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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land I’m just a simple caveman lawyer, and your world of finance frightens and confuses me. However, it sounds like Viacom wants a refund on a substantial bonus it paid to Harmonix’s founders.
Viacom’s second quarter 2009 financials dropped this morning, singling out lower than expected Rock Band sales as one of the primary causes of the company’s 14% drop in revenue over the previous year.
You may like Guitar Hero. That’s fine. But while you’re enjoying Activision’s soulless take on Rock N’ Roll, know that artists prefer Rock Band.
It will be a very merry Christmas at the Rigopulos and Egozy households this year as the two Harmonix founders are about to have a December to remember — read: a new Lexus for the wife with obligatory gargantuan bow. In addition to rumoured Jelly of the Month Club memberships, Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy have been paid a $US150 million bonus for “exceeding performance targets” last quarter with Rock Band series.
Rock Band’s new in-game store was introduced for two reasons. One was to make things easier for you as a shopper. The other, more important (for MTV/Harmonix) reason was to make sure you just buy more damn songs. Which seems to have worked a treat, because Viacom have announced that ten million Rock Band songs have now been downloaded, up four million from March 20. Which was only a month-and-a-half ago! They also report that they’ve sold three million copies of the game itself, which when you consider the vast majority of those would have been bundle sales, is a number that must have the accounts types at Viacom, MTV and Harmonix tickled seven shades of pink. Rock Band Ships 3 Million; 10 Million Songs Downloaded [GameDaily]
Rock Band has been very, very good to MTV parent company Viacom, who announced that first quarter profits rose 33% based mainly off the sales of the sales of the title, along with higher advertising revenue at MTV Networks. The media conglomerate also enjoyed a revenue increase of 15% for the period, surpassing analyst expectations at $US 3.1 billion. Between having one of the hottest games on the market and their Iron Man movie opening this weekend (saw it last night, and it was amazing!), it’s not hard to imagine Viacom’s executive chairman Sumner Redstone rocking out to Blue Oyster Cult in celebration, as the Reuters article suggests. What is hard is trying to wipe the mental picture from your head. Thanks a bunch, Reuters.
Viacom rocks with Rock Band [Reuters] Photo by Lester Cohen of WireImage
Gibson’s first lawsuit against Activision was stupid enough, but subsequent filings against retailers and now Harmonix and MTV show they’re clearly suffering from a particularly acute case of STUPID LAWSUIT FEVER. Harmonix are having none of it, and have issued a statement claiming Gibson’s suit is “completely without merit”.
Thanks to the immense success of Rock Band, Harmonix has received a $US 208.7 million bonus in “performance based earnouts” from MTV Games and parent company Viacom. According to Viacom’s most recent financial statement, Harmonix was set to receive a bonus in the event of exceeding the expectations of MTV Games. The condition was a part of MTV Games’ acquisition agreement with Harmonix back in 2006. Since MTV Games payed $US 175 million for Harmonix, I’m thinking that they’ve definitely made their money’s worth on both sides of the deal.
Harmonix Earns $US 208.7 Million Bonus From Viacom [Gamasutra]
