Slashdot Mirror
Rock Band To Allow Independent Artists To Add Their Own Songs
Bakkster writes "Independent artists will be able to use the XNA Creator's Club to produce the Rock Band note-charts for their music and sell them in game later this year. Bands will use their original song masters and generate a MIDI file that produces the game 'gems' to which players can follow along. Tracks must pass a review process with other XNA members, and then a final approval from MTV Games. Songs will be sold for between 50 cents and $3, with the artist getting a 30% cut after MTV and Microsoft take their cut. The best tracks will also make their way to the Wii and PS3 after a 30-day exclusive period."
By the time an artist sells a song, they'll owe Microsoft money.
Do you have ESP?
the artists still get recognition, though, from having their songs available in the game. and if the song gets popular enough, that can translate into itunes and amazon mp3 downloads, and possibly into album sales.
According to TFA, artists receive a "30% cut of all sales" not the ambiguous percentage that the summary implies...
As a side note, I see this as a win for all involved, especially the artists. This service will provide indie groups an opportunity to reach a large market, for very minimal costs, and a source of income in and of itself (albeit relatively small).
Comparing the summary, article, and official site:
Summary and article: prices range from 50 cents to $3 per song
Official site: Final pricing has yet to be determined
Summary: Artists get 30% after MTV and MS take their cut
Article: Artists get 30% of each sale
Official site: Artists get "a cut" of each sale
Where did the figures in the article and summary come from?
that said, they are requiring that you get the premium subscription to the XNA creators network ($100 per year) according the link.
Whats your point? There has to be SOME barrier to entry. (and the $100 cost to produce iphone apps hasn't even come close to stopping the flood of garbage)
This is a HUGE win for everyone: Harmonix the company, Rock Band the games, all of the musicians, and us as players. It's a blend of the iTunes music store and the iTunes app store, both of which were ground-breaking, genre-defining, and they both remain hugely profitable to everyone involved. This is going to let them build up their music library to be even bigger, and it was already large compared to Guitar Hero: World Tour's.
So far, both RB and GH:WT have been founded on songs sequenced by the game creators. While they've done a good job, and I can't really see another way to get started, it can never scale. There's so much music -- even when you limit the pool to music that can be fairly accurately portrayed by the combination of guitarist, bassist, drummer, and vocalist -- that this approach can only ever be a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket. Releasing the sequencing tools allows for crowd-sourcing, which scales very well indeed. There is going to be so much music available now that never was and never reasonably could be expected to have been made available via the old model.
I expect that indie musicians, and the savvier mainstream groups (I'm thinking of Radiohead here), will be the first ones in the door. If the record labels know anything about anything (which might be an unreasonable expectation), they'll eventually get in on this too.
I see two potential problems with this. One is that this could possibly limit their future expansion plans. Presumably there will be a Rock Band 3, and I would expect it to add features from RB: Beatles like multi-part harmonies. If songs are sequenced for RB2, will they be updated to take advantage of newly features in the future? It's very easy to imagine idiotic record labels getting all their stuff in once, with mediocre quality, and then never updating them. Harmonix is going to have to exercise its veto power a lot -- both to keep quality high, and to delay songs that really need upcoming improvements to be played the way they deserve to be.
The other problem I see is that the Wii and PS2/3 platforms are getting screwed. It'd be one thing if there were ONLY a delay between releasing on the Xbox and releasing on the other platforms -- that'd be ok. But releasing on the Xbox, and then maybe sometimes releasing on the other two, depending on some vaguely-defined metric? That's completely the wrong approach, and sounds like holdover thinking from the old way of doing things. Who's going to judge which tracks are eligible to be transferred to the other systems? At some level, that's always going to end up as judging the song, and more importantly imposing that judgment on the users (the paying customers!) of the other systems. I can't think of a valid reason to segregate the fanbase this way, and I think if they stick to this plan it will come back to bite them.
Still, based on the initial announcement... huge, HUGE win.
You write your music. You play your music. You convert your music into the game. We take the profit.
Note also how it says they get a 30% cut AFTER mtv and microsoft take theirs.
I'm curious... as opposed to what? Not converting your music and being guaranteed of getting nothing?
If you write your music, and play your music at a venue, would you expect to not pay the venue first?
What about artists who don't want to charge money for their work?
Request your free CD of my piano music.
You mean the music the "unwashed masses" want/get because they don't know better?
Of course there's a $100 per year fee to be in the XBL Marketplace in the first place.
There's also a $100 per year fee to be in Apple's store. So why do so many Slashdot users put down Microsoft but give props to Apple?
Even if they don't make money it is cheap advertising. A weekend of setting up the track and $100 to register is cheap, and it will likely result in some sales and better recognition. Most independent artists suffer from a lack of visibility -- it is hard to sell records if no one has heard of you. This might help them out in that area a little bit.
There's also a $100 per year fee to be in Apple's store.
Lies. The fee for Apple developers is one-time. Comparing the expenses for the two, and they're even, but every year you want to stay a part of the respective gong show, XBL Marketplace gets you paying more and more.
At least in the U.S., cover versions of any publicly-distributed songs are covered by compulsory licensing
As I understand it, the U.S. compulsory license applies to pure sound recordings, not to audiovisual works that include synchronized media such as "gem" charts.