Sound Off! What Do You Want to Happen With Rock Band 3 DLC?
There’s been a lot of chatter around about what’s going to happen with existing, current, and new DLC now and when Rock Band 3 comes around. Thought I would throw a few questions out there to see what the community’s feelings are like regarding the state of DLC for the genre.
Also, feel free to add any comments you’d like at the bottom.
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I’d be okay with old DLC being updated in packs after the launch of RB3. And I’d be okay with a nominal upgrade fee.
Jason R. Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:22 pm
I’m fine with a nominal update fee as well. Probably wouldn’t pay per song though.
Excellent questions. I think it would be sad to not revisit and rechart some of the existing DLC. Not just to add in harmonies, keyboard and pro mode, but to change the tracks to take advantage of features like open strumming and broken chords and whatnot. I’d be willing to pay extra $ for the new charts. I’d even pay full price again or more, but I’d be much happier about it the cheaper it was obviously.
I guess the point is I have a budget for RBN/DLC content and I won’t exceed the budget, the price point will only change how much I get to buy.
I absolutely hope there will be updates, and I can deal with nominal upgrade fees and any wait time for such updates to happen. I’m not expecting a full catalog update, but I have to believe there is a market for Pro/Keyboards/Harmonies/etc on many of the songs currently available.
Recharting old DLC – keys I could live without more than Pro guitar. I want to be able to play along to my favorite songs on a real guitar.
Paying for updated DLC – I’m against a per song fee. I have over 1000 songs, and I’m not spending another $1000 on upgrading those songs after having spent over $3000 on this game to begin with. Flat fee screws the people with little DLC. Per song fee screws the people with a lot of DLC. The people with a lot of DLC will be the ones taking the most advantage of this.
I’ve all but stopped buying DLC, but not because it lacks content that post-RB3 stuff will have. I’m currently unemployed, and trying not to destroy my bank account before the game’s release, so that I might possibly have enough for the Squier when it comes out. I’d rather have no new DLC (to add to my 1300 or so songs) and be able to get the Squier than have new DLC and no Squier. When I find work, I’ll go back and get what I’ve missed.
Post-RB3 pricing – I wouldn’t be opposed to an increase, but I’d prefer if it stayed the same. I think a full dollar MAY be justified in terms of number of charts that have to be made. I think someone did the calculations and it was like a 50% increase (4 pro guitar, 4 pro bass, 8 keys). I’d rather it stay at 1.99 or only go to 2.49, though. A dollar isn’t much, until you’re talking about hundreds of songs that some of us buy.
Hysteria Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm
The problem with increasing the post-RB3 pricing is that the majority of users won’t be using pro-mode. The casual user is the biggest consumer and they won’t be playing pro anything for the most part. Asking them to pay more for features they won’t be using would be a bad move on HMX’s part.
I wouldn’t only be content if they updated old DLC for, say, $1 per song, I would be ecstatic. Free would be great, of course, but it just doesn’t seem feasible.
I’m not “boycotting” per se, but I checked “yes” anyway because I’ll be severely limited/lessening the amount I spend on DLC until I find out what the plans are for the older DLC. Why spend that money on songs that will be (potentially) dumbed-down content wise, when I can get the later stuff that has pro bass, pro guitar, keys, and harmonies?
I’d like to see the end results of this, could you post them at a later date?
I’m really hoping they update the back catalogue but I know that when HMX licensed the songs they didn’t get the required rights to chart Harmonies and Keyboard (or something like that) so I assume it would cost HMX to get the rights to update and therefore I would be willing to pay a -SMALL- update fee.
I also never really thought about the DlC price going up because of new features. I hope it doesn’t Rock Band has consumed enough of my money as it is.
Oh, and I’d be willing to fork over $3 per song considering the epic amount of work that will now have to go into each song.
Great questions!
As long as I’d be willing to pay some fee to have old DLC upgraded to RB3, I wouldn’t like to re-buy or upgrade it one by one.
And I think DLC price should stay the same. If I’m a NORMAL/HARD kind of player, why should I pay to have extra stuff on PRO? Keep it simple as usual HMX and everybody will stay happy right beside you.
Hmm for some reason it didn’t cross my mind that if they do go back and update the old DLC they’ll want some money for doing it. I think I’d be reluctant to pay a certain price per track because there’s soooo much DLC the cost would really add up. Would be nice if they gave us options with this. Maybe either you could choose to pay per track if you weren’t fussed about all your DLC being upgraded but wanted certain tracks, or alternatively you pay a set amount, like the export fee, to get the updated versions of all your DLC. The only issue I see with this is people with only 30 songs complaining that they’re paying the same amount as someone with 150 songs, so on that basis maybe they could have a few different price bands depending on the amount of DLC you currently own. Or maybe I just totally over-complicated the process.
Anyway whatever happens with the old DLC, I definitely don’t think we should pay any more for the new DLC with extra things in. That’s just going to be part of the game now, we didn’t ask them to make a keyboard or pro guitar, so we shouldn’t have to pay more to have DLC with it in. Bare in mind some people probably won’t even buy a keyboard, or pro guitar, or ever sing harmonies, so they’d be justifiably really annoyed if the cost of DLC went up.
While it would be cool if the tracks were updated and I would agree to paying a little more for the extra features, I’m pretty cool with no updating at all. We all knew that this was going to happen one day and I’m really just happy that my purchases from years ago won’t be made totally obsolete. THAT would piss me off.
I think a one off fee to upgrade your current DLC and any other DLC you buy would be good; I’d really hate to pay 75p-ish on all of the current DLC that I’ve got.
I said I would still buy DLC as it comes out even without harmonies or keyboard, but that doesn’t mean I’m secretly hoping everything I love is being delayed until RB3. I’m totally psyched about Portions for Foxes having keys and Get Free having harmonies so I don’t mind at all if I should wait for the songs I love to get here
Truthfully, I might as well go down to my bank and set up a standing order to Harmonix. I’m always giving them money!
Id like to see something along the lines of the ps3 rbn release schedule – where they pick a small number of good songs every week, say 3 or 5, and update them with new features. Even if every song has it’s defenders I honestly think the most reasonable expectation would be for the big, obvious ones to get updated. I’d gladly pay a buck a song for the right to update it. That way it could be something to anticipate and harmonix wouldn’t have to feel like they were wasting time updating the 3rd least popular song on a mid-selling pack.
Heck, let the community vote on favorites to be updated and they could generate some real excitement.
Small upgrade fee is the way to go. And only on select songs, not the whole catalog. Many many songs are out that there would be little demand to upgrade at all.
I know I said boycott in a prior thread (and voted that way here too), but it’s not quite like that. Until spring next year and there’s no updated “old” DLC, I’m going to continue to believe that some of the back catalog will be updated. There’s just far too much value to us users for them not to go back given the songs.
Based on that, I’d rather my DLC budget be concentrated in Pro-able songs, so I’m more on hiatus, and trying not to spend the points I have currently… We’ll see how that goes.
Other posters are right, since most users won’t use Pro features, the base price for new DLC needs to stay at $1.99, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t adopt a base + upgrade price for all DLC ($1.99 normal, $2.99 if you want the pro features, with $0.99 additional to get Pro in old content sounds like a consistent price list easy to “sell” to users and labels as fair).
The problem with them going back and upgrading old disc tracks and DLC is that that they don’t have the resources to do all the songs at once and the license holders will try to screw them for more money. People will complain endlessly about any price they have to pay. If they just update a selection of songs it will lead to even more wailing and gnashing of teeth than we see every week when they announce DLC.
Sure there are quite a few songs I’d love to see Pro mode for but it’s better they just focus on keeping the new DLC flowing then go back when they’ve improved their automation tools for pro mode creation which I have no doubt will get very impressive after they’ve started cranking out the new DLC.
i think they should add new features to existing DLC. They should charge a one-time fee to add the new features. I would pay up to $40 to get my 200+ DLC collection upgraded for the new features, i mean it would all be worth it to play ‘Constant Motion’ on keys.
I hope it doesnt cost more.. I simply can’t afford it.. but tbh if that’s the way it is going to be it will.. and I’ll buy what I can..
I’d prefer a one time cost to upgrade ALL dlc though rather than per song.
just watched an episode of SentuaMessage on xbox live and someone asked Dan Teasdale if old dlc would be updated with keys and he basically said they’re still working out the details of updating the old dlc, but he said he’s well aware that there are many great songs that deserve the treatment. Go watch the video it’s where the inside xbox videos are on the dashboard. Or just search for sentuamessage on google and you’ll find it’s the first link, and it’s the E3 video.
HMX not updating the existing DLC with the new features would be equatable movie studios saying “we’ll only be remastering and transferring new movies to BluRay. But don’t worry, you’ll still be able to watch all your older favorites on DVD (it’s compatible! yay!)” :/
The existing library unquestionably contains some of the best music in recorded history. The thought that I won’t be able to play keys on songs like She’s Not There or harmonies on the Queen songs or that me and my girlfriend can’t do duet vocals on the X pack saddens and disappoints me to the point where I might end up losing interest because of this game instead of having a renewed excitement for it.
I’m sorry I just don’t see myself getting excited about features that (what would be) 95% of my songs don’t have.
RockBandAide Reply:
June 25th, 2010 at 8:56 am
That’s a great point about movie studios, but REALLY works against us. When a movie studio re-releass a DVD on Blu-Ray, only the die-hards buy it, and it’s strictly a cash grab (*cough* George Lucas *cough*).
What we need to remember is that as vocal of a community as we are, we are still VASTLY outnumbered by the casual Rock Band player, just like the much larger amount of DVD owners who will not be upgrading their library to Blu-Ray.
“Standard more and Pro mode… it’s like two tracks in one!”
Isn’t it more like 4 tracks+ in 1? You can’t tab out a complex song for Pro Expert and then take away a few notes to lower the difficulty (Like you can in the standard mode). Times that by the number of instruments and the levels of difficulty and you have a beast of a job on your hands don’t you? If they manage to make the game and new DLC high quality accurate and cost effective that is a job well done. If they manage to update old DLC (including RBN?) for no extra cost to the consumer that would be the stuff of legend! You have to expect to pay for updated Pro compatible DLC. Any chance we could get an MP3, a video, Lips / singstar compatibility and a printable music score for all the DLC as well? I can’t help thinking we ask / expect a bit much of game creaters some days (that said all of the above would be nice lol) ; )
What I’m curious about is if/until they update, how will playlists with both pro and standard mode work? I assume you’ll choose a difficulty for each, songs without harmonies will just have all three singers sing the lead and the mustang/squier works with standard mode (that one I think has been confirmed, but I haven’t had enough coffee to remember), but it’d be nice to know for sure.
This could be really a big thing for them if they made it so. I bought Green Day: Rock Band just because they were offering a free transfer to RB2. If they did the same thing except had all the RB2 songs made to pro transferable to RB3. I think their numbers would jump dramatically.
They NEED to do this and they need to advertise it. Starting out with every single disc would be great as well. RB2 would be the best start, then RB1 and The Beatles: RB and finally GD:RB. Each disc would probably (just trying to be realistic, not hopeful) come with it’s own price for the transfer and upgrade to pro. After that they need to do the same thing for ALL DLC. One large price for the upgrades as an option. That would be great for people like have a vast majority of the songs. But would screw most who just want a song or two. So also make a standard download or pro download for single tracks. The Pro could sell at $1.99 (current standard price), while discounting old DLC at standard to $.99. Once RB3 has came out all DLC just would have both options and work on all platforms and stay at the standard price we all have come to know and well use. I would gladly pay $10 to $20 for each disc to be upgraded to pro and for over a thousand songs to be upgraded. I wouldn’t mind paying $40 to $60 as a flat rate. It may end up costing a little more than a $100 to upgrade everything but I think it would be worth it and would be enough incentive to get HMX to actually do it.
To be honest though I’d just be thrilled if they announced The Beatles was going to be transferable at all. If it is, I hope “Hey Jude” is included or even on the RB3 disc. That would be awesome on the keys and with a mic at the same time.
Rich Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:49 am
I think its a great point to have a two-tiered pricing structure. I am not a pro-player yet, but the ability to learn to actually play is making me seriously try to learn.
I would pay a premium to upgrade many of my tracks.