Guitar Hero Creators Crowdfund $844,127 To Revive Amplitude Music Game
Amplitude was an early music game from Harmonix, the folks who later brought us Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It didn't do that well financially and was put to rest soon after its release in 2003. The folks at Harmonix decided to bring it back and turned to crowdfunding via Kickstarter. They initially struggled to meet their $775,000 goal but pulled it off in the final stretch and now Amplitude is planned for a 2015 release.
I wasn't familiar with Amplitude prior to the Harmonix Kickstarter campaign, clueless outsider that I am, but it sounds interesting and even more complicated than more recent games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band:
"In Amplitude the player controls a beat blaster ship across a lane of six tracks, each track representing a musical instrument and containing note gems that the player shoots at in time with the music."
"The player earns points for accurate playing and increases their scoring multiplier by playing a series of flawless sequences; the player loses energy by missing too many notes and can end the song prematurely if they run out of energy."
You can get a look at the original game in the Kickstarter campaign pitch video below:
Harmonix creative lead Ryan Lesser, who worked on Amplitude back in the day, described the qualities of the game:
"I would say that it has a pretty unique combination of beat matching that you would find in something like Rock Band, mixed with a very arcade-y, very fast-paced tactical terrain navigation element…it's basically like having five or six Guitar Hero or Rock Band t[r]acks next to each other, and the ones you choose make a difference. It's just the intensity…skyrockets."
Harmonix turned to crowdfunding due to lack of interest in reviving Amplitude from game publishers.
They are building it for Playstation because "Sony published and funded development of the original titles in the early 2000s, and their ownership stake in the franchise is deeper than just the name of the game."
Team Amplitude Steps Up In The Face Of Impending Disaster
The Kickstarter campaign initially seemed to be stalling out far short of their goal but Team Amplitude turned to their supporters for help and shared updates and videos along the way to a sweet victory.
Special efforts included The Harmonix Show on Twitch where they livestreamed in support of Amplitude including at least one 6 hour session.
Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos also held a Reddit AMA.
All that hard work and direct communication with fans paid off and now Amplitude will get the chance to find a new audience.
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) is also beta blogging at DanceLand. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
