Rock Band Earns Harmonix Possible $208M Bonus

March 3, 2008 11:50 AM

The strong performance of Harmonix's multiplayer rhythm game Rock Band (PS2, PS3, X360) may have earned its former shareholders upwards of $208 million, reports Gamasutra.

Going by Viacom's annual report to the SEC, the company's acquisition of Harmonix in 2005 included a clause that stipulated performance-based incentives for the former sharholders if Rock Band exceeded expectations.

The report notes that some $208.7 million in bonuses has been set aside, to be paid out over the 2008 calendar year.

According to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, this brings Viacom's total Harmonix-related spendings to over $380 million, despite Rock Band and all of its DLC amounting to roughly $190 million in gross revenue. The game has sold over 1.5 million units and 2.5 million downloadable songs since its November 20 debut.

Aaron Linde

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ease one

 reply
March 3, 2008 12:07 PM

Interesting. This kind of thing is unheard of. Common sense says you don't want to pay your employees too much or they might leave and start their own company.

Common sense also says I hope I get a HUGE BONUS TOO someday.
- hirez
  
   reply
  March 3, 2008 12:22 PM
  
  yeah, thats the rub. You want provide enough incentive to the employees to go the extra mile, but not so much that they end up running away. I wonder with a bonus this big - they may have done something % based, but never expected it to be this much.
  - Demius
    
     reply
    March 3, 2008 12:28 PM
    
    unless harmonix has like 600+ employees :D
    - hirez
      
       reply
      March 3, 2008 12:50 PM
      
      thats still a bonus of $345k per person!
  - imperator
    
     reply
    March 3, 2008 12:55 PM
    
    Ehm its for the former SHAREHOLDERS that were bought out, which is probably not entirely made up of employees.
    - imperator
      
       reply
      March 3, 2008 12:56 PM
      
      "to the extent financial results exceed specific contractual targets against a defined gross profit metric through 2008" -- that is, should Harmonix's sales exceed MTV's expectations -- "former Harmonix shareholders will be eligible for incremental earn-out payments with respect to the years ended December 31, 2007 and December 31, 2008."
    - ease one
      
       reply
      March 3, 2008 1:07 PM
      
      maybe, it is not unheard of for regular employees to hold shares though, although I am sure they don't hold that much.
      
      Then again it could be a cool 200k for those employees low on the totem pole, who the hell knows.
      - imperator
        
         reply
        March 3, 2008 1:16 PM
        
        Oh im sure lots of employees hold shares , but there was probably several large investors as well as the founders sitting on larger chunks of the shares.
- gnoleb
  
   reply
  March 3, 2008 1:43 PM
  
  Yeah, as if this money would actually make its way to most of the employees. They have executives- I'm sure they'll suck all of the cash out before it trickles down to the people who actually make the games.