Rock Band DLC Statosphere 05/06/2008 update. THE MOTHER WHOS? The humanity of it all

[MrStato]

Rock Band DLC Statosphere (http://www.dlcstats.com/) - stats for ALL downloadable songs.

FACT: The Mother Hips have a song on the Rock Band game disc.
FACT*: 93.79% of Rock Band players have still never heard of them.
FACT: The Mother Hips recently released tracks have had a pathetic opening week.

Well, it's not THAT surprising. However, I was expecting to see something on par with what the lesser selling Judas Priest tracks had on their first week... and it ends up being less than half that.

My math is crap but if we assume these tracks do 50% the current total next week, then 50% of that the following week, then settle into a ~200 a week groove then.. ehh err cross the T and transfer a decimal here and there.. It will take over 6 months for them to reach 10,000! DO THE NEW CHERRY BOMB TWINS WALK AMONG US? Well, hopefully not. These songs are not nearly as easy to poke fun at as Cherry Bomb is. Well I guess if everyone refers to them as "The Cherry Bomb Twins" then maybe.. I've always had a thing for twins. Time will tell I suppose. I'm going to buy a stress ball.

Speaking of Cherry Bomb, it crossed the 11k mark this week. A monumental occassion for sure!

* May or may not be fact.

edit: updated URL

[The_Sailerman]

Aw man, this is sad news. The Mother Hips songs are actually really good! :(

Harmonix definitely should have made them 80 MS Points / $1 though, it was pretty obvious they wouldn't sell well.

[TheKrazyKatzzz]

So, have we established that the number of people who buy every DLC no matter what has dramatically decreased? I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

[xenocide38]

Those songs are surprisingly fun and cool. I'm glad I spent the money.

Oh and people who buy all DLC is definitely reduced. I used to buy all the DLC until stuff came out that I absolutely couldn't stand on my xbox. And I realized 2 bucks for a song is a good deal but not if you'll only play the song once.

[MrStato]

I'm satisfied with The Mother Hips purchases as well, both songs are fun to play though I definitely like Red Tandy better. I have to agree though they probably should have been half price releases simply based on how well The Mother Hips are recognized. The two other stand out "unrecognizable" (forgive me if they actually are) songs are Song With A Mission and Shockwave, both which launched at half price.

I'd mark the thrash pack bands as unrecognizable too but that pack had a "super hard songs" gimmick going for it.

[WhiffleBallTony]

Ouch. I might have to buy "Red Tandy" to help out. I bought the other and I love it. I absolutely love it.

[nicholasenj]

both sound pretty good and fun, but I can't cost justify $4. $2, probably, but not 4. supply and demand. oh, well; guess I won't be playing any mother hips any time soon.

[WhiffleBallTony]

both sound pretty good and fun, but I can't cost justify $4. $2, probably, but not 4. supply and demand. oh, well; guess I won't be playing any mother hips any time soon.

The Mother Hips tracks are $2.00.

[nicholasenj]

.....

I know that, $4 for both, $2 for both if they were both $1.

you could give me a little more credit than that.

[Maggot_Brain]

I'm one of the few and proud with Red Tandy.

I'm saddened by the Judas Priest performance. That's a killer album.

Are we seeing price resistance?

[Dagg21]

I think this proves they need A-List bands and A list tracks to increase sales the numbers speak for themselves.

[xxpigxx]

Are we seeing price resistance?

Nope. You are seeing album resistance.

You are also seeing resistance of people who are no longer willing to buy everything that is available.

People are starting to get selective.

[jjlee138]

Wow, the Mother Hips sold a lot better than I thought they would.

[Spandrel]

I admit that I would probably buy them at 80 points a piece. Nothing against the Mother Hips, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea to charge $1 for Bonus Song artists. Well, unless it is Bang Camaro, and then I will pay whatever they charge.

[Sayburr]

Thanks so much for keeping up with this data. I am sure its a lot of work.

[nunant11]

I think this proves they need A-List bands and A list tracks to increase sales the numbers speak for themselves.

I couldn't agree more. The new factor is wearing off of the game and people are beginning to be more selective as to what they buy. Hopefully this will send a loud message to Harmonix but will they listen? I'm seeing more and more people becoming upset with what HMX is providing.

They need to get more music from the last two decades. If you look at the numbers, that's pretty much their top sellers. Enough of the Judas Priest's, Grateful Dead's of the past, and garage bands most have never heard of. I can pretty much guarentee that the Fall Out Boy song this week will have better opening numbers than anything they have put out in awhile simply because it's known.

[sa_nick]

Red Tandy is my new fav drumming track in the whole game! Motherhips have always been in my top 3 bonus songs for RB so i was up for the DLC.

The problem was the price, if they were $1 each then the sales mighta been a lot better.

[dome420]

the mother hips songs a really fun to play....give it a chance....you guys all b*tch about spending a dollar on a song...are you all really that broke where you can't spend 3 dollars a week on a video game.....go out and get a part time job.

[simmias]

the mother hips songs a really fun to play....give it a chance....you guys all b*tch about spending a dollar on a song...are you all really that broke where you can't spend 3 dollars a week on a video game.....go out and get a part time job.
Disclaimer: I own all the DLC.

However, I think it's silly to get mad at anyone for finding a better use for their money. That's how people get in trouble financially... it's $3 here, $4 there, $6 here, $5 there... eventually you're talking about real money.

[jeccaneko]

The problem was the price, if they were $1 each then the sales mighta been a lot better.

I'm not sure price would've helped that much. The Mother Hips aren't exactly well known. I mean, people don't seem to recognize their name even with one of their songs already in Rock Band. I have a friend that refuses to buy any DLC if he doesn't already know the song. I personally don't subscribe to that. If it seems like a good song and a fun song to play in Rock Band, I'll buy it. I mean, I bought Saints of Los Angeles on day one and I'm not a huge Motley Crue fan.

I just got Rock Band mid-February so I've been catching up on old DLC. I haven't bought anything from last week's set yet. But the more I heard Red Tandy the more I fall in love with that song. I'm not as sure about Time-Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear, but Red Tandy definitely has a sale in the future from me. :)

[frizzy_bj]

That is disappointing. I actually like the DLC from The Mother Hips more than the song that came with the game.

[dome420]

Disclaimer: I own all the DLC.

However, I think it's silly to get mad at anyone for finding a better use for their money. That's how people get in trouble financially... it's $3 here, $4 there, $6 here, $5 there... eventually you're talking about real money.

just talking rock band....3 dollars a week, 52 weeks....156 a year for dlc....give or take 20 dollars for full ablums or six packs.....thats a drop in the bucket for most people who own rockband.

there are more expensive things that people spend thier money on and its not dlc....trust me.....so if people ***** that dlc should be 80 ms points and not 100...thats sad...lets see the difference between 80 points and 100

Breakdown of MS points

500ms point = $6.25
100ms points = $1.25
80ms points = $1.00

So people are b*tching about paying .25 cents more......go collect 5 empty beer bottles and buy yourself some dlc.:)

[Setsu102]

I really like The Mother Hips...

Just because you don't know the band from a previous experience does not mean they're bad.

Ignorant, ignorant people...

Common Blind Response:
I've never heard of them so they must be utterly terrible. I'll go complain for 45 minutes to people that don't care about my idiotic formation of an opinion.

Intelligent Response:
I'll give these a listen and if I don't like them I won't get them.

P.S. Red Tandy is freaking awesome on Drums.

[dome420]

I really like The Mother Hips...

Just because you don't know the band from a previous experience does not mean they're bad.

Ignorant, ignorant people...

Common Blind Response:
I've never heard of them so they must be utterly terrible. I'll go complain for 45 minutes to people that don't care about my idiotic formation of an opinion.

Intelligent Response:
I'll give these a listen and if I don't like them I won't get them.

P.S. Red Tandy is freaking awesome on Drums.

i agree...first i was like who the F are the mother hips, then i downloaded both tracks, and it turns out they are both good songs

[xxpigxx]

I will give Red Tandy a go around. Time We Had is a good song . . . so I will give them some support.

But the people complaining about the price have a point.

Why am I going to pay the same price for premium content as I am going to pay for indie music?

[jeccaneko]

But the people complaining about the price have a point.

Why am I going to pay the same price for premium content as I am going to pay for indie music?

Personally, I think it's just flat out song/music preference. I'd be more willing to pay 160 points for Bang Camaro or Freezepop than I'd be willing to pay even 80 points for Smashing Pumpkins or Fall Out Boy. But then again, I'd be willing to pay more than 160 points per song for some Red Hot Chili Peppers or Guns n' Roses or Queen. I wouldn't do that for Bang Camaro or Freezepop.

[Lanceres218]

I personally listen to all the music that comes out and if i dont like i dont get it. The Mother Hips songs did nothing for me and i wont get them. Even if it grows on you i like to only give songs one shot cause the more you listen to it, it of course will grow on you. Thats what the radio is for lol.

[Apples]

The fascinating thing to me is seeing sustained growth amongst tracks that are weeks, and even months old.

Is there any thought in adding a summed up grand total across all songs? That might be interesting to watch as well.

[Casto21]

Just a little analysis of the same type of numbers that MrStato gets. These numbers are including PS3 though. I get the numbers from the web on monday nights. Unforutunately, the 2 Mother Hips songs are not listed in the web leaderboards (weirdly enough Zero was added), but based on MrStato's numbers they did so bad they wouldn't be in the top 5 anyway.

Least New Scores of the Week
1. Cherry Bomb (247)
2. Song with a Mission (266)
3. Queen ***** (312)
4. Action (314)
5. Teenage Lobotomy (402)

Most New Scores of the Week
1. Zero (16750)
2. Simple Man (7267)
3. Saints of LA (6587)
4. More Than a Feeling (6063)
5. You've Got Another Thing Comin' (5892)

Total New Scores for the Week
- 360 Guitars = 122,909
- PS3 Guitars = 65,923
- Total Guitars = 188,832

[TheGodFather73]

I'm not one to whine every week if the DLC isn't to my liking, however, I think Harmonix neeeds to get more A-list tracks up. Judas Priest, while a fundamental metal band, aren't really A-list metal anymore. I'll bet that if they had released Master of Puppets instead, the DLC would have been the highest or close to the highest seller HMX has put out thus far. I for one am not willing to spend $2 a track on indie bands. I would probably spend a buck if I liked the preview of the song, but otherwise, probably not. I may or may not DL the Mother Hips stuff, but if it was a group that was well known in the same genre as them, I would probably almost definitely buy it. I would say that with the sales of DLC HMX has been making, they should have less problems getting A-list bands for DLC content now, and if they want to help out an indie band, do so with reduced prices or somthing. I would still rather their staff not spend time on groups that few people have heard of. Call me a snob or whatever, but that's how I feel about it, and I'll bet the majority of people who play the game do also.

[neo031162]

I'm glad the Mother Hips songs did terrible. People voting with their wallets. The price was ridiculous to ask for an unknown band with unknown songs.

[BostonKingB]

bottom line is if you've heard of a song and think it would be fun to play, you'll download it. if you haven't... you most likely wont... unless it is 80 points or free...

[Abaddon]

Thank god Harmonix isn't just interested in making a buck. That means we get both very popular and more obscure stuff made available to us.

To hear the detractors in this thread, if it doesn't sell a million records (and therefore 100,000 DLC tracks in the first week) the track should not be in Rock Band. Ironically these are the same people that complain about million-selling artists like Fall Out Boy getting a single DLC track (oh, the horror) "just because they are popular".

Harmonix has been able to strike a nice balance, IMHO, between popular music and more obscure music. I've gotten about 1/2 the DLC so far (actually a bit less as I skipped out on Priest) and that includes both million-seller stuff like the AAR tunes and the more obscure stuff like The Mother Hips. I pick what sounds interesting and what I think I will have fun playing.

Based on the charts I will probably pick up the FoB and YYY songs this week and pass on the A&A song. Isn't it nice we can pick songs a la carte and are not forced into buying whole packs at a time?

[FatWilma]

it really is a shame The Mother Hips songs are doing so poorly. i agree they should have been $1, but the bottom line is that they are good songs and really fun to play.

i like getting some songs that i'm not very familiar with beforehand. i feel like i'm rockin out my brand new material to all my millions and millions of virtual fans for the 1st time!

[shawnpatrl]

If you are a drummer you gotta get this song. Fun as all get out on the drums!!!!

[supersonic1414]

I love the Mother Hips songs, but I think last weeks DLC was also effected by GTA IV.

Anyway, the DLC for the last few weeks has been a bit lower with Judas Priest and than Mother Hips/Zero....I think we will start to see HMX ramping up with bigger names soon (not that I mind as I buy everything except thrash), but I know they want to keep the buzz going...

Also, bank on Rockband 2 (or expansion whatever ) in the fall....Too much money to be made with a standalone sequel that will sell millions of copies around the holidays......They need another big release this year, so I am sure it will happen...As long as DLC works with it, it is a huge win for everyone...

[sidman69]

i actually gave time sick son of a grizzly bear a try, great song, wish it was dollar cheaper though.

[Electric_Zen]

These stats are great. Thanks for the update!

[Zeleii]

The reason most of the newer songs have sold well is because most people who play Rock Band are "posers" and buy what is popular because they can't think for "themselves"

[Alcedes]

I think the bottom line is that the majority of ppl that post on these boards are hardcore music fans that don't mind buying bands they've never heard of which happens to be about 2k ppl. But the mainstream will only fork over the dough for known hits. ie if Def Leppard shows up, I guarantee hitting 100k the first week.

I think the best solution is to package in 2 known songs with an unknown. That'll keep mainstream and eclectic happy, and Harmonix gets to continue to make gaudy download announcements every couple of months (relative to gh).

[undertow]

Why does the chart only go up to 100,000 downloads? I would love to see the actual progress and am not sure why it only stops at 100,000. Pleade advice.

[Casto21]

Why does the chart only go up to 100,000 downloads? I would love to see the actual progress and am not sure why it only stops at 100,000. Pleade advice.

Because that is all that Harmonix keeps track of in their leaderboards.

[chico76]

I think this is a GREAT site (and project). You could probably extrapolate something closer to actual given that we know how many overall downloads there have been, but this is a great baseline.

The things I find most interesting:

- Getting thrashed on the forums seems to be an indicator of getting thrashed by the wallet... Arguably Punk, Earache, Priest, Hips... all performed about as well as they did here on the RB forum...

- The Grateful Dead... I thought they'd have done better than that...

- No surprise - Metallica, Weezer, Oasis, Blink-182 perform the best

- Half-price songs will generally do well, even if they get thrashed in the forum... so price is definitely a factor (as also evidenced by the free song)...

Of course, the most glaring thing is that there seems to be a fairly massive drop-off over the last few weeks/months. I know that the longer a song is out, the more downloads it will get, but there's an obvious trend downward since the Oasis pack...

HMX - are you watching? If the Mother Hips never break 5-10k, does that mean we'll get more of that type of thing before we get more of the Metallica/Weezer/Oasis/Blink type of thing?

[Samuel346]

I think it will be interesting to see if the PS3 numbers are affected(comparatively) by 'This ain't a scene is a GOD DAMN arms race' since we now know it will be censored.

I always thought ***** would be cool.


C WUT I DID THAR? I HMXED IT.

What does it say? Who knows?

:rolleyes:

[ZortheConqueror]

I support the fact that Zero did better on its first week than any Judas Priest song. That's a positive thing eye em oh.

[xxpigxx]

That is what we have been saying all along.

But the naysayers will say that it is not accurate

[yelladog32]

So, have we established that the number of people who buy every DLC no matter what has dramatically decreased? I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.



There will probably be a massive increase in all songs after the 24th-26th...

[Casto21]

I support the fact that Zero did better on its first week than any Judas Priest song. That's a positive thing eye em oh.

Zero did much better then 8/9 of the Judas Priest songs, but was pretty much dead even with You've Got Another Thing Comin'

Zero on 360 = 13229
Zero on PS3 = 3521
Zero Total = 16750

You've Got ... on 360 = 13490
You've Got ... on PS3 = 2881
You've Got ... on 360 = 16371

[darkangel]

Aw man, this is sad news. The Mother Hips songs are actually really good! :(


I agree. I never heard of this band before rockband, but they are actually pretty good. I bought the new songs (without ever hearing them) based on the fact that I like the original song so much. I think they were worth the purchase.

[DarkEternal37]

I'd be willing to bet that JP sold better it first week than either The Cars or Pixies will in their first week.

[darkangel]

HMX - are you watching? If the Mother Hips never break 5-10k, does that mean we'll get more of that type of thing before we get more of the Metallica/Weezer/Oasis/Blink type of thing?

If HMX was watching they would have known that nobody was asking for The Mother Hips. They would have had other songs available that are getting more requests. How many "what song do you want the most" threads are there on this stupid site ? HMX doesn't read this site, or they would know what the people want most and work harder at that. The excitement about Nevermind and Who's Next that was dumped for Screaming for Vengeance alone should be proof that HMX is not getting their feedback here.

[Lanceres218]

I'd be willing to bet that JP sold better it first week than either The Cars or Pixies will in their first week.

I bet the cars sell better then JP.

[chico76]

I'd be willing to bet that JP sold better it first week than either The Cars or Pixies will in their first week.


It wouldn't surprise me if either "Just What I Needed" or "Moving in Stereo" sell more than the whole Priest album...

[Hysteria]

I'd be willing to bet that JP sold better it first week than either The Cars or Pixies will in their first week.

I disagree. The JP album had one hit on it (You've Got Another Thing Comin'). The Cars album has 3 (Good Times Roll, My Best Friend's Girlfriend, Just What I Needed). The general public will buy the hits.

[TheKrazyKatzzz]

Harmonix has been able to strike a nice balance, IMHO, between popular music and more obscure music.

I'd like HMX to be able to balance between popular music people are requesting and obscure music people are requesting.

I'll also concur with the others that The Cars will sell more than JP or The Pixies.

[Jaacar]

Oops! Someone went over their bandwidth!

"Sorry, this GeoCities site is currently unavailable."

[nunant11]

The reason most of the newer songs have sold well is because most people who play Rock Band are "posers" and buy what is popular because they can't think for "themselves"

Wow...just might be the dumbest comment I have seen on here. Congrats!

[Cranioclash]

The reason most of the newer songs have sold well is because most people who play Rock Band are "posers" and buy what is popular because they can't think for "themselves"
"It '''sounds''' more "like" you ,,aren't'' certain how t"o" use quotation marks?"""

[schmeankman]

i heart grizzly bear

[Charron]

I'm really interested in what effect the McDiscounts will have. It may be the final signal that $2 is a little over the best equilibrium point. In fact, I'd be happy if they did that sort of deal perpetually- two or more songs every week for $1. Sometimes it'd be special releases like SoLA, sometimes it'd be indie tracks like Sprode, sometimes it'd be random big names that just need more sales.

[jjlee138]

Well here's something I posted in another thread that is massively bothering me about the DLC. Out of all the DLC we've had we were ALREADY able to play most of these bands the day we bought the game! Here's the list of DLC bands we already had to begin with and then received DLC for!

Queens of the Stone Age
Nine Inch Nails
Metallica
The Police
David Bowie
Black Sabbath
The Clash
Ramones
Radiohead
Weezer
Garbage
Bang Camaro
Freezepop
Rush
The Hives
Stone Temple Pilots
Iron Maiden
Sweet
Smashing Pumpkins
Coheed and Cambria
Faith No More
Kiss
The Mother Hips
The Pixies
Yea Yea Yeahs

Pretty sad indeed..... We already had the B list picks from these bands off the bat, now we're rehashing for the D list picks.

[Hysteria]

Well here's something I posted in another thread that is massively bothering me about the DLC. Out of all the DLC we've had we were ALREADY able to play most of these bands the day we bought the game! Here's the list of DLC bands we already had to begin with!

...
Lynyrd Skynyrd
...
Oasis
...

Pretty sad indeed..... We already had the B list picks from these bands off the bat, now we're rehashing for the D list picks.


Maybe I have a bad memory, but what Oasis and Skynyrd songs were already in the game?

[jjlee138]

Maybe I have a bad memory, but what Oasis and Skynyrd songs were already in the game?

Ah, good catch, the way I was searching my list picked up those two from the "Track Pack" to be released in July for the Wii. Those are the only two though. Will edit not that it makes that sad list look any better.

[Hysteria]

Ah, good catch, the way I was searching my list picked up those two from the "Track Pack" to be released in July for the Wii. Those are the only two though. Will edit not that it makes that sad list look any better.

If I had to guess why I'd say when they origanlly licensed the songs for the disc, they also licensed these songs and started making them before the game came out. Since these bands were willing to license songs they were able to get multiple tracks and get the ball rolling. It's just been over the past few months where we heard major media reports of game sales figures and the amount of DLC being sold. I bet other bands and record companies are lining up to release DLC now that they see how profitable it can be and with HMX hiring an additional 70 staff members, I think we will see a greater variety and quantity of DLC in the near future.

[Runesmith]

Thanks for the list, MrStato! I can't tell you how glad I am to hear Cherry Bomb has finally passed the 11K threshold. Cherry Bomb is still my favorite DLC song in RB.

[Charron]

Well here's something I posted in another thread that is massively bothering me about the DLC. Out of all the DLC we've had we were ALREADY able to play most of these bands the day we bought the game! Here's the list of DLC bands we already had to begin with and then received DLC for!

Queens of the Stone Age
Nine Inch Nails
Metallica
The Police
David Bowie
Black Sabbath
The Clash
Ramones
Radiohead
Weezer
Garbage
Bang Camaro
Freezepop
Rush
The Hives
Stone Temple Pilots
Iron Maiden
Sweet
Smashing Pumpkins
Coheed and Cambria
Faith No More
Kiss
The Mother Hips
The Pixies
Yea Yea Yeahs

Pretty sad indeed..... We already had the B list picks from these bands off the bat, now we're rehashing for the D list picks.

Well, in rebuttal.... of the 100 released DLC, 52 are from on-disc bands, 48 aren't. So yes, it's stacked, but not overwhelmingly so. And when you look at how much, on average, they sell based on statosphere numbers...

non-disc bands: 38760.34/song (1,821,736 / 47, 4 > 100,000)
on-disc bands: 38370.1/song (1,918,505 / 50, 2 >100,000)
difference: 390.24

It's (likely) not very statistically significant. If I were looking at these numbers I'd consider it incentive to keep up a half-on-disc, half-off-disc balance, giving a little more weight to off-disc.

Though, "B list picks"? What singles did Mountain have that were bigger than Mississippi Queen? And, I mean, Radiohead never charted higher than with Creep. Yea, some of the disc songs were strange, but there's still A list material there.

[darkangel]

The reason most of the newer songs have sold well is because most people who play Rock Band are "posers" and buy what is popular because they can't think for "themselves


"Wow...just might be the dumbest comment I have seen on here. Congrats!


right on, It may even be the dumbest thing I have ever read online

[MooTrain]

So, have we established that the number of people who buy every DLC no matter what has dramatically decreased? I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

I was once someone who claimed they would buy every DLC no matter what. This was back when we would get a lot of high quality songs, packs from David Bowie, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Oasis, and singles from bands I'd never listened to in the past like 30 seconds to mars, or the sounds, but ended up loving anyways. I've since realized that this statement was wrong. I skipped one song I could not stand - the blink 182 song - I understood why this was there, I just did not like the song and I skipped it. No big deal. Still getting all the other DLC, and it's all great. Then the thrash pack came out, to pander to the crowd that likes a challenge. While I enjoy a challenge, I don't feel that this kind of challenge is for me. It's like doing the extreme sudokus. I like sudokus, but I don't like 4 hours doing a sudoku, so I passed. Not everything has to be for me. But the past two weeks, I've skipped the DLC. I skipped the two mother hips songs, and I'm sure I'll be skipping this week for the time being, maybe getting it later on.

The problem for me is that the enthusiasm in my household and gaming group has dwindled to the point that my weekly rock band parties haven't gone off since late March when the Boston pack released. As such, my priorities have slowly started to shift. The same old crap, week after week, songs no one have heard of, or songs that are just moderate hits like Call Me by Blondie, don't pull the group back together. The judas priest album that no one has heard didn't excite any of my friends. I bought it needless to say, but I've only played about half the songs on it. My wife has zero interest in singing it.

None of my friends know who the mother hips are and have any interest in listening to them. I intend to get them at some point in the future when cash is not strapped, but for the present time it was a pretty easy choice - save my microsoft points for the next week.

This week's release strikes me as the same way - three medium quality songs that won't fire any excitement in my gaming group. I do plan on getting them for the next party - whenever that is - but they're not going to bring back the party. So I'll save my microsoft points for the time being. I'm sure these songs are someone else's cup of tea - they're just not my cup of tea.

[l-o-t]

Yeah, I do not regret getting the mother hips. At first I was unsure about this little indie band but then I heard the songs and I was like "hey! this is sweet!"
I think every one should know these particular songs are totally worth the money.

[MrStato]

I'm really interested in what effect the McDiscounts will have. It may be the final signal that $2 is a little over the best equilibrium point. In fact, I'd be happy if they did that sort of deal perpetually- two or more songs every week for $1. Sometimes it'd be special releases like SoLA, sometimes it'd be indie tracks like Sprode, sometimes it'd be random big names that just need more sales.

Ditto on that. I'm already scheming up ways to make the discount period show up on the graph. What will be even more interesting to see is how the songs that were never half price sell vs the ones that were originally half price (since half of those 'McDiscounts' were half price on release).

[gmagnus]

both sound pretty good and fun, but I can't cost justify $4. $2, probably, but not 4. supply and demand. oh, well; guess I won't be playing any mother hips any time soon.

I don't think supply and demand applies to something that can be infinitely duplicated at virtually no cost. Because of the infinite supply :)

[skullpit]

I think this proves they need A-List bands and A list tracks to increase sales the numbers speak for themselves.

Agreed but A-list bands I'm sure will cost quite a bit to obtain. How much do you think it cost them to get Mother Hips songs? My point being that even if these songs don't sell well, they're probably not losing money by releasing them and getting low download numbers.

[Charron]

I don't think supply and demand applies to something that can be infinitely duplicated at virtually no cost. Because of the infinite supply :)

Exactly. DLC pricing is most rationally looked at in terms of covering associated sunk costs, based on the size of the potential market and the common value associated with the type of product being offered.

(as stated elsewhere, I've done a little paper on DLC pricing.)

[gmagnus]

right on, It may even be the dumbest thing I have ever read online

You don't go online much, do you? :)

[darkangel]

You don't go online much, do you? :)

god, if it gets dumber than that... I dont want to be online. :p

[Rock_Starman]

Do you only check these numbers on expert?

[Samuel346]

Do you only check these numbers on expert?

It doesn't matter your difficulty it counts your highest score no matter which difficulty that is on.

[The real Anteraan]

Nope. You are seeing album resistance.

You are also seeing resistance of people who are no longer willing to buy everything that is available.

People are starting to get selective.

Yes, some people are finally getting selective, which I think is a good thing. Some of us, of course, have actually had taste the entire time. ;)

I kid! I kid!

[The real Anteraan]

Well here's something I posted in another thread that is massively bothering me about the DLC. Out of all the DLC we've had we were ALREADY able to play most of these bands the day we bought the game! Here's the list of DLC bands we already had to begin with and then received DLC for!

Queens of the Stone Age
Nine Inch Nails
Metallica
The Police
David Bowie
Black Sabbath
The Clash
Ramones
Radiohead
Weezer
Garbage
Bang Camaro
Freezepop
Rush
The Hives
Stone Temple Pilots
Iron Maiden
Sweet
Smashing Pumpkins
Coheed and Cambria
Faith No More
Kiss
The Mother Hips
The Pixies
Yea Yea Yeahs

Pretty sad indeed..... We already had the B list picks from these bands off the bat, now we're rehashing for the D list picks.

You can throw Boston is there too (for future reference), although I differ with your opinion. Many of these bands, I was thrilled to see more from them (Boston, STP, Rush, The Police, and Metallica for starters).

[Der_Lex]

What amazes me is the thought that simply because certain songs were never singles, they're somehow inferior to the better-known work of a band. They're not, there's simply less marketing behind them.

One also wonders why someone'd get the game in the first place if they didn't like the songs in the main setlist to begin with.

[PsycoCheerio]

Time Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear is a great song, and is really fun to play and sing to at the same time...too bad, the outro for Red Tandy kinda bugs me but it's still a fun song....

[an1m051ty]

What amazes me is the thought that simply because certain songs were never singles, they're somehow inferior to the better-known work of a band. They're not, there's simply less marketing behind them.

Disagree. And so do the bands themselves... they'd obviously choose what they themselves consider to be the best songs off of their newest album in order to promote it. And in all of the full albums I've listened to, 90 percent of the time they make good choices. The only exceptions to the rule are when the entire album is kickass, which is a rarity.

The stratosphere is coming along nice. I really like the Judas Priest album but I'm not going to make any excuses as to why its not selling or that the numbers are wrong in some fashion. Its obvious - Judas Priest isn't A-list anymore and generally people are going to go for what they've heard over listening first. That, and the price of the full album is hard to justify, unless it is someone's favorite album anyway. (I listened to each track several times before deeming them probably fun to play and bought the whole thing. I did the same for cars/pixies, and will be buying about 5 songs off the cars and 0 of the Pixies).

Looks like people are doing the whole "voting-with-your-dollars thing", and even though it was the GTA IV release that had something to do with it - I bet we still won't ever see Mother Hips rising too high in numbers. Still, Zero sold fairly well despite it. Oh, and I like the sound of the Cherry Bomb Twins.

[lpunderground19]

It's sad the Mother Hips songs are on par with Cherry Bomb. Those are two good and fun songs.

I love this graph, just stumbled across it last week. Awesome work!

[Der_Lex]

Disagree. And so do the bands themselves... they'd obviously choose what they themselves consider to be the best songs off of their newest album in order to promote it. And in all of the full albums I've listened to, 90 percent of the time they make good choices. The only exceptions to the rule are when the entire album is kickass, which is a rarity.
[/I]

A rarity, really? Of the vast majority of the albums I own, I feel there is no difference between the quality of the single tracks and the rest of the album. If anything, the single tracks are my least favorite tracks on the album, because they're the most commercial songs of the lot.
I should add as a caveat to that, though, that I mostly listen to prog and prog metal, genres which have a tendency towards extremely good but long songs that will therefore never see a single release, and concept albums where each song is clearly part of a bigger whole.
Still, even the more mainstream albums I own don't contain anything that I'd consider 'filler'. I've always felt that decisions on which songs become singles have more to do with the label's idea of what will sell well than the artists' idea of what represents their music well. I could be wrong, of course.

One thing that I'm really curious about is how the official European release (I'm an import player myself) will influence DLC sales. All-American Rejects has sold extremely well in the US, for example, but they're relatively unknown over here. On the other hand, I wonder if there'll be any songs that will sell really well over here that won't do as well in the US. Either way, I think it'll add an interesting new layer to the whole DLC choice conundrum.

[Nobak]

I don't think supply and demand applies to something that can be infinitely duplicated at virtually no cost. Because of the infinite supply :)

Are you sure? In this instance, I see supply as the amount of DLC available - so it's increasing all the time. Demand for a given consumer probably doesn't change that much, it might even go down as you accumulate DLC if you don't feel as compelled to keep adding. Overall demand is however bumped by the people who buy the game every week.

MrStato, do you think you could track the total sales made on a weekly basis? Although that would be very biased in that it doesn't track the most popular songs (those that have already reached 100000), I'm interested in seeing how that evolves over time as supply and demand (as I see them) move. My gut feeling is that the DLC might need to drop a bit over time to keep sales up.

[MrStato]

MrStato, do you think you could track the total sales made on a weekly basis? Although that would be very biased in that it doesn't track the most popular songs (those that have already reached 100000), I'm interested in seeing how that evolves over time as supply and demand (as I see them) move. My gut feeling is that the DLC might need to drop a bit over time to keep sales up.

I've considered it but since this is all being done in HTML it would quickly make the page extremely large (file size wise that is) and more than likely it would quickly become a total pain to update.

I am still considering it despite that. An alternative page, separate from the main page, that would have a week by week break down. It could definitely be interesting to see every week on the same graph and will be much easier to see what type of influence the european release will have. I'm still tossing around ideas on how that would actually work in HTML, there doesn't seem to be any really good way to do it afaik. It's the sort of thing that is actually much easier to do in a program like excel.

Right now the easiest way is to use the archives page and just flip back and forth on browser tabs, it's not much but it kind of works. The archive page isn't uploaded right now though due to geocities crap bandwidth limits. (yet another thing that needs to be dealt with)



I have just finished adding a "discount period" to the graphs that will keep track of.. discount periods. Like the current McDonalds promotion and will also keep track of songs that launch at half price to the point where they return to full price.

BTW does anyone how long songs that launch at $0.99 (80 MSP) stay at that price before returning to normal? I'd like to know so I can keep an eye on SOLA.

[JJStyles]

What do the gray and blue exclamation point boxes mean?

[MrStato]

it's mostly just aesthetic but it's extra information not available (gray) or available (blue)

[Nobak]

Hmm... well yeah, keeping *anything* up-to-date strictly in HTML is bound to be a pain. I didn't think that was how you were doing it.

Whether you actually go through with that new page, I still appreciate the other stats you're putting up. Don't know how long the discounts last, though, sorry. I usually buy those songs quickly.

[ThuDogFood]

BTW does anyone how long songs that launch at $0.99 (80 MSP) stay at that price before returning to normal? I'd like to know so I can keep an eye on SOLA.

I believe it's roughly a month or so, but don't quote me on that. You might just want to plan for the same day one month later. Like if it was $0.99 13th of December, then plan to remove it on the 13th of Smarch (er...January... Gotta love The Simpsons though...lol)

Anyway, I'm dissapointed to see the sales of the Mother Hips songs. Sure the 2nd half of Red Tandy seems to drag on forever, but both are great songs and deserved better (ditto for the album SfV and Action among others).

And the worst part is judging by past trends (3/4 emo genre songs being among the top 10 best selling)....this week's pack will sell well too...

[HubbubJub]

Disagree. And so do the bands themselves... they'd obviously choose what they themselves consider to be the best songs off of their newest album in order to promote it. And in all of the full albums I've listened to, 90 percent of the time they make good choices. The only exceptions to the rule are when the entire album is kickass, which is a rarity.

Really? You think bands always choose which songs they release as singles? I guess you haven't downloaded Complete Control then:

"They said release Remote Control, but we didn't want it on the label..."