Harmonix’s Amplitude Kickstarter Reaches Goal with Just Hours Left

With just a few hours left on the clock and the situation looking bleak, the crowdfunded campaign for Harmonix's Amplitude pulled off an amazing comeback and met its Kickstarter goal.

Harmonix has just announced that the Kickstarter campaign for the reboot of its early classic, Amplitude, has reached its $775,000 goal with just a few hours left to go. Just a few days ago, it was looking as if the campaign wasn't even going to get close of its goal. To put this drastic comeback into perspective, when we first reported on Amplitude's Kickstarter on May 5, the campaign barely passed $100,000. As of Monday, May 19, Amplitude's Kickstarter was just under $400,000. By this point, many naysayers were claiming that Harmonix's project just wouldn't make the $755,000 it needed. In a surprise twist, the campaign raised over $375,000 during its last four days, which was a miraculous save compared to its sluggish start.

So what could have triggered Amplitude's amazing, crowdfunded turnaround? We believe its success was due to three things: progressive updates by Harmonix, music choices and, as cheesy as it sounds, the support of the gaming community. The constant updates on the game's Kickstarter program showed that Harmonix was absolutely serious about the project to those who were on the wall about pledging. Harmonix streamed a lot of live gameplay footage during the last week, showing off just how gorgeous and fun Amplitude was shaping up to be.

In terms of community support, Eurogamer reported that Ted Price, CEO of Insomniac Games, personally donated $7,500 to the campaign. On top of this generous donation, Price had Amplitude's Kickstarter promoted on Insomniac Games' social media avenues and on the studio's official website. Fans might recognize Insomniac as the creator and developer of the Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance and Sunset Overdrive franchises. Price's decision to back the project turned a lot of heads in Harmonix's direction that might not have noticed it. To our knowledge, Harmonix and Insomniac have never collaborated on anything before (both studios work with completely different publishers, work on different gaming genres and are located on opposite ends of the United States), this was done out of sheer generosity and support -- bravo, Insomniac.

Of course, Amplitude wouldn't be a signature Harmonix game without a stellar soundtrack. On May 19, Harmonix announced that Amplitude's tracklist would include the likes of Anamanaguchi (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game), C418 (Minecraft), Danny Baranowsky (Super Meat Boy), Kasson Crooker (FreQuency and the original Amplitude) and Freezepop. Harmonix fans will recognize Freezepop from its work on a multitude of its games, such as the song "Less Talk More Rokk," which was featured in Guitar Hero 2 and Rock Band 3.

Regardless of why Amplitude was able to make such a drastic turnaround, we're glad to see that the studio known for its peripheral-based music titles can still return to the fantastic, imaginative style of games that got it first recognized in the industry. We can now expect Amplitude to launch in March 2015 for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.