Kotick: Harmonix was a Failed Developer

"We had always known them as sort of somewhat a failed developer of music games. They always had really great ideas but nothing that was really commercially viable until Guitar Hero", so said Robert - Bobby - Kotick in his keynote at the DICE summit.

He clarfied, of course, "They always had really good ideas, but nothing that was really commercially viable until Guitar Hero and at first we thought, 'okay, it's a good piece of software, but if we gave it to Neversoft, they're going to knock the ball out of the park with this...'

So, the people from Activision didn't even bother visiting Harmonix in Boston. Kotick regrets this, "...of course, if we had gone up, I think the world of Guitar Hero would have been rewritten. It would be a lot different today. And it would probably be a profitable opportunity for both of us and an opportunity where you'd have even more innovation in the category".

All this must come as a punch in face to the recently unemployed staff over at NeverSoft.