercially viable until Guitar Hero. And [we thought], itâs a good piece of software, and if we gave it to [Activision-owned Tony Hawk development studio] Neversoft, theyâd knock the ball out of the park with this.
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âA lot of times when you get caught up in the financial details of the business, it makes you overlook whatâs really important, which is whoâs passionate, whoâs committed, whoâs inspired and whereâs the next idea going to come from.â
In the years that followed, Activision and Harmonix representatives frequently talked trash about each otherâs games, and, for a while, blamed each other for a lack of compatibility between the seriesâ instruments. Those compatibility issues were resolved, but public comments about each other had not noticeably warmed.
Today, Harmonix is owned by MTV and develops the Guitar Hero rival Rock Band. The series has been distributed by Activision rival EA, but that EA deal expires at the end of next month. EA CEO John Riccitiello recently told investors he hopes a new deal can be set up.
