Rock Band 4 Is Seeking Funds Through Crowdfunding

Harmonix has decided to bring Rock Band 4 back to the crowd-funding arena to gather some cash for a potential PC release. Right now the game is available only on the Xbox One and PS4, but they're looking into the possibilities of moving the game over to the home computer if they can secure enough funding from gamers.

PC Gamer spotted the news over on the official Fig website, where Harmonix announced that Rock Band 4 could appear on PC if enough people pledge funds into the project to turn it into a reality. They're asking for $1.5 million and explain what they plan on adding to the game and what features they would bring to the PC version with the pitch video below.

So why do they need $1.5 million exactly? As they explain in the video above, Harmonix won't be porting over Rock Band 4 to PC. What they plan on doing is using port house Sumo Digital to do the work for them. So gamers will be paying Harmonix so Harmonix can pay Sumo Digital to make the actual PC version.

The most logical question out of this whole thing is: why can't Harmonix do the port themselves? Well, because they're still working on the home console versions of the game.

According to the Fig page, they plan on adding Steam Workshop support for custom user content, as well as full mouse and keyboard support, in addition to peripheral support for the Rock Band instruments. The game will feature a World Tour Campaign Mode, guitar solos, 65 songs “out of the box”, 1700 downloadable song content, and all of the currently released updates from the console version of Rockband 4.

Now before some of you instantly wave this off and say “Didn't EA publish Rock Band?” keep in mind that Electronic Arts distributed the games and MTV and Mad Catz published them. For this latest release Harmonix and Mad Catz self-published the game and did so without EA or MTV. However, it still doesn't change a couple of major problems with the crowd-funding campaign.

As a gamer it's extremely difficult to get behind this pitch idea because it's basically saying that they need a lot of money to bring the game to the PC platform but they're too busy to do the actual work themselves. It doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence into project.

Also, not a whole lot of gamers are entirely fond of Fig and are questioning why they're using it instead of Kickstarter. Well, according to PC Gamer Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos is on the Fig advisory board along with Brian Fargo from inXile Entertainment and Tim Schafer from Double Fine Studios, so it's quite natural that they would use the service to their advantage. Of course, none of that makes it anymore digestible for gamers to feel comfortable backing the project.

Of course, if you really want to see Rock Band 4 come to PC courtesy of Sumo Digital, you can pledge toward the $1.5 million goal by visiting the Fig page.