Rock Band Drumming Up New Revenue For The Music Industry
from the rocking-out-on-the-xbox dept
Hit video game, Rock Band, is proving to be a lucrative new revenue stream for the music industry. The game comes with 58 playable songs, but through the XBOX Live Marketplace, gamers can download new songs for around $2 per track. In the eight weeks since the game has been on sale, 2.5 million songs have been downloaded. Indeed, this is a welcome new revenue stream for the music industry, and yet another example of how embracing technology can open up new markets. In the original version of the similar game Guitar Hero, most of the tracks were actually done by a cover band, since the original bands made it prohibitively expensive to use the "real" version (and in some cases, the covered version was considered too close to the original). Now, more bands are finally realizing the benefit of being included in the game, and are now lining up to get their tracks included. That said, only about three new tracks are released each week. So, what is the hold up? If it's a technological issue, it's one thing, but really, there's no good reason to be artificially limiting the number of tracks available to Rock Band players. Having more available tracks increases the fun of the game for all, and for the bands, it's a fantastic promotional opportunity.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: music, rock band, video games
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Just want to say
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Re: Just want to say
If each song had to have its own entirely unique animations/movements, the game would be horribly coded among other things. I play an instrument myself, and there are only so many expressions/movements available, you know? Considering in the game it is animated 3d models its easy to design them to do certain things, etc. Timing of the beats for each difficulty is probably somewhat more complicated, in all honesty.
Meanwhile, if they were to allow people to import their own custom songs into rock band would be even cooler, but I guess with DRM and whatnot, that won't happen yet. That would be a total godsend for people wanting to remix songs though.
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Re: Re: Just want to say
Yeah, that's the hard part. Good luck getting a machine to automatically tell if X or Y frequency should come from the drums or the guitar or whatever else.
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Re: Re: Re: Just want to say
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C'mon, man. Somebody has to set up the key strokes required for the easy, normal and difficult modes for each song. Extra little animations in the avatars have to be put on. All that has to be play-tested. It's not nearly as hard as making the game in the fist place, but at the same time, it's not automated work. The whole studio is probably only like 20 main programmers, and they only probably have 2 or 3 guys working on this, at the best, the rest are working on the next game.
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Re:
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As was said though, as time goes on they'll be falling all over themselves in order to get their music included in releases. I'd love to see an expansion for GH or RB that would include all indie music that would benfit the bands directly rather than some parasitic publishing group .
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In case you may not have realized, the game is out for PS3 as well and the same tracks are downloadable over its marketplace.
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Additionally...
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That being said, Harmonix does have a whole bunch of DLC stockpiled, waiting to be released. However, I think it's a bit stupid to say that they are not releasing enough of it. It already has more DLC than 99% of Xbox 360 games, and this is only a couple of months into release. I think it's perfectly reasonable to release 3 songs at a time.
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I want my hackable Rock Band/Guitar Hero
If/when this hack becomes available, once again, the incumbents will cry fowl when this happens. After this, the answer will be to allow the hacks to link to a legitimate means to purchase mp3s, ringtones, concert tickets, etc.
Another outcome is that Activision releases a developer's kit to the publishers, the publishers fund the development, and Rock Band/Guitar Hero becomes a platform.
Fun times ahead.
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Re: I want my hackable Rock Band/Guitar Hero
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Rock Band Rocks
I do believe the animations are sync'ed to individual tracks too. If you actually watch the video going on in the background during a song it looks too customized to each song to be just based off of sound peaks or something.
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I'm sure there is an administrative side too.
I believe that post 13 nailed the "business reason" for this too. If they release songs faster than people can play them, songs may get lost in the shuffle as people look at the current releases.
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I'm Sure They'll Try to Shut This Down Too
Do they realize how much money that their own stupidity takes out of their pockets?
Yet again, leave it to others to find innovative ways to please customers and make money.
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Just wanted to say
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crossplatform
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Mad at The Big Four
While songs from the 1990s, were somewhat negative, but still offered a level of hope.
So I'm trying to conceptualize what changed since the 1990s to make the new art coming out of the music industry so, erm, formal and politically correct...
We could fight that 9-11 changed it all, but now that airtravel is finally above 2001 numbers, that doesn't hold water.
So during this purcular excersize of comprehension, I came to realize that artists have no voice and have possibly decided to pursue different careerpaths.
So what does this mean?
Maybe it's time that our buddies at KKR get involved in media distribution. KKR has a great track record of leaning out companies. Remember how HomeDepot let Robert Nardelli go a few months after KKR expressed interest in the company.
Maybe the Big 4 have forgotten their core competency which is creating an environment which the creative class can create art. Maybe this challenge is partially because of the focus on maintaining current IP portfolios. Sometimes this means that there are cuts elsewhere. Instead of hiring solid music engineers who understand music, hobbiests are employed. As a result, the core competency seems to be focused on this piracy thing.
I try avoid most music these days because everytime I get someting from any of you guys, it's horribly overmodulated and an embarassment to the US music industry. Consider purchasing the Instrumental version of "Apologize". It was an absolute let down. Sure, I paid $0.99 for the instrumental version. It was overmodulated on my Shure SE310 headphones. Why should I even attempt to run it through my $7200 stereo system?
Not worth it.
So as a fan, why should I even consider ponying up for a SACD or DVD-A version, I ask.
If the industry can't hire good audio engineers and create good master, what's going on?
I have a theroy. Your focus is so much on piracy.
So I'll continue to listen to "At The Edge" By Jonathan Elias. Looks like he's good enough for Microsoft. Clint Mansell has a good team too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ
In case your curious, some songs I've listened to:
Ace of Base - The Sign.
Alanis Morissette - Ironic.
Barenaked Ladies - One Week.
Collective Soul - The World I Know.
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping.
Green Day - Time Of Your Life.
No Doubt - Spiderwebs.
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn.
Ini Kamoze - Here Comes The Hotstepper.
Jesus Jones - Right Here, Right Now.
Mountain - Baby I love your way.
MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This.
Busta Rhymes - Put Your Hands Where I Can See.
Lou Bega - Mambo #5.
The Cranberries - Dreams.
Los Del Rio - Macarena.
Live - All Over You.
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris.
Live - Lightning Crashes.
Haddaway - What Is Love.
Even MJ made the list:
Michael Jackson - Black Or White.
So I ask, when will Apple open a studio?
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Poop to you
And then paid for them again through my napster or Rapshody account as needed. Then I paid for them again on iTunes as needed.
So I like good music and am willing to pay for it, even if you build barriers for me.
Thanks for asking,
-IC
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