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Major Nelson Frames the GH II DLC Discussion
Yesterday we discussed the mighty expensive Guitar Hero II downloadable content. Some readers had serious complaints, and their views jive with a lot of other commentators out there. Prior to an event related to the game Joystiq had the chance to sit down with Microsoft's Major Nelson, who attempted to frame the conversation and point out the difficulties associated with this project: "I used to work in the broadcasting industry and in music for a long time and I know that content is not linear. It's not like you go to iTunes, and you're buying the same thing. There's testing that's involved, and there's also licensing involved. There's a lot of elements involved. When there's music involved, that brings up a lot of licensing issues ... You have to consider the Leaderboard. People like to say it's the same [as on the PS2], but the licensing is not the same. You have to re-license it. It's a different platform. While on the surface it may look fairly simplistic, and people are saying 'XYZ should be done,' but we're not Red Octane. I work for Microsoft, and we're just the conduit at this point."
Jeanie!!!!!!
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Just don't buy the track packs at that price. If everyone put their money where their mouth was, and the track packs ended up flopping, they will have to lower the price, and will be wary of releasing future live content at those prices.
Instead, everyone is going to bitch about it, but end up buying them anyways.
I caved in. I wasn't going to buy them at that price but I was playing GH2 last night and my wife commented that $2 a song wasn't too much as far as she was concerned and I should buy them. Live Marketplace makes it too easy to buy stuff hehe. So I ended up with packs #2 and #3. But I won't buy #1 for that price damn it! I'm making a stand!
I've already been snookered, having bought both 1 and 2 for the PS2. Now they want me to pay another 90$ (180$ to match the set of guitars I have now) for content I already own, plus charge me 2$ a song?
Make the Xbox360 version backwards compatible with the older hardware, and sell the program at $39.99 or some reasonable fee, and we'll talk. Otherwise, see ya in GH3.
People, chill out. This is not some great travesty. If 3 songs at $10 dollars is worth it to you, then buy it. Otherwise don't. Quit yapping about it.
One commenter pointed out that if all the old songs of the original PlayStation 2 version were released on Xbox Live, it would cost significantly more than simply buying both Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II on the PS2. People feel flustered by that. Why are we paying more for old content?
MN: Once again, it's not old content. The contracts have to be renegotiated on a new platform, and it's also involving digital distribution, so there's a lot of things involved.
Major, you are not answering the question that was asked. The question was "Why are we paying more". No one disagrees with the fact that the content is worth something. You failed to answer why it costs MORE than the game.
Microsoft may just be a conduit in this case, but what about the Gears of War map releases that are due out, soon?? Mark Rein of Epic said that Epic wished to release the maps for free, but 'pressure' from Microsoft, who plays the role of both Gears of WArs' publisher, and the "conduit" Xbox Live Marketplace led them to stall the release (supposedly until an arrangement can be met). Garage Games has also mentioned that they have received 'encouragement' from Microsoft to charge for their DLC for Marble Blast Ultra.
So... perhaps Microsoft is just a conduit in this particular instance, but I'm starting to suspect that they're still involved in the decision making process.
And don't take my argument the wrong way -- I think everyone deserves to be paid for their work, but I also believe that the creators of content should be allowed to decide what they should charge for that work. Certainly, a body that would benefit from that work simply due to its existence should not be included in that decision.
It seemed like only a couple years ago, buying a game meant becoming part of a community, especially when extra content could be created by the fanbase as well (Half Life, Quake, etc). Your price of admission to the community (and any updates that were released for it) was the game.
Why are there a lot of things involved? And what "things" exactly?
Look. The whole point to the music business is to get the music to the consumer. This makes it sound like they're falling over themselves to keep it from me. I have the version of the game this music is coming from. I have already paid them their extortion money. Why do I have to pay them even more now? Because the toy I'm playing it on is different?
I call bullshit.
There's testing that's involved, and there's also licensing involved. There's a lot of elements involved. When there's music involved, that brings up a lot of licensing issues ... You have to consider the Leaderboard. People like to say it's the same [as on the PS2], but the licensing is not the same. You have to re-license it.
It still makes no sense that the full song list for the original GH costs $97+ by extrapolation while GH2 including the controller, packaging, media and more songs (that required the same testing, licensing and development work) costs $90. How can they possibly rationalize this?
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
That's the issue here, too many people need to get paid.
The Song creators deserve a cut to license their work for the game. Master Recordings or not, it's their song.
RedOctane/Activision et al... deserve a cut for doing the work to implement it into the game (including recording the songs)
Microsoft deserves a cut as the publisher for hosting / serving the files IE: getting them into the customer's hands.
Then between the 2 of us we have 1 honest boycott. I bought pack #1, but won't buy the other two (just don't like them as much). That'll teach them! Damn them and their capitolist ways!
Microsoft deserves a cut as the publisher for hosting / serving the files IE: getting them into the customer's hands.
No, Microsoft deserves a cut as the service provider (Xbox Live), NOT as the publisher. Their job is to publish the game -- which they did, Gears has sold phenomonally. Are you saying that after their job is done (publishing, marketing), they deserve to earn more money for doing nothing more?
Don't confuse Microsofts two roles in this (Gears of War) debate.
And, in case you've overlooked this element of the argument, Microsoft DOES get paid to be a service provider. I pay five bucks a month to access online content. That's 5 bucks more than I pay to access similar content on the internet for games like Half Life and Quake.
The games industry is searching for more and more ways to increase profit while not increasing cost, these are examples of their efforts. Some are validated, some are egregious. Who is it up to, to say which is which?
Pack 1 looks good. I might end up getting the one with the Chili Peppers and Bad Religion eventually, but pack 1 is my favorite by far.
-- toolie
He says that this isn't the comparable to iTunes and he's right, it isn't. You can't listen to them on your computer, burn the tracks to a cd or put them on a portable music player AND they're only covers of the originals. Yes, obviously they are interactive but he's right, we can't compare them to iTunes songs. Instead, lets compare them to the tracks that came with Guitar Hero 2.
There were 47 songs on Guitar Hero 1 and, at this price, they would cost close to $100 to download. That's the same as all of GH 2 costs. It comes with *72* songs AND includes the game software AND the guitar. How can that possibly be justified? The songs aren't even new, they already had most of the work done on them. Yes, they're now 5.1 and have bass guitar but they still had alot less to do then on new songs. I know there must be some cost in making the content downloadable, the bandwidth, testing the service and so on but be realistic, xbox live is a fairly mature service, many full games cost less then the cost of 1 bundle. He says the licensing is different from the PS2, but is it different to the packaged 360 tracks? If it's so much more expensive to license for download (which I'd say is fairly unlikely, considering they're covers), why not release them all as a boxed expansion pack?
He goes on to say the Leaderboard factors into the price. What? Why? They provide that service for the songs that come with the game, how is it more expensive to provide it for extra content too? Even if it is, I think most of us would prefer cheap content and no Leaderboard.
I own GH and GH 2 on the PS2 and I was going to buy the 360 version just for the downloadable content and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Infact it was one of the main reasons I bought an XBox 360. I was planning to buy all the original songs again (to play on the improved GH2 engine, hopefully making Cowboys from Hell on expert possible) for a reasonable price, say $20 - $30, but with this pricing, Red Octane/Microsoft have blown it. I'm a big fan of the games but $100 to download tracks I already have? I'll save my cash thanks.
As if everything else wasn't bad enough they sell the content in bundles of 3 songs so as to force you to buy the weaker songs along with the better ones.
Oh, and saying Microsoft are 'just the conduit' after them arguring against free Gears of War dlc is just insulting.
Unless I'm mistaken, I thought that Harmonix hired a house band to perform renditions of the songs, due in part to the fact that the licensing costs were cheaper to go that route. I'd be surprised if the house band retained ANY rights to their performance when they signed the contract to those songs as part of the publishing agreement. What I'm suggesting is that I don't think the performers were in a position to withhold their rights from the royalties from downloads, hence that argument is invalid.
I'm sure there are quite a few people out there that would pay $39.99 for all of the GH1 tracks via Xbox Live. Care to guess whether they will ever offer that option? To use your analogy, it would be like going to a car dealership and being forced to pay for the sum of the parts of a car rather than being allowed to buy the whole thing. I'm not saying they won't make the "$39.99 for everything" offer, but I seriously doubt it.
I'm sorry, I am not buying Nelson's justifications one bit. Please explain to me how GH is any different than Karaoke Revolution?
Music based game revolving around licensed content (check)
Original was PS2 exclusive (check)
Later ported to the XBox (check)
Additional songs available on XBox Live (check)
Karaoke Revolution's price Per song = 1.00
Guitar Hero's Price per song = 2.00
Nelson says that Red Octane sets the pricing and that Microsoft is "just the conduit at this point". Wait a minute, didn't MS *force* Epic to charge for Gears of War content they were going to give away for free? How does a simple "conduit" have pricing authority with Epic, but they are blameless whenever their customers feel they are getting overcharged?
You can't have it both ways MS, either you're just a passive middleman, tacking on your bit for offering the content, or you are at least partially responible for setting pricing. Which is it?
Whichever is most convenient at the time it would seem...
I think you mean "jibe," as in "be in accord; agree" and not "jive," as in "a form of dance or slang talk."
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
"Microsoft deserves a cut as the publisher for hosting / serving the files IE: getting them into the customer's hands."
Yeah, but ~5 megabytes of bandwidth/server costs approximately nothing compared to a Live subscription or the licence fee they already took when the user bought Guitar Hero 360. If they felt they absolutely had to get compensated for it they could play a 30 sec advert while it downloaded and probably walk away with a profit. Or just implement bittorrent and slash their bandwidth use by a factor of 10+.
Considering I know loads of people who warez a DVD of data every day without paying anyone other than their ISP I don't think anyone can seriously ask a dollar for a few floppy disks worth of data.
Creators should be compensated. Distributors, in an internet age, need to recognise that their services are very marginal.
ha, i remember going to the block for 3 for $5 deals, but they were always little baggies of a green leafy substance.
seriously though, $2 a song isn't that bad and i like the 3 for 5 talk, but even the cats on the block let me pick my baggies out of a handful...whats with these prepackaged groups? also, i want NEW songs not 'new to xbox' songs. if they released some genuinely new content and allowed me to choose the 3 songs i got in the pack, i would have no complaints.
Presumably It would be the same adapter (PS2 to USB2). I wonder if the PS3 will play the PS2 Guitar Hero (I or II) with the 360 controller.
You are actually paying $0 per month to access online content via Live. You Pay the $5 per month to play multiplayer games online and use Voice chat over Live. Considering Guitar Hero II supports neither, you would get the same access /experience if you had Live Silver, or Gold.
No, it's too expensive individually.
1) I still have my PS2, I can buy the entire Guitar Hero 1 WITH a guitar for a decent price... AND I get the guitar. Heck, I can get two guitars for that price.
2) If it IS that expensive, per Major Nelson, then sell the entire GH1 as a bundle for $89.99 with another guitar. I'd buy that.
They are attributing the higher price for the individual packaging. Whereas, if you bundled it up, it would be cheaper. No different than buying music singles versus the entire album. If that's the case, release Guitar Hero 1 for Xbox360, and they're guaranteed a more buyers.
I personally, am waiting for the Guitar Hero 3 (80s?) to come out.
Seems to me, someone needs to start flexing some muscle.
Giving the songs away for free seems like it would create far more benefits for everyone involved.
1) RedOctane would benefit because word would spread, and more people would likely buy GH2.
2) Microsoft benefits because it'd probably draw more people to Xbox Live subscriptions. Perhaps #1 would even cause some people to buy Xbox360's to get the GH2 on the Xbox due to the free songs.
3) The song publishers would benefit because this is free, interactive airplay. Know how a song gets stuck in your head after hearing it on the radio? Playing it in the game increases this effect. I've bought many records I would normally not have bought or been exposed to due to listening to and playing them in GH1 and GH2.
Perhaps its too soon, but instead of begging publishers for the right to pay for using their song, I would think good PR could go to publishers and ask how much they're willing to pay to get their songs in the game. And smart publishers would line up.
Perhaps that's the tack Harmonix will take with their next game, Rock Band.
Unlimited it seems. Time and time again, Microsoft do something to shaft their customers, be it releasing new versions of consoles, before the last ones are dead (literally in the case of the 360!), or forcing Epic to make the GOW levels chargable.
Then they make you buy some crappy game to get on the 3 week Halo 3 beta, and then charge you again to buy the full game!
Now it seems when they are not releasing GH2 patches that brick your console, they are ripping of GH2 owners with expensive content...
so 360 owners, how many times do Microsoft have to shaft you before you look at the alternatives?
Unlimited it seems. Time and time again, Microsoft do something to shaft their customers, be it releasing new versions of consoles, before the last ones are dead (literally in the case of the 360!), or forcing Epic to make the GOW levels chargable.
How many times does someone have to post that Microsoft is the publisher for GoW, so it's totally not the same thing as the Guitar Hero songs? I don't like that they want us to pay, but it's totally their right as the publisher.
Then they make you buy some crappy game to get on the 3 week Halo 3 beta, and then charge you again to buy the full game!
There were two other ways to get into the Halo 3 Beta. If you spent 60 dollars on a game you didn't want to get the beta, well, that's your fault. Personally, I bought Crackdown because the demo was really fun, and I think it's an incredible game. The fact that it had a beta for Halo 3 was a bonus.
Now it seems when they are not releasing GH2 patches that brick your console, they are ripping of GH2 owners with expensive content...
There's a thread over at Evil Avatar asking if anyone had their consoles bricked. As of this morning, seems everyone's was still working who'd downloaded the patch. As for the price... if you don't like it... don't freaking buy it. Remember when there was an expansion for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter? It was fifteen freaking dollars (or more, I can't remember). I didn't like that either, so I didn't buy it. Problem solved.
Xbox Live? Xbox Dead more like..
7 177
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7 747
Xbox 360 Guitar Hero 2 Xbox Live patch bricking many consoles.
http://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx...ostID=1171
http://www.destructoid.com/red-octan...se-30996.p
http://forum.guitarherogame.com/Defa...=posts&t=1
Surely all these are not isolated cases...
Why do these people think we are idiots? Their "justification" is pure garbage.
The 360 GH 2 was going to be my first GH purchase, but after seeing the ridiculous prices for the song packs, I decided to just pass on the game all together.
No sense in encouraging this behavior.