Amplitude (Harmonix) PS3/PS4 - KS (Funded, final day)

People backing this obviously like the game, so I not seeing your point.

Exactly. It's always been a gem to rhythm game aficionados. Ignore him. Hes the one who was screaming about Kickstarter Culture, and he didn't know how it worked to begin with. He's here to feed dissent.
 
It's funny how this game seems to be getting traction based off the success of Rock Band. IIRC, Amp & Freq really reviewed poorly when they were released. Then the GH/RB craze hit, and all of a sudden Amp & Freq are hidden gems. I just laugh when I see we're 14 pages into hype for a remake of a game that no one cared about when it was released.


I don't think that's reviewing poorly. Also I loved Amplitude long before Guitar Hero existed, I don't think your insinuation is accurate.
 
A couple of odd things have nagged me about the Kickstarter. I'm okay with the notion that using a Sony IP means it can't come to other platforms; that's understandable. What confuses me, though, is the fact that they don't say that:
You've only announced releases for PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®4? Why not PC or other platforms?

We think it’s important for a game built on the history of Amplitude and FreQuency to be focused on Sony hardware in order to remain faithful to the core gameplay experience.

I not really willing to let that statement slide without futher elaboration. There might be an explanation for it, but I'm genuinely flummoxed as to what it is; I'd be interested in hearing one.
I imagine that Sony could theoretically let the use the IP on a PC version -- but they can't make promises on that, of course.

No, that's not what I mean; it's the statement that "it must be on Sony hardware to remain faithful to the core gameplay experience". That's what I want elaborated on. It just strikes me as a resoundingly odd thing to state given what goes into these games, but I'm wondering if I'm simply missing something significant.
 
It's funny how this game seems to be getting traction based off the success of Rock Band. IIRC, Amp & Freq really reviewed poorly when they were released. Then the GH/RB craze hit, and all of a sudden Amp & Freq are hidden gems. I just laugh when I see we're 14 pages into hype for a remake of a game that no one cared about when it was released.

Frequency: 83 metascore based on 26 critics, 19 favourable (80+)/7 mixed.
Amplitude: 86 metascore based on 35 critics, 34 favourable/1 mixed.

Poorly indeed. ;)
 
It's funny how this game seems to be getting traction based off the success of Rock Band. IIRC, Amp & Freq really reviewed poorly when they were released. Then the GH/RB craze hit, and all of a sudden Amp & Freq are hidden gems. I just laugh when I see we're 14 pages into hype for a remake of a game that no one cared about when it was released.

83 and 86 on metacritic...yup, those really reviewed poorly.

arn't you the guy who had no clue how kickstarter worked yesterday? and tried to shit on harmonix/sony over your own ignorance? well congrats, you're doing it again.
 
I don't think that's reviewing poorly. Also I loved Amplitude long before Guitar Hero existed, I don't think your insinuation is accurate.

Hmm, I guess it didn't? I remember the EGM reviews being not that hot, the concept really didn't take off anyway until GH & RB. I didn't say people didn't love these games before GH/RB, only that the game now has this sort of cult hit status now that those games (GH/RB) did get really popular.

I'm not reading all the metacritic reviews you people posted, are those from the time the game was released, or more recently written reviews? I seem to remember Freq and Amp getting 6/7's when they were released, and there was no hype for them at the time outside of the magazines.
 
Hmm, I guess it didn't? I remember the EGM reviews being not that hot, the concept really didn't take off anyway until GH & RB. I didn't say people didn't love these games before GH/RB, only that the game now has this sort of cult hit status now that those games (GH/RB) did get really popular.

I'm not reading all the metacritic reviews you people posted, are those from the time the game was released, or more recently written reviews? I seem to remember Freq and Amp getting 6/7's, and there was no hype for them at the time outside of the magazines.



You already have two embarassing strikes in this thread.


Perhaps it's time to step back?
 
Technicallly, that's just simple shapes & colours and somewhat stiff animations. The game itself looks interesting, but it's not rocket science how they could make that for so little money.
So how much do you know about development budgets? I'm guessing nothing at all.
 
Hmm, I guess it didn't? I remember the EGM reviews being not that hot, the concept really didn't take off anyway until GH & RB. I didn't say people didn't love these games before GH/RB, only that the game now has this sort of cult hit status now that those games (GH/RB) did get really popular.

I'm not reading all the metacritic reviews you people posted, are those from the time the game was released, or more recently written reviews? I seem to remember Freq and Amp getting 6/7's when they were released, and there was no hype for them at the time outside of the magazines.

Explain? I'm really not that embarrassed.

You can stop with the tales from your ass about the reviews. All of these reviews are from time of release and there is only one below 75 for Amplitude.
 
No, that's not what I mean; it's the statement that "it must be on Sony hardware to remain faithful to the core gameplay experience". That's what I want elaborated on. It just strikes me as a resoundingly odd thing to state given what goes into these games, but I'm wondering if I'm simply missing something significant.

First is probably the fact that they've tried spiritual successors, and neither did all that hot (Rock Band Unplugged, Rock Band Blitz). Second is probably that since Sony owns the IP, there might be some aspects of the gameplay that they have ownership of, and making another spiritual successor means that they have to change the in a way they don't want to do.
 
let's see

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ging-tabletop-adventures-to-life?ref=category

"Working out of hours, for no pay, on your dream project for over almost three years?"

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/midgarstudio/hover-revolt-of-gamers?ref=category

a team of three new developper working on the game. at least 4 month of developpement, right now and still one year to go, I assume it's not their full time job or that they have other funding because even if it was only to pay these three people, they will be well below what is considered poverty in France.


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/postmodsoftworks/the-old-city?ref=sidebar

"we have been working on this project part-time (really, only on weekends) while supporting ourselves with other jobs."


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alonsomartin/heart-forth-alicia?ref=sidebar

It's basically a one man project, and on the original goal with living expenses for one year of 6k. It's average for Mexico if I believe google


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2129301589/grave-open-world-survival-horror

"We've been working on Grave as a prototype since January of 2013, completely unpaid and without any support beyond our own commitment to make the game work."

"The biggest risks are personal ones at this point; we've decided to go all-in for Grave, and are forgoing comfortable wages."



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1012709089/death-in-candlewood?ref=discovery

"We at Rosebud Games have been working on Death In Candlewood in our spare time, spending countless nights and weekends on it. We have to work full time on other projects and in other jobs to cover all the development expenses."


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crytivogames/the-universim?ref=discovery

Not much to work with here, the budge is much larger than the others, it seems more pro, but if I believe their kickstarter, they have 14 people in the studio (without the contributors) for 1.5 year, I hope for them that they have other funding/projects, because 320k seems really low (like below the minimum wage low in california without even taking into account other expenses)
 
It's funny how this game seems to be getting traction based off the success of Rock Band. IIRC, Amp & Freq really reviewed poorly when they were released. Then the GH/RB craze hit, and all of a sudden Amp & Freq are hidden gems. I just laugh when I see we're 14 pages into hype for a remake of a game that no one cared about when it was released.

Lawd no.

Quite the opposite for me. Frequency was great, and Amplitude is one of my favorite games of all time. I had confidence in GH and RB because of Amplitude, I didn't re-evaluate Amplitude because RB was popular.
 
I'm not reading all the metacritic reviews you people posted, are those from the time the game was released, or more recently written reviews? I seem to remember Freq and Amp getting 6/7's when they were released, and there was no hype for them at the time outside of the magazines.

Are you sure you want to double down? I guess I'll read them for you.

Tough to get a date on some, but here are the scores from some of the ostensibly larger sources, dates (where available) in parentheses.

Frequency - IGN: 90 (Nov 2001), GamePro: 90 (Nov 2001), Electric Playground: 90(Apr 2004), GameSpot: 87 (Nov 2001), Game Informer: 85 (Dec 2001), GameSpy: 80 (Dec 2001), NextGen Magazine: 80 (Jan 2002), Official US PlayStation Magazine: 70 (Jan 2002), EGM: 68 (Jan 2002).

Amplitude - IGN: 93 (Mar 2003), Game Informer: 88 (Apr 2003), GameSpot: 88 (Mar 2003), Official US PlayStation Magazine: 80 (Mar 2003), GameSpy: 79 (Mar 2003), EGM: 75 (Mar 2003).

EGM definitely not a superfan, so if that was what you remember reading, I can see why you'd remember middling reviews.
 
Not gonna fund a Sony exclusive, but I hope it will turn out great for those who do. :)

You've only announced releases for PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®4? Why not PC or other platforms? said:
We think it’s important for a game built on the history of Amplitude and FreQuency to be focused on Sony hardware in order to remain faithful to the core gameplay experience.

Cringeworthy.
 
It's funny how this game seems to be getting traction based off the success of Rock Band. IIRC, Amp & Freq really reviewed poorly when they were released. Then the GH/RB craze hit, and all of a sudden Amp & Freq are hidden gems. I just laugh when I see we're 14 pages into hype for a remake of a game that no one cared about when it was released.

Well Amp/Freq were smaller games made in a time without PSN/XBLA...so yeah now would be the perfect time to do another
 
Are you sure you want to double down? I guess I'll read them for you.

Tough to get a date on some, but here are the scores from some of the ostensibly larger sources, dates (where available) in parentheses.

Frequency - IGN: 90 (Nov 2001), GamePro: 90 (Nov 2001), Electric Playground: 90(Apr 2004), GameSpot: 87 (Nov 2001), Game Informer: 85 (Dec 2001), GameSpy: 80 (Dec 2001), NextGen Magazine: 80 (Jan 2002), Official US PlayStation Magazine: 70 (Jan 2002), EGM: 68 (Jan 2002).

Amplitude - IGN: 93 (Mar 2003), Game Informer: 88 (Apr 2003), GameSpot: 88 (Mar 2003), Official US PlayStation Magazine: 80 (Mar 2003), GameSpy: 79 (Mar 2003), EGM: 75 (Mar 2003).

EGM definitely not a superfan, so if that was what you remember reading, I can see why you'd remember middling reviews.

Thanks for pulling that info, EGM was definitely the culprit lol, I mostly read them back then, I didn't realize it had reviewed so well across the board.
 
QUICK! Hurry up and tell them before it's too late.


Why?

The original games are over a decade old, so it's tough to gauge if there's still an cult audience waiting for the series to return. This lets them see if people are willing to bite, takes the risk out of the equation, and basically allows of an internet show-of-hands. Harmonix isn't the biggest studio out there, so turning around so many projects at once (Fantasia, Chroma, possibly another secret project, and Amplitude) could be a disaster.

Amplitude isn't exactly Mario or GTA, so it makes a great deal of sense in terms of investment. This can help get other funders interested through traditional means if they see this campaign get funded.
Both Frequency and Amplitude were niche products that gained very little traction when they were released (despite beeing very good games, quality was never an issue). As far as I'm concerned, I don't agree with this KS because of who's making it.

If they want to make a Frequency HD game, they can fund it themselves through their other projects (Dance Central, that new Disney Game, etc) and not bring the burden of it on the shoulders (and money) of the fanbase. But more than that, the amount if money they are asking for is ridiculously high for the scope of the project (an HD remake).

What next, Sega going KS for a SoR HD? Ubi Soft for a new Greatest Courts? Atari for a new Hogs of War?

I was already uneasy with Obsidian's project, but this goes way beyond.

Good for them if they can achieve it though, no one should hate on a new Frequency
 
These are professional game developers who all want to have, what, $40-50k salary a year if Harmonix is to keep them as their employees, so their monthly salary is 3000-4000$ per month.

For a junior. If not, it seems really low.
 
Why would it be a bad thing that people discovered older and less successful content after the creators made something big?
 
If they want to make a Frequency HD game, they can fund it themselves through their other projects (Dance Central, that new Disney Game, etc) and not bring the burden of it on the shoulders (and money) of the fanbase. But more than that, the amount if money they are asking for is ridiculously high for the scope of the project (an HD remake).

You can basically buy the game early with this, though. For $15 or $20 you get two versions of the game, so it's not even really donating as much as purchasing in some ways.
 
So how much do you know about development budgets? I'm guessing nothing at all.
I know enough not to have been a part of that embarrassing Skullgirls character kickstarter whinefest or now part of the attempts to downplay Amplitude HD's development costs. I understand normal game development is usually a lot more expensive than a lot of people realize (that is, excluding some indies who work on their free time or scrape by with poverty-level income). I know the average wage of a game dev in "proper" studios is around 80k per year (maybe less if you're new and depending on what you actually do, (a lot) more if you are a lead or senior staff), though I know some people are willing to work for less if it's a passion project, which the Amplitude team might be willing to do (or not).
 
It's funny how this game seems to be getting traction based off the success of Rock Band. IIRC, Amp & Freq really reviewed poorly when they were released. Then the GH/RB craze hit, and all of a sudden Amp & Freq are hidden gems. I just laugh when I see we're 14 pages into hype for a remake of a game that no one cared about when it was released.

Uhhhh, no
 
For a junior. If not, it seems really low.
Well, I was kind of assuming everyone on the team would take a bit of a hit to their wages since Kickstarter projects hardly ever pull in the kind of funding that would be able to support full wages and usually devs acknowledge passion projects like Amplitude need sacrifices,, and that most people other than the leads wouldn't be senior staff.
 
One day down: ~$150k funded.

What are the projections? This was a complete surprise and hasn't had any podcast buzz yet, so I'm hopeful.
 
Not gonna fund a Sony exclusive, but I hope it will turn out great for those who do. :)



Cringeworthy.
Written another way:

"If it wasn't going to be an Amplitude sequel on PS platforms, we'd have to change a lot to avoid legal trouble and at that point it might not seem much like Amplitude any more."
 
It's a Sony ip. It was never going to be on other platforms. So yes something huge right over your head. Noting cringeworthy about ip not being on other consoles.
I think the issue is with the wording.

If their FAQ said what you said instead of what can be construed as "Only PlayStation hardware is capable of producing such wonders," there wouldn't really be a problem.
 
I think the issue is with the wording.

If their FAQ said what you said instead of what can be construed as "Only PlayStation hardware is capable of producing such wonders," there wouldn't really be a problem.

Gameplay experience has nothing to do with hardware. You're reading what you want to read into it.
 
I think the issue is with the wording.

If their FAQ said what you said instead of what can be construed as "Only PlayStation hardware is capable of producing such wonders," there wouldn't really be a problem.

I don't read it at all like you've portrayed it. They are simply saying that if it's Amplitude, it has to be on a PS platform. No indication of power is given.
 
If they want to make a Frequency HD game, they can fund it themselves through their other projects (Dance Central, that new Disney Game, etc) and not bring the burden of it on the shoulders (and money) of the fanbase. But more than that, the amount if money they are asking for is ridiculously high for the scope of the project (an HD remake).

They've already said that if the Kickstarter succeeds, they'll be spending over a million dollars on the project. Which is probably something like twice the money that they'll actually see from the Kickstarter itself (between the about 10% that Kickstarter will take off the top, and the costs of handling all of the rewards).

Also, I would argue that while developers are probably paid well for games like, say, Dance Central, it's the publishers who probably see the majority of the profit, and all of their most profitable games were published by companies that aren't involved with this project (Microsoft, MTV/EA, Activision). Hell, Madcatz/Red Octane were the people profiting off of the actual plastic instruments, not them.
 
It's a Sony ip. It was never going to be on other platforms. So yes something huge right over your head. Noting cringeworthy about ip not being on other consoles.

And there I was thinking I missed some info. Apparently I didn't. Thanks anyway, buddy.
It was Harmonix' decision to make a, and I have no doubt about it, great game for Sony consoles. They could have gone multiplatform with some minor adjustments to the game and reach more potential customers. But let's see the stretch goals first. They might include some surprises. ;)
 
I think the issue is with the wording.

If their FAQ said what you said instead of what can be construed as "Only PlayStation hardware is capable of producing such wonders," there wouldn't really be a problem.

It could even go as far as the notion that some of the key gameplay elements might be construed as part of the Amplitude IP rights and therefore any spiritual successor Harmonix makes might have to create new gameplay mechanics or face legal ramifications.

I'm not sure though. Could also be that Harmonix is terrified about doing a spiritual successor again after some of its less than successful attempts previously and want to use an IP that is already known. Hard to say really
 
I don't read it at all like you've portrayed it. They are simply saying that if it's Amplitude, it has to be on a PS platform. No indication of power is given.

What is it about the "core gameplay experience" that requires "Sony hardware" to be faithful?

I do want to take a moment to say that I don't care that this is only on the Sony consoles and Harmonix can do whatever they want. I'm not arguing that Amplitude should be on my platform of choice.
 
Both Frequency and Amplitude were niche products that gained very little traction when they were released (despite beeing very good games, quality was never an issue). As far as I'm concerned, I don't agree with this KS because of who's making it.

If they want to make a Frequency HD game, they can fund it themselves through their other projects (Dance Central, that new Disney Game, etc) and not bring the burden of it on the shoulders (and money) of the fanbase. But more than that, the amount if money they are asking for is ridiculously high for the scope of the project (an HD remake).

What next, Sega going KS for a SoR HD? Ubi Soft for a new Greatest Courts? Atari for a new Hogs of War?

I was already uneasy with Obsidian's project, but this goes way beyond.

Good for them if they can achieve it though, no one should hate on a new Frequency
It's not a remake of Amplitude. It's a new game, on a new engine, with new songs, but the same gameplay.
 
What is it about the "core gameplay experience" that requires "Sony hardware" to be faithful?

I do want to take a moment to say that I don't care that this is only on the Sony consoles and Harmonix can do whatever they want. I'm not arguing that Amplitude should be on my platform of choice.

If the Amplitude IP contains some of the core gameplay mechanics of Amplitude, then doing a spiritual successor wouldn't necessarily be able to have those same mechanics.

Same core mechanics = Amplitude IP = Sony hardware
 

It's around 1/5, or 20%, so that doesn't seem that bad to me. I ran an IndieGoGo campaign this time last year and didn't have 1/5 that quickly, but I also wasn't asking for this much obviously.

I'm still in the camp that podcast mentions this week and next could make or break this.
 

20% in a day seems decent. the pace will drop off in the middle as they always do, but it seems to be heading in the right direction and has a good enough pace. maybe people don't care for the franchise enough though? would be a shame for it to fail.
 
If the Amplitude IP contains some of the core gameplay mechanics of Amplitude, then doing a spiritual successor wouldn't necessarily be able to have those same mechanics.

Same core mechanics = Amplitude IP = Sony hardware
I'm actually being sincere here because I haven't played them:

But is Phase (an early iPhone game made by Harmonix, billed as a successor to Amplitude) and the Rock Band Blitz games significantly different than Amplitude?

Regardless, what you're getting at is much more than what they've said in either the FAQ or the live stream they did. If they were that specific, I don't think anyone would scoff at their reason.
 
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