Honestly, this interview — by Alex Navarro, ex-Harmonix employee — is one of the best I’ve ever read and absolutely deserves to be read in full. In this wide ranging interview with his former employers they discuss the past and future of Harmonix and Rock Band, and broach the subject of the relationship with Activision and Bobby Kotick.
According to Harmonix co-founder Eran Egozy, the team continues to have far reaching plans for the Rock Band franchise.
“We do have plans on where we’re going to go with Rock Band and how we plan to expand it,” he explained. “All I’ll say for now is that it isn’t what you think. You might assume we’re going to add saxophone or something along those lines, but no, the kind of direction we’re planning on taking Rock Band, the kind of innovation we have in mind, is taking it in a different direction, one that’s more suitable to the kind of environment we’re in, what people are doing now, what they’re interested in playing now, versus, say, 2007.
“We are working on it, and we have forward progress,” continued Egozy. “It’s an exciting, fresh take on it. I’ll leave it at that.”
Interestingly enough, although completely unconnected, was the fact that high ranking members of Harmonix have actually met up with Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, in the wake of their split.
“I have met with Bobby on a number of occasions,” said Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos. “Most recently, I think it was shortly after Harmonix’s departure from Viacom. Honestly, it was just to open communication. There had been such a chill in communication during the heart of the wars, so to speak, that this was just essentially an attempt to thaw that a bit, bury the hatchet, open a dialogue to see if there was any potential for collaboration between the two companies. Not even necessarily on the Rock Band/Guitar Hero front, just in general.”
According to Alex, Harmonix is not completely averse to working with Activision again in the future.
“I don’t consider the fact that we were intense competitors in the past to necessarily preclude the idea that we could work together on the right thing in the future. I think so.”
It really is a fantastic interview that discusses everything from the early successes of Harmonix to its recent struggle with former parent company Viacom. An absolute must read.
The Past, Present, and Future of Harmonix: Part I [Giant Bomb]
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