Harmonix crowd-funding for Amplitude remake

Harmonix has opened a Kickstarter campaign for a remake of Amplitude, the PS2 music game.

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Music game developer Harmonix has started up a crowd-funding target for a remake of its PlayStation 2 game Amplitude. The remake is targeting PS3 and PS4, and the studio plans to launch it next March.

The Kickstarter project has a notably short life of only 18 days. It's targeting $775,000, but as of the time of writing it's reached almost $100,000 of it. The developer notes that it chose the short time frame because it needs to assign developers just after it ends, and if the project hadn't been secured by that point those resources would be put on other projects.

Hamonix says it's aiming to be "humble" by simply remaking Amplitude, rather than producing a full sequel. "The current goal is to make a faithful Amplitude "HD"--the core experience from PS2 re-developed for modern gaming devices," the project page says. However, it also mentions composing new music, which is the backbone of the game's structure, so it's not entirely a remake either.

Finally, the studio says that a PC release is unlikely, but when it lists its stretch goals a Vita port will probably be among them. For now, the base goal is just for PS3 and PS4.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 5, 2014 3:45 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Harmonix crowd-funding for Amplitude remake.

    Harmonix has opened a Kickstarter campaign for a remake of Amplitude, the PS2 music game.

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      May 5, 2014 3:50 PM

      Guess all that rock band money tried up or they didn't feel it was worth putting their own money into which is a show of stellar confidence.

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        May 6, 2014 3:39 AM

        [deleted]

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          May 6, 2014 6:38 AM

          I believe the thread from yesterday said that EA took a big chunk of that Rock Band money.

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            May 6, 2014 8:23 AM

            Ah, that's a shame, I guess they have to survive on Guitar Hero money then. Seriously though, seems odd they would enter into an agreement after Activision that would provide them less than stellar revenue.

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        May 6, 2014 6:24 AM

        It is odd that they don't disclose why they need the funds or how the funds are going to be used. I get they might need to use this as a springboard to show a publish that there is enough commercial interest to warrant publishing the game, but Playstation support indie publishing so that shouldn't be a big issue if they can fund the development.

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          May 6, 2014 6:46 AM

          They seemingly don't have the money to self fund it, publishers weren't interested, so they tried kickstarter.

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            May 6, 2014 7:44 AM

            I get that, but they should at least say that the money would go to the development of the game (vs like securing music rights, or paying to increase staff to accomplish the game faster or better, etc).

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        May 6, 2014 7:32 AM

        I don't see why so many people are having a hard time wrapping their head around this. They were the developer, not the publisher. They only got as much money as EA gave them.

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      May 5, 2014 5:35 PM

      I was just thinking about how I'd love to have Amplitude or Frequency on the Vita/PS4. This is awesome.

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      May 6, 2014 3:32 AM

      Speaking of Kickstarters, looks like the Outcast HD one is not gonna make it. Still less than 50% funded with less than 2 days to go.

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        May 6, 2014 6:33 AM

        Yeah, it reads like they expected support to come in pretty fast, but it's not happening. I remember the game, but it's not enough to make me throw down money for some reason. $251k/600k and 32 hrs to go. Not impossible, but not likely either.

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          May 6, 2014 6:47 AM

          It won't happen. Too niche. Real shame since I always meant to play the original (a friend of mine loved it) but it looks like shit these days.

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      May 6, 2014 3:46 AM

      Rockband 4 confirmed

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      May 6, 2014 3:47 AM

      [deleted]

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        May 6, 2014 6:43 AM

        I would back a McDonalds kickstarter that instead of a 20 chicken mcnuggets that you would get one big one. It would have to be the boot shape though, those are the best nuggets.

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      May 6, 2014 6:33 AM

      [deleted]

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        May 6, 2014 6:48 AM

        Why? Publishers won't touch it, so they're funding and gauging demand in one go, that's the whole point of Kickstarter.

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        May 6, 2014 7:34 AM

        Why is that? I don't even know what you're getting at. I'd love to see a world free of publishers.

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        May 6, 2014 7:57 AM

        I think I might see what you're getting at. At what point is it okay for a developer to spend all their profits and not reinvest enough to develop the next game? Or some thing like that.

        But, I think the finances may not work out that way. That line of thinking requires that the profit of a game be greater than development cost of the next game to not require some kind of cash injection (load, advancement, etc). That's probably just not accurate, even for large AAA titles. That line of thinking requires profit to be orders of magnitudes higher than just some dollars of pure profit.

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        May 6, 2014 8:00 AM

        How is this different from Obsidian's? They've made other successful games, but this one (Amplitude) is a throwback to something they did a long time ago and presumably won't garner the necessary support from a traditional publisher.

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          May 6, 2014 8:27 AM

          I think it's debatable if Obsidian has made successful games. (joke) but they have typically been a work for hire studio and their games weren't some of the highest grossing titles ever, between Guitar Hero and Rock Band, you'd think their funding would be secured for some time unless they grossly mismanagement their money or as a commentator above said they got shafted (in which case they were bad at business in that regard).

          But yeah, having fans fund throw backs seems to be a norm, so I won't condemn any studio for doing it. If I had that option, I'd certainly try it before funding something myself too.

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          May 6, 2014 8:28 AM

          Or Star Citizen, or Broken Age, or Wasteland 2

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