Harmonix Music Systems is best known for its award winning game titles “Guitar Hero” (first released in 2005) and “Rock Band” (first released in 2007), which fueled an explosive growth of music gaming. However, few realize that Harmonix was founded in 1995, a full 10 years prior to the music game revolution.
What happened during those 10 years?
Eran Egozy, co-founder of Harmonix, will describe Harmonix’s mission, and how it tried to fulfill this mission through different products and business models. The company’s eventual success came not through an overnight flash of brilliance, but rather through prolonged trial-and-error, product iteration, and lessons learned from failed attempts. Eran will also describe Harmonix’s post-Rock Band adventures, including an eye towards future directions in music gaming.
Eran Egozy is the co-founder and chief technical officer of Harmonix Music Systems, one of the pre-eminent game development studios in the world, having developed more than a dozen critically acclaimed music-based video games. Harmonix was founded in 1995 on the principle that non-musicians should be able to experience the joy making music. Beginning in 2005, Harmonix developed Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2, fueling the explosive growth of the music games category to over $1 billion in sales. In 2006, Harmonix launched the innovative and award-winning title Rock Band. The blockbuster franchise grew to include Rock Band 2, Rock Band 3, and The Beatles: Rock Band. Harmonix is also the creator behind the ground-breaking hit titles, Dance Central and Dance Central 2, the first fully immersive, no-controller dance games for the Kinect. Eran and his business partner Alex Rigopulos were named in Time Magazine’s Time 100 in 2008, Fortune Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2009, and USA Network’s Character Approved awards in 2010.
Eran brings extensive technical and musical expertise to Harmonix’s management team. He manages the company's engineering staff, directs intellectual property development, contributes to game design and helps drive corporate strategy. Prior to co-founding Harmonix, Eran conducted research on combining music and technology at the MIT Media Lab. He is also an accomplished clarinetist and performs in Boston’s eclectic chamber music group Radius Ensemble. Eran earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This is a Joint Distinguished Lecturer Seminar with C4DM