hmxsean’s Comments

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Friday, October 9, 2009

he is probably best known as Frodo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Which is actually the first thing I thought when I saw his head poke in.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

That's the thing - you don't have to compete with us, we're ineligible to win (and will probably be going to the VMA's anyways... mostly to vacuum the red carpet).

Friday, May 22, 2009

Fixed.

Friday, March 13, 2009

That happened to me too in Firefox. Explorer played it great. We're looking into it now.

Friday, March 13, 2009

For the record - I was not drunk when I hit on the bear. I just liked its looks.

Friday, March 13, 2009

To answer a few questions - yes we had all the DLC including a book at the front of the stage so people could call songs out to us or pick them to play themselves. This was a godsend. I remember when we were on tour promoting Rock Band 1 and we only had 20 of the on-disc songs which we would play over and over 12 hours per day 7 days per week. Since it was a press tour we also had to make it look like we cared about singing those songs over and over. This was much better.

And yes - that is Chief with the beard. Very awesome guy. Literally everyone in that picture (minus us) are great people. We, on the other hand, are jerks. :)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Huh?

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I made this post in response to this thread (it also appears there). http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64804 :


Let me tell a story here if I may-

A long time ago we made music games. We've always made music games except when we made Epcot Center attractions (before we moved to video games) and tried our hand at Antigrav. It is what we do. It is what we're passionate about. At last count we were a company of over 200 that was over 70% musicians. We're weird as far as game companies go.

I arrived at HMX during the KR series as a direct result of being a huge fan of Amplitude and Frequency and ultimately having some friends who knew some people (thanks Maria) after trying very hard to come aboard. I believed in the company and what they were trying to do.

But most people didn't care. At the time the music game genre was very limited. Music games were niche only for the most hardcore and for importers. It wasn't a market here, and it was difficult to stay afloat even with our being just about the only competitor in the genre. Yes, there was DDR, but even that was seemingly pretty niche and not a lot like the stuff we were doing and wanted to continue doing. We didn't want you to react to the music - we wanted you to BE the music.

Then we were the developers on GH1. We worked really, really hard on it and thought it would kind of go the way of the rest of our games - a small group of passionate fans but no real mass appeal.

We were wrong. It turned out to be a big deal. One of the biggest games that year and certainly the most revolutionary as far as what it did to the industry. Suddenly a bunch of musicians were seeing their work inspire a whole generation of kids to pester their parents for a guitar. Some people criticized us but mainly they were wrong. We made something that made kids want to play music. Even better - it wasn't constrained to kids. Parents, grandparents, and other non-kid-bound adults were having the same reactions.

In summary - a bunch of (fairly rough-neck) local musicians put something together that ended up becoming a good pop-culture phenomenon. We couldn't have been more proud. In a sense, that was what it was always about. Making money? Sure... we have apartments and mortgages and families and always that ever-hungry desire for more gear for our projects. Making more musicians? That's it, right? making more people know how awesome it is to play music.

We went on to develop GH2. Same reaction.

A bunch of stuff happened and then we moved on to Rock Band, a game which I hope will be as inspirational in creating a whole new generation of bands as when the Velvet Underground put out albums.

More amazing moments have happened to me since Rock Band began to development than I could possibly divulge in a single post. I've met celebrities. I've met musicians who have inspired whole sections of my life. I've been quoted, and I've forwarded those quotes to friends and family who have been tickled by the whole thing.

But, and I think I speak for a majority of HMX, the best part has been watching our games touch people in subtle ways that make them want to make the next leap to picking up real instruments because they liked the way our game made them feel.

The press, the internet, fanboys, lots of people, will make a big deal of some competition between all the music games coming out. That one of us is trying to destroy the others.

Me? I'm just stoked that the genre is even big enough to support multiple games in the first place. For a while there it was foggy whether it could even support just us.

We're musicians. We love what we do. We love what we make. We would never put out something that we thought was crappy just to "compete". Our focus is our game and always will be. Well, that and tricking more of you into being musicians.

Sorry for being long-winded. I feel very passionate about what we do. If I didn't I would work somewhere else.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

This missive's BATTLE HAT!!!? Kevin Costner Vs Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man

So I was at the MTV Movie Awards two weekends ago out at Universal Studios near LA. This was on June 1st- the day that the Universal Studios back lot burnt down.

Basically I showed up late the night before (Saturday night) thinking everything was hunky dory. I ordered some food once I got to my hotel room, answered some emails, watched some terrible television, went to bed. In the morning I went down to breakfast in the hotel lobby and saw this.

I checked my trusty Blackberry and come to find out there had been some weird fire overnight in the backlot where there were a bunch of sets and some archives and they hadn't been able to put it out. Also it was spreading. The news was that they were still going to let the Awards show go on and that the theme park would remain open to the public.

I finished up my breakfast with Peter Banks (one of our dudes from MTV Games and the photographer of the fire picture above) and we headed over to the park. I took a bunch more photos of the smoke plume as we got closer and closer - it really took up half the sky at one point, it was that big. The show must go on?

Our setup was on the red (err...gold) carpet - the entry way into the show. At the far corner we had a little stage with a full setup out in the sun. In front of us were the actual doors to Gibson amphitheater. On the other side of the amphitheater? The fire. The fire marshal made sure to let everyone know that we could be evacuated at any time. Awesome.

We got the stage all hooked up with the Wii version of the game, did our lag calibration, and got into costume. The day before I left I went to Goodwill and bought myself a suit jacket and dress shirt for $13 (total). I then brought it home and cut off the sleeves using a combination of knives, scissors, and a lighter. I also had a tie... because I am classy.

It took a while for the celebrities (referred to often as "the talent") to show up. The carpet was scheduled to be about two hours long and not many people showed up until the final half hour and then it got slammed.

We were asked a couple times to turn it down, for the most part we didn't. We were stuck over next to what I call "Blog Corner" where a bunch of people from cult-of-celebrity-sites were trying to pull talent for interviews. One lady said that it sucked that we played so loud and that it was stupid and we were ruining her day. I didn't really feel too badly as she was pretty much a jerk about it but I felt even less badly when it was pointed out to me that she was using a $9 voice recorder you could pick up at walgreens for her interviews. Six words for her - invest in a good omnidirectional mic. Stat.

We had a few people jump up - Carson Daly, the Clique Girls, a couple bands I was unfamiliar with, the Pussycat Dolls. At one point I was playing the bass and suddenly someone jumped on stage, grabbed onto me, grinded up against me for a few pictures and then took off. It was Tila Tequila.

But none could prepare for the second greatest Rock Band-related moment of my life (Herbie Hancock will always be number 1).


AMERICAN GLADIATORS WOLF AND JUSTICE... with a much smaller me and JohnD

Both of us are huge American Gladiators fan so it was borderline insane to actually get to play with them. Also they are big dudes. Wolf threatened to throw our prototype Wii drumset if he failed out and I had no plans on stopping him. Justice grabbed the guitar and the strap wouldn't even get around him. The dude is gigantic. JohnD grabbed the other guitar and I grabbed mic. I think the song was "Here It Goes"... we failed out pretty quick. Luckily they didn't throw anything, they just shook our hands and continued inside.

So good.

I had tickets to the show itself but decided to go back to the hotel and watch it on tv in the restaurant/bar. When it was over I got tickets to the after-party which was pretty insane. I met a bunch of really cool people (JABBERWOKEEZ rule), had some tasty, weird drinks, and generally just had a swell time.


-Sean


BATTLE HAT!!!

Kevin Costner vs Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man

For real? KC versus something awesome? Do I really have to do this? Ok, fine, I will. Mr. Costner uses his snooze inducing "Empty-Theater-On-Opening-Night" glare. Puft falls asleep. Costner revels as he has no other discernible skills. Puft topples over in his sleepiness. Costner is oblivious to the end of his career/life as he is crushed by 3000 tons of delicious 'mallow.

Stay-Puft FTW

Thursday, June 12, 2008