An update: Columbus Nova technically only paid $49.99 for Harmonix. However, they also assume all liabilities of Harmonix. This include music licensing fees, equipment, unsold inventory, etc.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/harmonix-sold-for-4999-plus-liabilities---report/

Those liabilities are the very reason for the sale, so probably a good move on Viacom's part, as they've essentially gotten rid of a huge chunk of debt.

Interesting. Rock Band is a popular name so I'd have thought they'd want to keep the franchise, but I guess it wasn't making them enough money.

Harmonix was their only involvement is the video game industry, I guess they didn't want to invest in another developer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Rock Band not make them any money? I think the franchise was in the red since day one, and stayed that way. It was set up for a "long term strategy", which started to look foolish once the music genre became so oversaturated and consumer interest waned.

I don't think Rock Band ever had any serious long-term strategy.  Otherwise the state of the genre wouldn't be so wierd right now.  Nor would they have pushed out their Wii product half a year late.  The export songs option wouldn't cost money to do.  Things like that.  I think Viacom gave Harmonix free reign over themselves and just expected profit to happen without looking at the general state of the market or their key consumers.

That's very possible too... it was just my assumption that they had a long term strategy, since they were losing money from the get go.

Also, my guess is they didn't expect the current state of the genre... I think they were predicting an "ever green franchise", ala Madden, where they could pump the games out year after year and see them hit the top ten charts. What they failed to calculate was that between them and Activison churning out music game after music game that people were going to get burned out of the genre pretty quick.

I'm glad the music genre is dead. I look forward to Nintendo breathing new life into it with Wii Music 2.

If Viacom had a long term strategy for Rock Band I think that was not such a bad idea.  It was Activision that killed the genre through over-exposure.  I don't expect Viacom to have been able to predict that that would happen.

But what both companies failed to grasp was what people REALLY wanted.  No one wanted to buy a new game every year or buy band specific games or constantly buy new hardware.  They just wanted to play their favourite songs with their friends and the way to do that was with an iTunes-like download service.  But they got greedy and wanted to sell new doodads every year and make special exclusivity deals with certain acts.  We had TWO games which made no sense.  Certain artists insisted on having special track packs and stuff like that.  To give people what they really wanted there needed to be a lot of cooperation between Harmonix, RedOctane, Activision and the artists.  If they all played ball they would all have made fistfuls of money and likely had a sustainable product that could go on for years and maybe even seperate itself from any console and be its own platform.  The potential was huge.  But everyone was in it for themselves and the whole thing turned into a fad that everyone got sick of.

In most cases I encourage competition in business but this was one situation where it really was not ideal.  Sometimes you just need a standard.