Article written by Kovacs.
Published on 04/01/2011 at 01:32 PM.
Reported by All Things Digital, Rock Band developer Harmonix was allegedly sold by Viacom to investment group Columbus Nova for the opulent sum of $49.99 – the price of one copy of its latest game, Rock Band 3. Before you think the wily money-men got it for a steal, don’t forget Columbus Nova have also taken on all of Harmonix’s debt and expenses, including expensive music rights and enough plastic instruments currently sitting on store shelves to bury Luxembourg in a sea of green, red, blue, yellow and orange buttons.
Having paid $175 million (or 3.5 million copies of Rock Band 3 worth) for Harmonix in early 2006, things aren’t that bad for former parent Viacom, as the deal allows the giant media conglomerate to net in the region fo $150 million in tax benefits.
Source: All Things Digital
Wow – I could’ve afforded Harmonix (although I’d be in debt).
But who cares, I’d make everyone on TSA buy Rock Band 3 then I’d be rich!
haha i was just thinking that…
Always nice to see price cuts.
I got bored of GH5 quite easily and that was my first foray into plastic guitar land. Also found that i couldnt play it for long as it kept fucking up my eyes. Have no idea how you managed 24hrs on Rockband blair!!
The worst eye-screw about Rock Band and Guitar Hero is how you tend to keep scrolling upwards after playing it for a long time, it’s like watching the whole of the credits to one of the new Star Wars films.
The first decent January deal I’ve head.
reminds me when woolworths went bankrupt a few years back and they where selling their company for 1p on the market. but however boguth it was also getting a couple of million in debt. too bad no one saved them i miss woolworths
They’re still here and going strong in Australia
I’m still shocked at how poorly Rock Band 3 sold. Absolutely fantastic game with so much effort put into it.
so if i wanted a copy of the new rock band game, it would have been cheaper to just buy the company? :o
I remember when Phil Mitchell sold the Queen Vic to Dirty Den for a fiver…
Viacom are the people who started all the copyrighting claims on youtube, horrible stuck up company. Good luck to harmonix though.
surely it is a limited company, so if you wanted a game you would just need to buy it – get as many games and kit in your van as you could and then send the company into administration