Back to Blog

2013: Year in Review

2013 managed to still be a busy year for the Dance Central franchise, even without launching a new game! With focuses on fitness, content, and some awesome new merchandise for fans to buy, the year has flown by. Before we dive head first into 2014, let’s take a look back!


January

Usher helped us ring in the new year. Let’s be honest, Usher wishing you happy holidays and a happy new year is exactly what you wished for. And even though this video is from last year, the sentiment remains, so give it another look.

In what has become a Harmonix and Dance Central tradition, we once again ran a New Year Fitness Challenge! This year we focused in on four Harmonixers, each with a distinct fitness goal in mind. Jessa, Annette, Christine, and Tracy shared their fitness progress in between a brand new series of Fitness Playlist Challenges.

Fitness Challenge #1: Get Low

Fitness Challenge #2: Unlucky 13

Fitness Challenge #3: Pump It Up

Fitness Challenge #4: Old School

“Whip It” by Nicki Minaj was released as DLC.

Two new tracks from Pitbull were released for Dance Central 3: “International Love” ft. Chris Brown and “Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)” ft. T-Pain.

The Wanted’s “Glad You Came” was released for Dance Central 3.

“Let It Roll” by Flo Rida was released for Dance Central 3.

Let’s not forget that Hugh Jackman played Dance Central 3 backstage at the Golden Globes. We’ll accept any excuse to post a video of Hugh Jackman.


FEBRUARY

Our Fitness Challenge journey continued on through February with even more new playlist challenges.

Fitness Challenge #5: Move Your Middle

Fitness Challenge #6: Break A Sweat

Fitness Challenge #7: Off The Hook

Fitness Challenge #8: The Final Challenge

We added two Justin Bieber tracks to the Dance Central 3 song library with killer choreo by Marcos and Chanel. Justin Bieber Dance Pack 01 includes “Beauty And a Beat” by Justin Bieber ft. Nicki Minaj and “All Around the World” by Bieber ft. Ludacris.

“What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction was released as DLC.

We released “Lights” by Ellie Goulding as DLC.

“Airplanes” by B.o.B. ft. Hayley Williams of Paramore was released as DLC.

Usher wished you all a Happy Valentine’s Day.

In response to the constant requests for choreographer information, we released a HUGE compendium of which of our talented choreographers devised the routines to each song. We also added this information to the song page for each song in the Dance Central library.

After two months of sweating it out, we brought the New Year Fitness Challenge to a close with final wrap-up blog posts from each of our Harmonix fitness participants.


MARCH

“Take Care” by Drake was released as Dance Central 3 DLC.

We attended PAX East, complete with Dance Central booth, cool swag, and cosplayer cameos! You can read our full write up (which was released in April but only because we were exhausted from PAX East) here!

Rihanna Dance Pack 02 was added to the Dance Central 3 catalog with two irrefutable hits “Umbrella” and “SOS”.

Our final Dance Central 3 DLC was released, “London Bridge” by Fergie.

We were thrilled to be able to be able to bring Dance Central 3 to Games on Demand, joining Dance Central 2. Now dancers don’t even need to leave their living room to download and get dancing.


APRIL

Dance Central Black Out, anyone?

We introduced some new blog series! Each month, The Dancer’s Spotlight focuses on a new impressive fan and the awesome things they’re up to. We kicked off this series with our good friend and YouTube sensation, Raffy.

We also started the Crew Throwdown series! Each new Throwdown pits two of our beloved Dance Central crews against each other and lets Facebook votes on the Dance Central page decide which crew gets a victory blog. These victory blogs show the crew’s progress over the years, reveal neat new concept art, and also announce brand new crew merchandise!

Our first Crew Throwdown was Riptide vs. Flash4wrd. This time Riptide Crew brought home the gold.

Speaking of merch, we opened our very own online swag shop! Our first month of releases included some recreations of PAX East swag and an awesome Riptide Crew shirt.


MAY

Our second Dancer’s Spotlight featured cosplaying duo Heather and Nate.

Amanda McGinnis over at Console2Closet has done several AWESOME outfits inspired by Dance Central characters and crews. We got to interview her in May.

Our second Crew Throwdown featured Lu$h vs. Hi-Def, with Lu$h crew taking home the prize.


JUNE

We decided to shake things up this year and have a mini-Fitness Challenge during the summer months! We aimed to help people keep active even while they took a break from the sun indoors.

The Summer Fitness Challenge included all new Playlist Challenges, of course.

Summer Playlist Challenge #1
Summer Playlist Challenge #2
Summer Playlist Challenge #3
Summer Playlist Challenge #4

This month’s Dancer’s Spotlight also had a fitness focus. We featured Jamie, who has been using Dance Central and YouTube to get fit!

After many requests, we gave Flash4wrd and Hi-Def another shot at fame with the new Crew Throwdown. Hi-Def pulled ahead and won the victory post!


JULY

We featured another Fitness fan in July’s Dancer’s Spotlight. This time we met Sean who has dropped an incredible amount of weight in the past year and has great words of wisdom for anyone trying to do the same.

Summer Playlist Challenge #5
Summer Playlist Challenge #6
Summer Playlist Challenge #7
Summer Playlist Challenge #8

This month’s Crew Throwdown was D-Coy vs. DCI. Old school D-Coy Crew managed to pull ahead!


AUGUST

In celebration of the Summer Fitness Challenge and everyone’s awesome work, we ran a pretty sweet giveaway. Several lucky winners got swag bags, and one even got an awesome Dance Central branded Xbox 360 console!

This month’s Dancer’s Spotlight featured renowned fan-artist Ili.


SEPTEMBER

September was a quiet month as our team came off of a chaotic two months of constant travel. We did have another Crew Throwdown, this time Glitterati vs. Murder of Crows. Glitterati’s fabulous moves proved impossible to beat!

Worth mentioning, Console 2 Closet did a fantastic Glitterati inspired outfit. Check it out!


OCTOBER

The Dancer’s Spotlight this month focused in on fanartist Kei!

The ultimate Dance Central 3 showdown: This month’s Crew Throwdown was DCI vs. Murder of Crows. Even Dr. Tan couldn’t hold Oblio-fans back though!


NOVEMBER

For November’s Dancer’s Spotlight, we met up with Canadian cosplaying crew KBND!

Though we actually released the first one in October, in November we started rolling out even more Fan Packs! These artist-focused DLC packs are a great way for you to build up your Dance Central 3 song library for less. Rihanna Fan Pack 01 joined Sean Paul and Justin Bieber Fan Packs!


DECEMBER

December’s Dancer’s Spotlight focused on Paulino Boado, who has been a driving force in organizing Dance Central tournaments all over the Philippines!

We also added new Fan Packs to the catalog. Ne-Yo Fan Pack 01 came out early in the month and two more are coming at the end –we don’t want to spoil the surprise though!

We also outdid ourselves with our December merch launch. Not only did we release some limited time Dance Central stocking and Santa Hats for all your festive needs, we also put out a sweet Dance Central concept art shirt featuring Mo. It’s similar to a shirt our team has worn at shows before and has been highly requested!

The brand new HarmonixMusic.com launched –what a beauty! And just as exciting are the new and improved forums for Dance Central. We were able to pull over all the previously made accounts so fans won’t miss a beat. As we’re getting ready for the new year, head on over and check them out!


That's all for this year, and what a crazy year it's been. We are psyched for another year though, so rest up, have a great holiday, and we'll see you back here in the new year!