alexrigopulos

Hey, thanks thaiexchangestudent.

Of course I was sad when Rock Band passed its (first!) peak, but one way or another, it will be back. Also, music games need to evolve just like every aspect of pop culture. The band game boom was followed by a dance game boom, which will be followed by some other manifestation of music games--hopefully some of the new stuff Harmonix is working on! Music is a permanent aspect of the human experience, and so is gameplay. It's Harmonix's job to figure out new ways for music and gameplay to amplify each other's emotional power. Stand by!

Mr. EgocentricPlasticSam, the Rock Band series is dear to our hearts at Harmonix (to put it lightly). We are determined to bring it back when the time is right!

Hey NetPhantom, great question! Actually, I don't think our struggle to fund Amplitude is evidence that the game doesn't have wide appeal. In our experience, Amplitude has incredibly broad appeal--once people actually play it! The challenge is that it's hard game for people to get their heads around based on just a description or a screen shot. They need to play it to understand what's so powerful about it. This made it impossibly difficult to market Amplitude back in 2003, when downloadable game demos on consoles were not a thing yet, and social media was not a thing yet. But the world is really different 2014. People can download and try out console games for free. And they can shout from the rooftops through FB/twitter about games that are awesome. If we can get this game made, we're convinced it will find an audience this time around. There is powerful chemistry in Amplitude--it is hypnotic and fiendishly addictive, so we're dying to find a way to bring it back in glorious HD.

(If the KS fails, we don't currently see a path to getting the project funded. It's a tough pitch to traditional publishers, because the first title wasn't a commercial success.)

I think there's probably some truth to the notion that Activision "over-published" Guitar Hero. But I wouldn't agree that the decline of the genre was "entirely the fault of Activision". Reality is always more complicated than this. For example, it didn't help that GH and RB were the most expensive video games on the market during a brutal recession. I also don't think that either GH or RB delivered enough (or the right kind of) evolution of the experience in the years that followed the initial releases--something we hope to address at some point in the next outing.

YES PLEASE :D