Amplitude: How Sony and Harmonix Agreed to Revive a Classic
The resurrection of Amplitude started with an instant message.
Harmonix has wanted to revive its classic music game for some time, as have its most vocal fans. So, one day, Harmonix’s John Drake sent a IM to Sony’s Adam Boyes, who runs publisher/developer relations at Sony. The response was pretty warm. “We want to figure out a way to make this possible for you,” was the sentiment Drake got back.
A few minutes, one phone call later, and a few crunched numbers later, everyone was happy with the potential, and Harmonix got to work on its Kickstarter campaign.
“It really was that simple,” Drake said. Sony was behind Harmonix, and the gist of the agreement boiled down to the original developer gauging fan interest with crowdfunding. If it doesn't work out, no harm, no foul.
"This really is a passion project," he continued. “We’ve been talking to them for a while about wanting to bring Amplitude back. And it’s a weird space because we are very much a third-party developer for Sony, we’re not owned by Sony, but Sony did publish the game during the PS2 era 14 years ago. Like, [Shuhei Yoshida] is the only connective tissue.”
Even still, Sony, which owns the Amplitude intellectual property, has “been really reasonable on every facet of the project.”
Harmonix “never had a straight buyout conversation,” but the idea of buying Amplitude back from Sony came up. Ultimately, Drake explained, “it was always better to partner with them and work together collaboratively.”
Full article: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/05/amplitude-how-sony-and-harmonix-agreed-to-revive-a-classic
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