Harmonix’s Amplitude, a reboot of the classic rhythm action game, has received a big donation from Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price. Price recently donated $7,500 and in a new blog post, he praised music games and how they were important to Insomniac’s culture. He also happens to be a big fan of the original Amplitude and Frequency, it’s off-shoot.

“We are big fans of both Harmonix and Amplitude, and we want to see Amplitude HD. As such, Insomniac has backed the game at the $7,500 level. We hope if you liked Amplitude or Frequency, or just love great music games in general, you’ll consider pledging too.”

Interestingly, having donated this much allows Insomniac to feature an original song for the game. And it has decided to include…well, this.

“Our latest music video, Crazy Ride, deserves some Harmonix game love as well, so we chose the $7,500 level to put our song into the game.”

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments. Amplitude still requires over $340,000 in funding with only a few days left so head here to contribute.

In response to queries, Price stated, “We’re not working on games for it.” But “when it comes to PS4 I’m excited that they seem to lowering barriers for independent developers. It’s cool to see almost weekly announcements from Sony explaining how they’re opening things up for indies. And of course I’m very excited to see what Microsoft announces soon.”

In fact, Price expressly stated that, “Wii U is something I’d consider more current gen.” So don’t count on seeing FUSE – or any games for Insomniac – coming to the console despite the developer’s current multiplatform status.

FUSE will be releasing on May 28th for North America and May 31st for Europe.

Insomniac Games’ Ted Price has spoken to Polygon in a interview have has revealed some things about the studio. Fuse will be released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and it’s the first time the studio has moved away from a Sony platform exclusive.

Their independence is crucial to trying out new trends and he also talked a bit about the corporate culture.

“We’ve always loved the opportunity to experiment with … early on, game design models; now, delivery mechanisms and new platforms,” he said. Their employees are always challenged to “think creatively about not just game design, but how [they’re] delivering [their] games and what audiences [they’re] addressing with [their] games.”

He also talked a bit about industry trends and how it has affected the console industry.

“It’s been a fascinating journey for all of us in the console development world to watch what’s happened with PC, with mobile, with social games during this console generation,” he said. “And I’d say that the changes in those particular areas of the industry have influenced what’s going on in the console industry, too.”

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“You don’t need a massive team to make a fantastic game. Journey. Perfect example, right? The Walking Dead. There are many, many games out there that are delivering triple-A content that are working with small, nimble teams – and that’s exciting.

“I don’t think you have to spend $200 million to have a game that players love and will continue to play for a long amount of time.”

Which is funny because some of the most played games are Call of Duty and Battlefield, both which have multi-million dollar budgets and large teams dedicated to them. But Price has a point, and hopefully the next generation will deliver stellar experiences like this one has.

Speaking to VG247, he said, “I think that what we all face in this industry – for those of us in the console business – is the need to get progressively more efficient in terms of how we build our assets and get them into the game.

“Because that’s going to get more and more complex. The bar continues to get raised in terms of visuals, so to keep development costs reasonable you have to have better and better tools, which means a constant focus on efficiency in your pipeline.

This makes sense – after all, games have progressively improved as we’ve gone further into a respective technology’s generation.

“The more efficiently you create assets for your game and the more quickly you can iterate on gameplay, the better the final product’s going to be no matter what platform it is.”

Source: GIBiz