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[Update] Rock Band 4 PC Fig Campaign Fails To Meet Funding Goal
Update: Rock Band 4 on PC won't be happening in the foreseeable future, according to Harmonix. The company posted a lengthy, final update on the Fig campaign page that offers a reaction to the funding failure and what it means.
“We learned exactly what we needed to learn: there doesn’t seem to be enough of an audience to make Rock Band for PC a viable project for us right now,” the company writes. “We're committed to supporting and improving RB4 on consoles.”
Harmonix also says that the results of this campaign have no impact for its plans for the currently available game on console. As for Rock Band Network, don't expect it to return (at least right now). “Steam Workshop offered us a lot of infrastructure to make a new RBN possible,” Harmonix says. “Without those systems RBN represents too much work for our console team right now, who already has a long list of priority features. We may revisit the idea in the future.”
Original Story:
Rock Band 4 isn’t coming to PC, at least not with the help of backers and investors via Fig. The campaign fell short by nearly half of the $1.5 million goal.
The funding period closed yesterday, April 5, with only $792,817 raised. This throws into question Harmonix’s recently-announced partnership with PDP for a future installment of the game.
It also means that Mad Catz won’t have a new player base in need of new instruments. The company previously indicated that sales were lower and inventory carrying costs higher than expected after the holiday season.
We’ve reached out to Harmonix for a statement on the campaign and next steps. We’ll update should we receive a response.
[Source: Fig]
Our Take
While it’s clear there was some interest in this, crowdfunding a port is a hard sell. There was some confusion during the campaign, not the least of which was caused by the switch from Mad Catz to PDP for co-publishing.
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