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n0wak

MTV acquires Harmonix

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:violin:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/business/media/22mtv.html?ei=5088&en=d808a3def745e2d1&ex=1316577600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1158927274-43uRY16IFdP+JRZYwpv5xg

And so begins the downfall of Harmonix. I'm curious as to what this means for the "Guitar Hero" brand. While MTV would now own Harmonix, the creators of that, I think all publishing rights are still owned by Red Octane (who is now owned by Acclaim, a deal they specifically made to get Guitar Hero), so Guitar Hero is becoming this giant corporate ownership orgy.

MTV branded Guitar Hero? :pan:

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Meh, seems fine. They'll have the money to do awesome stuff for a few years now, then some of the people will get bored and start a new company.

It's the ciiiiiircle, the ciiiiiiircle of life...

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Wan't Guitar Hero already MTV branded? Every time I start it up, I see a distinctive "MTV Games" logo.

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MTV just gets a cut of the profits while Harmonix gets more money to make their games and probably has access to more songs now. I doubt that MTV would try to mess with Harmonix and tell them what to do.

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It likely means Harmonix will be pidgeonholed into doing only Guitar Hero forever, regardless of what they want to do, plus we'll probably be getting something hilarious like Hip Hop Hooray Hip Hop Hero and other needless spin-offs which are branded "Harmonix" but developed by completely different teams who MTV can get away with paying less.

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Thinking of Harmonix, who's played Amplitude? I loved Frequency but never got a chance to pick up it's sequel. Should I bother to track it down?

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I have FreQ and Amp. If you liked FreQ, it's basically the same thing, but with some improvements (which I cannot list because I don't really remember, heh). People seem to say that Amp is just more polished. I think I unlocked the final difficulty and then stopped playing.

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While MTV would now own Harmonix, the creators of that, I think all publishing rights are still owned by Red Octane (who is now owned by Acclaim, a deal they specifically made to get Guitar Hero), so Guitar Hero is becoming this giant corporate ownership orgy.

RedOctane was bought by Activision, not Acclaim. Acclaim in its current state is just a publisher of MMOs and not in any position to buy anyone.

I think what this shows is that Activision paid waaaaay too much for the wrong company. They got the Guitar Hero brand and the patent on the plastic guitar, but they failed to purchase the developers of the game.

If MTV/Harmonix wants to go off and make Saxaphone Hero/Accordion Hero/Bass Master, etc. they can do it with any publisher. They're probably tied into a multi-title deal with Activision/Red Octane, but they're still independent.

If anything, the MTV deal means Harmonix has better stuff in their future. Before Guitar Hero, they were this small, but pretty cool company making quirky musical games. Now they've got the backing of a major conglomerate, so hopefully we'll see a FreQ style game for handheld systems or something.

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I don't think there's any other instrument that would generate the kind of interest or be as applicable to popular music as the guitar.

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I don't think there's any other instrument that would generate the kind of interest or be as applicable to popular music as the guitar.

My friend, you severely underestimate the power of the Accordion.

And who wouldn't want to rock out with Keytar Hero?

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I was wondering : do you know FrestOnFire aka The Guitar Hero of the Poor ?

It's a free Guitar Hero clone for the PC ( you play with F1->F5 keys and enter) and in the most recent version, you can even use the guitar controller from GH. Great, ain't it ?

And because the creator is providing tools to create your own 'song' lots of stuff are added...and they even managed to rip the songs directly from GH.

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If MTV/Harmonix wants to go off and make Accordion Hero [snip]

Too late. :oldman:

And I'll be damned if that's not one fine-looking controller. I bet the game's hard as nails too.

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Too late. :oldman:

And I'll be damned if that's not one fine-looking controller. I bet the game's hard as nails too.

I know all about A.H. I pre-ordered Accordion Hero the second they announced it.

After great games like Nazgul Thunder and Cthulhu Karts, I'll buy anything Schadenfreude puts out.

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I just hope MTV doesn't end up having any say what kind've music goes into the games...

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