Make Your Own Rock Band Music: MTV Announces Rock Band Network
July 17th, 2009 by Ivan Pena in Bombardier Manifesto, NewsGood news for every independent musician in the World. MTV (owners of the Rock Band franchise) just announced its own new distribution platform through the immensely popular musician-simulation game Rock Band.
The Rock Band Network is a revolutionary system that will allow bands, studios and record labels to create and sell playable game content from their master recordings using the same professional tools used by Rock Band developers. Rock Band Network, currently in closed beta, should launch to the public in August (with in-game sales later in the year).
MTV has infused Rock Band Network with professional utilities to enable a community of music makers to get their work to the masses and profit by it. Paul DeGooyer, a senior VP with MTV games, tells Billboard that “We’re talking about a set of serious professional tools to allow people on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny with respect to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store.”
Rolling Stone reports: “The Rock Band Network will launch in August and include instructions for how exactly songwriters can turn their tunes into game songs. Songs must first undergo play-testing at Creators.RockBand.com, a Website available to those who become premium members of Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Online at a cost of $49.99 for four months or $99.99 for a year. When a track gets the go ahead, it will be sold at the Rock Band Network Store exclusively for Xbox 360 for a period of 30 days starting in the fall. A selection of approved tracks will later be sold for PlayStation 3 and Wii. Harmonix and MTV promise artists whose tunes make the cut will be compensated: rockers will be able to price individual tracks according to multiple pricing tiers, and they’ll get paid royalties accordingly.”
“Our goal with Rock Band has always been to go beyond making music games and create a true music platform,” said Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix.
July 18th, 2009 at 9:01 am
This is seriously awesome. I’m sure lots of shitty bands will be uploading their songs, but now I won’t have to wait for MTV to think songs/bands I like are worthy. If the band likes Rock Band, they might DIY it.