Rock Band 4 For PC Hits Sour Note On Crowdfunding Tour, Fails To Reach $1.5M Funding Goal
For the time being, gamers who've pledged their allegiance to the PC (or simply prefer it) will have to rock out to Rock Band 4 with their game consoles out. Harmonix wasn't able to raise its goal of $1.5 million—or even come close, really—through crowdfunding site Fig to make possible a port of Rock Band 4 to PC, so for now, the project is scrapped.
The crowdfunding campaign ran for 35 days and gathered $792,817 from 1,674 backers, or barely more than half of what Harmonix was seeking. Had it been successful, Harmonix would have kicked in $500,000 of its own money, as it reckoned the PC port would cost in the neighborhood of $2 million to complete.
Despite not reaching its goal and ultimately being "disappointed" in the outcome, Harmonix issued a heartfelt thanks to its supporters. The indie studio also took the opportunity to address some commonly asked questions and concerns backers and potential backers had about the project, including the $1.5 million goal for a port.
"Virtually the entire budget (and remember, that included $500,000 from Harmonix on top of the 1.5 million raised by the campaign) went directly towards game development and testing. We have substantial experience scoping and developing games; we know fairly accurately how much work we need to do (in fact, we wrote up a more detailed list of the work required)," Harmonix stated on Fig.
"Since we’re using our own engine, it’s not a simple matter of flipping a compiler switch and building the game for the PC. There is no benefit to us attempting to artificially reduce what we think it will cost to build this game. We don’t want to release a PC game that feels like a half-baked console port, and we have to be very realistic about the time and effort it will take, or we will no longer be a successful game development studio," Harmonix added.
Harmonix didn't rule out the possibility that Rock Band 4 could still end up on PC, whether it's by trying again with another crowdfunding campaign or some other way, but was also realistic in that the market for a port just might not be big enough at the moment.
The crowdfunding campaign ran for 35 days and gathered $792,817 from 1,674 backers, or barely more than half of what Harmonix was seeking. Had it been successful, Harmonix would have kicked in $500,000 of its own money, as it reckoned the PC port would cost in the neighborhood of $2 million to complete.
Despite not reaching its goal and ultimately being "disappointed" in the outcome, Harmonix issued a heartfelt thanks to its supporters. The indie studio also took the opportunity to address some commonly asked questions and concerns backers and potential backers had about the project, including the $1.5 million goal for a port.
"Virtually the entire budget (and remember, that included $500,000 from Harmonix on top of the 1.5 million raised by the campaign) went directly towards game development and testing. We have substantial experience scoping and developing games; we know fairly accurately how much work we need to do (in fact, we wrote up a more detailed list of the work required)," Harmonix stated on Fig.
"Since we’re using our own engine, it’s not a simple matter of flipping a compiler switch and building the game for the PC. There is no benefit to us attempting to artificially reduce what we think it will cost to build this game. We don’t want to release a PC game that feels like a half-baked console port, and we have to be very realistic about the time and effort it will take, or we will no longer be a successful game development studio," Harmonix added.
Harmonix didn't rule out the possibility that Rock Band 4 could still end up on PC, whether it's by trying again with another crowdfunding campaign or some other way, but was also realistic in that the market for a port just might not be big enough at the moment.
