I can easily see how Rock Band DLC went double-platinum on only 2 months and why Motley Crue said they had more sales as DLC than as regular records - it’s compulsive. It’s been scientifically proven to be impossible to have too many songs to play, especially when the quality of the note chart conversion, which is directly proportional to fun, is as consistent as we’ve found it to be. I’ve spent the equivalent of half of a full-price game just on DLC already, and I’ve only really stopped because I have all the ones that simply must have; I could easily find another half dozen I’d be happy to buy but the need is not as urgent.
It has made me realise though that no matter how well the DLC has done already, it’s still a massively untapped pool of revenue in practical terms. Recently, a lot of the DLC has been a little ‘niche’ to say the least - personally I’ve no interest in The Cars, Jimmy Buffet or Disturbed (but then I’m not a huge metal fan, Iron Maiden a-likes don’t do much for me), so I’ve been mostly buying from the back catalogue. Don’t get me wrong, Rock Band’s DLC is far and away the best DLC list of any of the music games out there, but I just know that they could extract a lot more money from me if the recent releases were a little more diverse. Perhaps I should be grateful for that!
So, tips to Harmonix - you could quite easily force me to give you the shirt from my back by releasing some or all of the following:
Missing Bands
Arctic Monkeys
Franz Ferdinand
Led Zepplin
Lenny Kravitz
Manic Street Preachers
Pink Floyd
Queen
Supergrass
Snow Patrol
Santana
The Beatles (yeah, like that’s going to happen)
The Bluetones
The Smiths
The Stone Roses (and more than a weak cover version of “She Bangs The Drums”)
U2
Missing Tracks From Existing Bands
Foo Fighters - Almost anything else
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give It Away specifically, but again most other tracks
REM - It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
REM - most tracks from Accelerate
Rolling Stones - Jumpin’ Jack Flash
For a Laugh
Adam Ant (full-on camp, but you know it makes sense)
Bee Gees (just to see people try it on vocals)
Happy Mondays (if you didn’t have an Amiga tracker remix of Step On, you weren’t around in the early 90’s)
Smash Mouth
The Darkness (for those who can already do the Bee Gees)
One wonders whether the lack of quite as many mainstream entries as we might like in the DLC is down to just plain licensing, or Activision buying the rights up, or Harmonix hoarding tracks for Rock Band 2. Who knows? But still, I have an 80-odd song list locally for now and that’s still more than I’ve had before.
I bought another guitar today (a GH3 Les Paul as advised) so we’ll have 4-player to look forward to soon. Awesome.
June 7th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
some great tunes right there!
June 8th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I’m glad to see that you included the Beatles on your list, although, like you said the likelyhood of this is thin in the extreme (although this would make me a very, very happy man).
I’d also add the following onto the list of bands that I’d like to see:
Green Day
Elastica
Kaiser Chiefs
Beatles solo works
Wings
My Chemical Romance
The Automatic
Glad to hear that you’ve gotten yourself a second guitar, I knew it wouldn’t take you long
Looking forward to another go, with the full band experience, on monday
Cya
June 8th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Yeah, I do like the Beatles, I just think they’re hugely overrated - certainly given that their contemporaries were doing great work too. Great yeah, best band in the history of the universe no - no one band could ever achieve that in my view, and the way some people treat them like the Messiahs of music just bugs me a bit.
However due to the excessive valuation of their work I’m sure the Beatles would be impossible to license affordably, and to a lesser extent that may be the reason we haven’t seen the likes of Zeppelin or Queen either; despite Queen appearing in cover form in a couple of other music games I’ve had, perhaps a master track is too expensive.
Wings though?? I think I could live without that
June 9th, 2008 at 9:59 am
DLC = ?
June 9th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Downloadable Content. Yeah I know that should be ‘DC’ but what can I say, everyone already uses ‘DLC’.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I’d like to see Blur Song2……ok, maybe not the most complex track from drum/guitar/singing but it would be so much fun!
I’m looking forward to the next Rock Band session tonight!
[BTW, we're a person short for tonight - Marie is studying]
June 9th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Yeah, Song 2 is one of their best, even though it’s really short! Parklife might be fun too, although it would probably get boring quickly. Also Coffee & TV (class video).
June 10th, 2008 at 11:45 am
What about the following from Wings:
Band on the Run
Live and Let Die
Jet
Helen Wheels
Venus and Mars / Rickshow
All fantastic tracks that would be great on Rock Band…
Wings get a bad rep (because they were clearly not The Beatles), but they still had some great tracks…
Also,
Bob Dylan
Tom Petty
Buddy Holly
June 10th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Sorry, but I can’t say I particularly like anything by Wings. Live and Let Die is ok but really just because of the nostalgic Bond connection with my childhood. The likes of Band on the Run and Jet bore me to tears listening to them now, in all honesty. I find Wings very dull, the kind of easy-listening stuff I’d expect my Mum to like
But then I find an awful lot of McCartney’s music rather dull anyway.
Bob Dylan yes, Tom Petty yes, Buddy Holly… yes if you mean the track rather than the artist
September 26th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I realize that lack of Tom Petty is porbably due to licensing; just listen to ‘The Last DJ’ and you can see that TP may not go for such a thing. A shame, really, because he has some tracks that would ROCK on Rock Band. A few dreams:
Wont Back Down
Refugee
Southern Accent
The entire ‘Wild Flowers’ album (esp. “Honey Bee”)
Pink Floyd I am sure is tied up in licensing, as well. If they released ANY Gilmour guitar tracks…I’d probably never leave the house…lol.
I agree that there is so much untapped revenue out there, but I think they will definitely mine for that revenue in the future. I think you will see ‘Country Band’ in the future, which should (IMHO) include steel guitar and fiddle.