Harmonix joins MTV

That's right, MTV are buying my employer Harmonix! I'm pretty excited about it because first and foremost the signs are very good that they won't meddle with what makes Harmonix such a great place to work. Second, I'll get a decent pay out from my share options. Third, we now have the considerable might of MTV to help us take music gaming to the next level.

MTV paid $175 million to bring Harmonix into the fold, which is a ridiculously huge sum of money in anyone's book. It's actually the second highest price ever paid for a game developer. More than EA paid for Maxis (Sim City, The Sims) and second only to the $300 million Microsoft paid for renowned British developer Rare (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie).

As a Harmonix staffer put it on the Guitar Hero fan forum...

"The staff is unchanged, we're not moving, we're not changing our product development plans. We will continue to work on Guitar Hero, but now have the marketing might of MTV to help us achieve our initial goal: to allow everyone to experience the joy a musician feels performing music."

The press release