Guitar Hero is a franchise that catapulted Red Octane and Harmonix directly into the money pit, but not everyone associated with the launch of the popular rhythm game came out of it crazy rich.


There was a reason the original Guitar Hero only launched on the Playstation 2, and that reason was Mad Catz.

"Guitar Hero was a game that we were actually involved with early on and pulled out because of a lawsuit with Konami," Mad Catz president and CEO Darren Richardson tells Kotaku. "We were doing the Xbox SKU and that's why there was only a Playstation 2 launch. That's why. We were in there and we pulled out as a result of (the lawsuit) and (Red Octane and Harmonix) went forward and it turned out to be a success, a huge success."


Richardson says they paid $300,000 to get out of their deal and cut themselves out of the Guitar Hero franchise.

"Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it," Richardson said. "It was brilliant. I come up with these strokes of genius from time to time. That was my best."