When Harmonix, MTV Games, and Electronic Arts released The Beatles: Rock Band, it was described as "nothing less than a cultural watershed".
After decades of unlicensed and unofficial games, the most famous band in the world was finally getting its own video game, not only celebrating the group's music, but also its iconic history, with input from the surviving members.
Famously, in the past, it's been said that the deal all came about thanks to a chance encounter between the MTV president at the time, Van Toffler, and Dhani Harrison, the son of the Beatle George Harrison, with both parties enlisting the help of the MTV-owned Rock Band creators Harmonix to handle its development. But what you might not know is that Harmonix's rival, Neversoft, also pitched The Beatles on their own Beatles video game — one that never ended up getting made.
This story recently came to light thanks to an excerpt from the upcoming book by journalist Blake Hester, The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom, published on the recently-launched Oral History website Design Room. In the excerpt, called "Tomorrow Never Knows", Hester interviewed various former Harmonix and Neversoft employees about how The Beatles deal came together, leading the Neversoft designer Alan Flores to reminisce about their attempts to snag the rights.
"That was the big crown jewel," Flores told Hester. "We all thought we were going to make a billion dollars making a Beatles game.
"We put together a pitch [for The Beatles], we made a Yellow Submarine venue, we did a note track, and we made a video, and we pitched it to them. The rumor was that The Beatles saw it and then Harmonix heard about it, and they freaked out because they heard it was — I mean, I remember it looking really, really good. I'm sure you can find it somewhere. Someone at Neversoft probably has a video of it."
As history tells us, though, the company ultimately lost out to Harmonix, with Neversoft staff suggesting they just couldn't compete with the money that Harmonix was throwing around, which had driven up the cost of licensing.
Flores told Hester, "They wanted a ton of money. A ton of money on top of the licensing and the royalties. So it was like — the game would've had to have sold monument[ally well]. Just a ton. And I don't think the game that came sold like it would've had to make it profitable, given how much the license was costing."
In response to the revelation, Greg LoPiccolo, the project leader at Harmonix, denied having any knowledge of Neversoft putting together a pitch for The Beatles license, suggesting the reaction at Harmonix maybe wasn't as as pronounced as those at Neversoft would have you believe. Nevertheless, it's interesting to see that Neversoft did make an approach to The Beatles, even if it came to nothing.
You can read the original article here. Hester's book, The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom, is priced at £45 and is available to purchase now from Read Only Memory's website..