Amplitude "Isn't In the Cards" For PC

[Andy Chalk]

Amplitude "Isn't In the Cards" For PC

Amplitude belongs to Sony and for that reason and various others, Harmonix says it has to be a PlayStation exclusive.

The thing you may have noticed about successfully Kickstarted video games is that a lot of them are for the PC. It's a natural fit - if you're on the Kickstarter site, then it's very likely you're on your PC, or at least know where it is and how to turn it on - and so it's natural to ask why Harmonix, which launched a Kickstarter for Amplitude earlier this month [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134226-Harmonix-Launches-Kickstarter-for-Amplitude-on-PS3-and-PS4], didn't include a PC version of the game in its plans.

The short answer is that it couldn't. "This is Sony's IP and taking it to non-PlayStation platforms is just not in the cards right now," Nick Chester of Harmonix told Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "Going into this, we knew how the lack of a PC/Mac/Linux version might have an impact [on our Kickstarter]; we're not blind to that fact, as I've seen some suggest."

Hopes for something down the road in the way of a "spiritual successor" seem faint too, as Chester added that the complications go beyond the simple question of Sony owning the IP. "There are other moving parts that wouldn't necessarily give us a clear path to doing a spiritual successor on other platforms without the Amplitude name," he said.

The built-in support for Amplitude obviously comes from Team PlayStation - the original was a PS2 exclusive, after all - and so it's hard to gauge how much of an impact the promise of a PC release would have on its fortunes. But it certainly couldn't hurt, and Amplitude could use the help: With four days left in the Kickstarter [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/harmonix/amplitude], it's not even halfway to its $775,000 goal.

Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/05/19/harmonix-amplitude-pc-version/]


Permalink

 

[Amaror]

Yeah, right, what was that again what you said earlier about that this game had nothing to do with sony, which is why you needed to kickstart the project in the first place?
Oh you forgot about that, neat.
In all seriousness in my opinion this project does sound quite a bit fishy. Not in a "They are gonna take the money and run" kind of way, but in a "They have a publisher and don't need the money, but wanna squeeze some out of kickstarter anyway" kind of way.
To be honest i am even a bit glad that this kickstarter looks like it's going to fail.
But just a little bit, because i know there will be people out there that wanted the game.

 

[CriticalMiss]

To be honest i am even a bit glad that this kickstarter looks like it's going to fail.

Something tells me that it won't fail and that they will mysteriously get a lot of investors on the final day who may or may not be Sony and Harmonix employees pushing the total past 100% to get the cash from real investors. That or they'll redo the campaign with half the asking amount whilst not changing any of their plans or stretch goals.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

ohhh, that might explain why its 4 days to go and they have only have half of the cash, well it might be one of the reasons


well that and asking 770k bucks might have been a bit too much

that brings the following question tough, sony owns the IP, but it wont move its fat ass to fund its own games? instead itll leave their fans to fund the game themselves? thats a lot of bull if you ask me

 

[andrearene]

Yeah, right, what was that again what you said earlier about that this game had nothing to do with sony, which is why you needed to kickstart the project in the first place?
Oh you forgot about that, neat.
In all seriousness in my opinion this project does sound quite a bit fishy. Not in a "They are gonna take the money and run" kind of way, but in a "They have a publisher and don't need the money, but wanna squeeze some out of kickstarter anyway" kind of way.
To be honest i am even a bit glad that this kickstarter looks like it's going to fail.
But just a little bit, because i know there will be people out there that wanted the game.

Just because Sony owns the IP doesn't mean they will fund it. Just like how EA now owns the right to publish "Star Wars 1313" but that game will never see the light of day.

Sony is not publishing "Amplitude." They are merely allowing Harmonix to publish it with their permission, but they aren't funding it at all. Harmonix has agreed to foot the rest of the bill beyond what the Kickstarter funds, which will total more than $2M. You can read about the whole process on their blog.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I've changed the headline to the story - the original was a bit misleading, as it suggested (entirely unintentionally) that the new Amplitude wasn't going to be released for any system - ie,. the Kickstarter is doomed to failure. The Kickstarter is in trouble but not dead and buried by any stretch, and I didn't mean to imply that it is.

 

[fix-the-spade]

So this is pre-orders taken to the truly illogical extreme then?

Buy this console exclusive and then we might make it!

Pure genius.

I would be sincerely delighted if this fails and Sony/Harmonix never try it again.

 

[Mothhive]

Out of curiosity, have there been any successful console exclusive Kickstarters?

 

[Andy Shandy]

And it looks like it might be one of the reasons why it fails, unfortunately.

Still not sure why they hampered themselves out the gate by attaching to the Amplitude name with this either.

Shame as I enjoyed Amplitude back in the day and would've loved to see a successful Kickstarter for a spiritual successor on a variety of platforms.

 

[Amaror]

Just because Sony owns the IP doesn't mean they will fund it. Just like how EA now owns the right to publish "Star Wars 1313" but that game will never see the light of day.

Sony is not publishing "Amplitude." They are merely allowing Harmonix to publish it with their permission, but they aren't funding it at all. Harmonix has agreed to foot the rest of the bill beyond what the Kickstarter funds, which will total more than $2M. You can read about the whole process on their blog.

Yeah i got all that. It doesn't change the fact that it all sounds fishy.
It's an sony - IP, the dev gets mostly published by sony and they will make it exclusive to a sony platform.
I see two possibilities. Either they are frauds and are trying to get money from crowdfunding while secretly being funded by sony or they are idiots.
Because i can't see any reason why they would want to use sonys ip for this game.
They could have just made a spiritual successor with a different name. Then they would be able to develop it for all platforms and actually get it funded.
The original game is from 2003, which is pretty damn old, so they are not going to get much sales because of franchise recognition.
I just see no reason why they would do it this way.

Besides this whole project seems really strange.
Not only the fact that they tried to crowdfund an Playstation exclusive game, they also ask for more money than most kickstarted games, while also only doing the kickstarter for half the usual amount of time(18 days instead of 30).
If i think about it, it seems like they wanted this to fail and did everything they could to NOT get funded.

 

[weirdee]

Yeah, I don't see why they're fighting so hard to pay their own money and time to another company that is charging them to give their IP away...or why anybody else should. At least Microsoft is desperate enough to make a fair deal.

 

[Sight Unseen]

So this is pre-orders taken to the truly illogical extreme then?

Buy this console exclusive and then we might make it!

Pure genius.

I would be sincerely delighted if this fails and Sony/Harmonix never try it again.

If they don't meet their funding goal then nobody gets charged. So bring your attitude elsewhere.

 

[fix-the-spade]

If they don't meet their funding goal then nobody gets charged. So bring your attitude elsewhere.

That's not the point.

They are asking you to buy a game that's not even formally in development, whether they meet the goal or not is irrelevant, they're still pan handling for a Sony owned and backed IP.

Crowdfunding is (or was) intended for independent projects and groups that might not get corporate funding, but could probably generate a worthwhile amount of investment from an existing market (or not as the case may be), it is not supposed to be used by major publishers to have sales figures before they've even greenlit the budget. It's holding IP to ransom and it's more than a little cynical, I really do hope it bombs (and with four days to find $300k it might do just that).

For the sake of argument, would this be OK if it was EA or Activision declaring they wouldn't green light a game without the three quarters of a million dollars in (non refundable) sales before hand?

 

[Sight Unseen]

If they don't meet their funding goal then nobody gets charged. So bring your attitude elsewhere.

That's not the point.

They are asking you to buy a game that's not even formally in development, whether they meet the goal or not is irrelevant, they're still pan handling for a Sony owned and backed IP.

Crowdfunding is (or was) intended for independent projects and groups that might not get corporate funding, but could probably generate a worthwhile amount of investment from an existing market (or not as the case may be), it is not supposed to be used by major publishers to have sales figures before they've even greenlit the budget. It's holding IP to ransom and it's more than a little cynical, I really do hope it bombs (and with four days to find $300k it might do just that).

For the sake of argument, would this be OK if it was EA or Activision declaring they wouldn't green light a game without the three quarters of a million dollars in (non refundable) sales before hand?

HMX is an indie company doing an indie project without publisher money. Sony just (apparently) happens to own the IP rights to the game's title but is apparently not contributing directly to the project. No scam here.

 

[fix-the-spade]

HMX is an indie company doing an indie project without publisher money. Sony just (apparently) happens to own the IP rights to the game's title but is apparently not contributing directly to the project. No scam here.

So permission to use the IP just popped out of thin air and Sony is asking nothing in return?

I'm not saying it's a scam, just an exploitative way to do business.

 

[Weaver]

I find it incredibly unlikely Sony is just giving away their IP for free. I imagine they're getting a cut of the kickstarter profits.

 

[Sight Unseen]

HMX is an indie company doing an indie project without publisher money. Sony just (apparently) happens to own the IP rights to the game's title but is apparently not contributing directly to the project. No scam here.

So permission to use the IP just popped out of thin air and Sony is asking nothing in return?

I'm not saying it's a scam, just an exploitative way to do business.

I'm sure Sony stands to gain from this kickstarter going through but the main thing I'm seeing here is Harmonix wanting to revisit an old IP of theirs that was a cult hit. Sony is more than happy to sit on the IP and let it fade into obscurity but Harmonix wanted to go back for it. Sony won't give up the IP rights or fund the game itself so Harmonix will likely have to pay royalties if the game is successful, but I don't see this as exploitative. At least not from HMX's side.

I may be biased because I was a huge Rock Band fanatic and HMX was at one time my favorite company, but at the same time I feel like I understand the way that Harmonix works and they're driven more by passion than greed.

 

[Waaghpowa]

"No windows/Linux/Mac version"

"Not even halfway through funding with 3 days left"

Gee, funny how people don't want to fund a project that likely wont be available to them, huh?

Captcha: Hoity-toity

how fitting.