Baptiste also shared that the success of Rock Band has caused some fun growing pains for Harmonix. They’ve grown to 120 employees, and as a result they have a new building that is so large that the company invested in scooters so that people could make it to meetings on time. Apparently there is even a ramp that joins the first and second floor, which makes for much scooter mayhem.
Being that Sundance, despite its indy assertions, is all about celebs, I asked if he could share some of the famous names who’ve rocked out on RB. At Sundance they played with the Bravery, after the Child’s Play charity dinner they played with Wil Wheaton, former Star Trek teen heartthrob, backstage at the VMA’s they were set up at the Fall Out Boy party and Rock Band’ed out with members of Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, and Gym Class Heroes. “It’s great when you get a real band to play and the drummer fails out,” Baptiste joked. Apparently it takes them a minute to figure it out, then they come back with a vengeance. Scott Weiland came to the Ray Ban/Rock Band party but didn’t get a chance to play as there was a power outage all down Main Street in Park City. Kevin Sorbo (Hercules/Andromeda) also came to check out the Rock Band action, but didn’t, sadly, play.
Rock Band may very well be the Karaoke of this generation. With the popularity of it at the Sundance RayBan/Rock Band party I would not be at all surprised to see a Rock Band bar pop-up in the near future. Regardless, with new individual/third party instruments and a continued commitment to weekly downloadable content Rock Band will be a strong presence in gamedom well throughout 2008.
