Baron von Loathsome
Member
I'd like to see them try another campaign some months or years down the line on a proven crowdfunding site, but it doesn't seem like it'll happen.
RockBand 4 for PC is about to fail
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The Lamonster
Member
Hopefully now they can focus on the console versions a little more...
Unfortunately, as many in this thread are doing, this failed campaign will set a precedent for the genre based on ignorance rather than objective precedence. This campaign didn't fail because there isn't a market for rhythm games on PC nor due to the inability to play PC games in a social situation (whatever the fuck that means), but because this was a poorly run campaign.
The campaign was run on a niche crowd funding site, little marketing support, high barrier to entry for new customers, and an unrealistically high price tag for a year old port.
The campaign was run on a niche crowd funding site, little marketing support, high barrier to entry for new customers, and an unrealistically high price tag for a year old port.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Both rhythm games flopped last year. There is no market for rhythm games.
The whole point of this was to pay Sumo Digital to do all the porting work while Harmonix focused on PS4 and Xbox, and then Harmonix was to take over the PC version afterwards and then keep the PC version at parity from that point forward.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...rmonix_and_only_you_can_help_us_bring/d1laap3
Harmonix via HMXJosh said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...rmonix_and_only_you_can_help_us_bring/d1l0x1l
And I agree with the assessment here, the campaign was not executed well. Too many of the tiers were high dollar and they should have waited until the existing game was more robust, and they should have waited until they finished completing all the stuff from the Amp KS. They apparently are going to announce something for RB4 at E3 too.
RB4 sold enough to have DLC be profitable and sustainable. For comparison, Amplitude didn't, and all it needed was a standard controller.
Pokemaniac
Member
At this point, I'm just hoping Harmonix survives long enough to port Rock Band 4 to NX (they did suggest this was a possibility when the finally shut down hopes for a Wii U port for good). They haven't been doing so good lately, and it seems that every attempt of theirs to branch out from Rock Band is somehow doomed.
What A Time To Be Alive
Member
The whole way they went about this was weird.
Should have been a continuous campaign. Not something that ends on a certain day, there was literally no way this was gonna hit 1.5mil in 30 days.
Also the fact they had no contingency plan made it seem like they didn't fully think this out.
Should have been a continuous campaign. Not something that ends on a certain day, there was literally no way this was gonna hit 1.5mil in 30 days.
Also the fact they had no contingency plan made it seem like they didn't fully think this out.
What A Time To Be Alive
Member
Frets on Fire is fucking trash.
Meh, Phase Shift offers everything I want for a "PC Rock Band" and those who are already invested in the program have the DLC on other platforms and the idea of rebuying all that DLC is meh too me
People who are interested in PC Rock Band like, please check out Phase Shift, it's a really fucking cool prgoram
People who are interested in PC Rock Band like, please check out Phase Shift, it's a really fucking cool prgoram
They have to have a defined window due to the whole investment aspect, you can't have investors deadlocked for too long.
There also was intentionally no contingency plan. They outright said this was to see if the PC market was interested. The port wasn't even started yet.
People who still give a shit about Rock Band have their old consoles and peripherals. My 360 still exists for that reason alone. Peripherals, custom songs, pro guitar, etc. I don't need a next gen version of cartoon musicians and colored gems when all my old shit will works fine. It's a shame all the new DLC isn't last gen backward compatible though. But that fact alone isn't enough for me to have abandoned everything I had purchased and customized on the Microsoft side of things.
As far as PC. People who really wanted this game series already splurged on one of the last gen consoles long ago. There's no real reason for this and most people don't have their PC set up for rocking out in their living rooms.
As far as PC. People who really wanted this game series already splurged on one of the last gen consoles long ago. There's no real reason for this and most people don't have their PC set up for rocking out in their living rooms.
replaced by Phase Shift, and you can easily get it to basically function the same as rock band
What A Time To Be Alive
Member
I guess I could understand the defined window (although maybe that window should of been longer like 45 days?)
I don't see the point of doing a campaign for $1.5mil and be like "You guys want a PC port? Well get us 1.5 million dollars and we can do that". Unless there is some other way for this port to exist I just don't see how that was smart. The campaign got a lot of support, I feel as if they should at least try to figure out some other way of going about this.
As much as it hurts to see this fail, 1623 backers is not "a lot of support".
dangerskew
Member
This campaign was doomed from the start. I would LOVE to see RB on PC and have wanted it for years but I cannot bring myself to give Harmonix money like this. $1.5 million to outsource a PC port of a very incomplete Rock Band game is absolutely absurd.
I say this as someone who backed Amplitude at the $125 tier, and still haven't received my physical rewards.
I say this as someone who backed Amplitude at the $125 tier, and still haven't received my physical rewards.
Bjoern the Smexy
Member
I really hate to see it fail.
I would've loved it on PC.
Rock Band Network too, without any extra costs.
You could've done all the DLC for yourself guys. All of it.
And you wouldn't even have to have bought new instruments.
Everyone would've won.
I really hope some magic man with a lot of cash will come and save the day
I would've loved it on PC.
Rock Band Network too, without any extra costs.
You could've done all the DLC for yourself guys. All of it.
And you wouldn't even have to have bought new instruments.
Everyone would've won.
I really hope some magic man with a lot of cash will come and save the day
.
It's the shitty iOS ripoff of GH/RB. No one with self-respect plays FoF.
Doug Heffernan
Member
Plastic instrument games... in 2016. lol
I love phase shift........not to mention it allows me to use my GH2 xplorer USB.....best guitar evah! Also hit registration and the overall engine is much, much better than FoF
It was doomed to fail because it's years late. Nothing to do with living room/consoles. They should've made a PC version when Rock Band 2-3 released.
this is also wrong... Frets on Fire, while being kind of a shitty program, was easily moddable. It also found most of its success on PC. It's successor, Phase Shift, is even better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6aEkyHaGYc
Yeah, you won't get the "CGI models singing onstage to the music" like you would in Rock Band and GH, but the menu and UIs can be really slick nowadays
How are you going to tell me this isn't the iOS ripoff of RB? lmao
Phase Shift is just as bad as frets on fire, engine is loose, drum fills are randomly generated etc, no vocal support what so ever, the pro drum interface is godawful (seriously, why not just copy RB's cymbal/tom in lane lane system), and the library sorting is almost unusable with a large amount of songs
Oh well, RB3 with C3 Customs it is along with GH PC.
FaintDeftone
Junior Member
Harmonix is one of my favorite developers, but man I'm really starting to worry about them. I'm not expecting them to last much longer with flop after flop. The sad thing is that these games are solid for the most part but just don't sell. Rock Band 4 was a pretty massive disappointment. Hopefully they can muster up a hit that'll bring them back up.
Pejo
Gold Member
If they could have had a cross-platform DLC system in place, I think it would have helped them a lot. I would love Rock Band on PC, but honestly 90% of the songs I like are DLC, and i'll be damned if I'm re-buying. Couple that with the fact that it's so late, and RB4 didn't really offer anything new, it's pretty easy to see why this is failing.
Still a shame, when RB is good, it's great, and that's mostly with friends at somebody's house.
Still a shame, when RB is good, it's great, and that's mostly with friends at somebody's house.
ummm, well the first issue is that it's not on IOS...
Yeah, I can agree that there are some stuff missing and it does have its faults, but as a way to get something for free thats not on the platform it works fine.
I guess if you don't own a console it might be a worthy substitute, but i'll say the same thing I say to anyone interested in Rock Band now... grab a cheap 360. buy the original Rock Band 3 disc and head over to C3 if you want custom songs, it's just sad that the RB1 and 2 exports are now expired for anyone just getting into the game, alot of great songs in them
I wish this campaign would succeed, I host RB parties regularly and it would be so much easier to not have to carry my 360 with me everywhere I go, considering I could just sign into steam and download everything and not worry about set up etc
Stone Ocean
Member
The console and PC markets are not the same. The fact that RB and GH burned to the ground on consoles says nothing about their PC viability.
This makes no sense, I played many games on PC in local multiplayer. You can play rhythm games without any trouble, as I did a long time ago with Frets on Fire.
I remember Alarian Mod to be pretty good.
snoopeasystreet
Member
I think you have to say the demand isn't there right now. There was a point in time where they probably should have released Rock Band on the PC. They missed it.
I guess if you don't own a console it might be a worthy substitute, but i'll say the same thing I say to anyone interested in Rock Band now... grab a cheap 360. buy the original Rock Band 3 disc and head over to C3 if you want custom songs, it's just sad that the RB1 and 2 exports are now expired for anyone just getting into the game, alot of great songs in them
I wish this campaign would succeed, I host RB parties regularly and it would be so much easier to not have to carry my 360 with me everywhere I go, considering I could just sign into steam and download everything and not worry about set up etc
Can you play customs online lol....I remember having a few during the RB3 era of techno songs and you could literally highlight them when it a matchmaking lobby and people would see the title when your going through your list.
Jon of the Wired
Member
Even a failed campaign like this is, in some ways, a validation of the Kickstarter (or Fig) model. It's much better for Harmonix to find out there's little demand for a PC port now, rather than after having spent $1.5 million out-of-pocket to make one.
Actually, 60fps is highly desirable for rhythm games. Resolution is unimportant by comparison.
I completely agree with this post. When RB4 (and GH Live) were announced, I thought they were at least 3 years too early. And while GH Live is pretty polished, the state of RB4 at the time it shipped thoroughly backs that up.
I would argue that the game isn't actually completed, which is one of the major reasons why I wouldn't support a campaign at this time. The other major reason is something already pointed out: they still haven't even followed through on the promises they made from their LAST crowdfunding campaign. Bad form, to come around again with their hand out before they finished following through on the last one.
I can't recall the last time the PC version of a video game sold more than the console version. (Excluding console ports of games originally released on PC, such as Diablo III) If anyone can point out sometime this happened, cool. If not, I think that says a lot about the PC viability of this game...especially considering the required peripherals.
Yes and no.
You can have them in your setlist, but the latest patch of RB3 causes them to come up with a disc read error, you can still highlight them of course and people will see etc, I have a custom in my setlist that is basically titled "songs picked" so any other players know i'm done picking.
You can still play customs online today, however it requires "recharting" them (basically, just making them RB2 compliant) and converting them to Rock Band 2, not really as bad as it sounds once you do your first few.
Add Dance Central (XOne) to the list too. Weird thing is all their games in this down period have actually been quite good in their core gameplay. I haven't played Amplitude, but Fantasia was super underappreciated and actually a really fun game.
This is genius.....never even thought of that lol
What A Time To Be Alive
Member
1,623 backers that provided upto 750k I feel that's enough to support but I see where your coming from going off purely numbers.
deadscreensky
Member
This actually did a lot better than I had expected.
The majority of that amount is actually investors and not individuals.
People really need to stop saying that 1.5million is a crazy number for a port... That's actually a LOW number for a port.
Now I'm not saying that I'm surprised that the campaign failed. It was destined to fail from the start BUT 1.5 millions for the port of a big game is nothing... QA alone can easily go over the million.
Now I'm not saying that I'm surprised that the campaign failed. It was destined to fail from the start BUT 1.5 millions for the port of a big game is nothing... QA alone can easily go over the million.
Quadraphonic
Member
I still don't understand this budget.
$1.5 million requested to make a PC port?
This is a game that runs on existing modern-day consoles. Did they not have the game running on the PC before? I really refuse to believe they don't have a PC debug version that doesn't already run the game at 90% of what it needs. They can't be that incompetent.
Adding in Steam support takes literally about one to two weeks.
Steam Trading Cards are literally just uploading jpgs to Valve's server. There's ZERO involvement besides uploading images to Valve.
USB controller support is something that is so easy it's barely worth mentioning.
Bluetooth might be a little tricky. A little.
RBN suppot is the big wildcard.
And they claim they're fronting $500k of their own on top of it?
TWO MILLION DOLLARS to do this?
Okay, so take an engineer salary and make it $100k annually. That's within the ballpark. Take a 30% cut for whatever BS fees and products and rewards. $2 million becomes $1.4 million.
That means you need a team of 14 senior engineers for a FULL YEAR to make the port?
Or a team of 28 people for HALF a year?
NO. I refuse to believe making a game that's already shipped on two platforms would need that large of a well-paid team take that long to make.
That's why I refused to give a penny. The numbers didn't make sense. Farming this out to Sumo Digital? You're getting ripped off. Plain and simple.
Of course, that's not the reason it failed. It failed because people were still waiting for the online mode to be delivered. People were still waiting for the exports to be completed. People were still waiting for Xbox instrument support to not be hot garbage. You don't launch more projects while people are still waiting on the current project.
Look at Red Ash compared to Mighty No 9. It failed because it stunk of greed. No one wants to give you money if you can't finish the current task at hand.
$1.5 million requested to make a PC port?
This is a game that runs on existing modern-day consoles. Did they not have the game running on the PC before? I really refuse to believe they don't have a PC debug version that doesn't already run the game at 90% of what it needs. They can't be that incompetent.
Adding in Steam support takes literally about one to two weeks.
Steam Trading Cards are literally just uploading jpgs to Valve's server. There's ZERO involvement besides uploading images to Valve.
USB controller support is something that is so easy it's barely worth mentioning.
Bluetooth might be a little tricky. A little.
RBN suppot is the big wildcard.
And they claim they're fronting $500k of their own on top of it?
TWO MILLION DOLLARS to do this?
Okay, so take an engineer salary and make it $100k annually. That's within the ballpark. Take a 30% cut for whatever BS fees and products and rewards. $2 million becomes $1.4 million.
That means you need a team of 14 senior engineers for a FULL YEAR to make the port?
Or a team of 28 people for HALF a year?
NO. I refuse to believe making a game that's already shipped on two platforms would need that large of a well-paid team take that long to make.
That's why I refused to give a penny. The numbers didn't make sense. Farming this out to Sumo Digital? You're getting ripped off. Plain and simple.
Of course, that's not the reason it failed. It failed because people were still waiting for the online mode to be delivered. People were still waiting for the exports to be completed. People were still waiting for Xbox instrument support to not be hot garbage. You don't launch more projects while people are still waiting on the current project.
Look at Red Ash compared to Mighty No 9. It failed because it stunk of greed. No one wants to give you money if you can't finish the current task at hand.
Bjoern the Smexy
Member
As someone said before, this game is literally made out of music licenses.
That can't be cheap at all.
Not for a music library of over 2000 or so songs that all have to get relicensed for the new platform.
The majority of the budget is Music Licences, they only have the rights to distribute music physically and digitally on the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network platform, if they want to do PC, they have to re-licence the music and get permission to sell DLC on ANOTHER store platform (assuming in this case, Steam).
This isn't the early 2000's anymore, music labels known they can squeeze developers for more money if they want specific tracks in their games and then also charge more for additional platforms and store fronts for said game.
Doctor Ironic
Member
It's amusing how people keep coming into this discussion shouting "lol 1.5 million for a PC port is crazy!" as if that's an already-accepted fact and not a total falsehood with no proof for it and plenty of proof against it.
Quadraphonic
Member
You guys are putting words in their mouth.
Straight from the page it says:
Majority is DEVELOPMENT and TESTING. Not song licensing.
Straight from the page it says:
Majority is DEVELOPMENT and TESTING. Not song licensing.
Salary is only part of it - office space, licenses, health care costs, etc
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