What would really pay for Rock Band

[JackBNimble]

So let say you already have guitar drums and mic,what would you pay for RB?We know there are 58 songs on the disc,would you pay $120 for that cd?How about $180 for 58 songs?NO,sounds like your being taken for a ride!

Let's talk about DLC then.So why are people willing to pay more money for songs on DLC then on the disc?You cant tell me it's more to licence a song DLC then on a Disc.And yes sony and micrsoft want a cut to,I know.

So with DLC there is NO more CDs,paper instruction books,shipping,all the stuff that comes with a game you buy in the store.So you have eleminated so many exspenses,so why is DLC so much more.Licencing and royalties ,Sony Microsoft?Even with all that it shouldn't double or tripple the price of each song.Should it?

Can someone explain this to me because I just don't get it?

[aaron_wil]

So let say you already have guitar drums and mic,what would you pay for RB?We know there are 58 songs on the disc,would you pay $120 for that cd?How about $180 for 58 songs?NO,sounds like your being taken for a ride!

Let's talk about DLC then.So why are people willing to pay more money for songs on DLC then on the disc?You cant tell me it's more to licence a song DLC then on a Disc.And yes sony and micrsoft want a cut to,I know.

So with DLC there is NO more CDs,paper instruction books,shipping,all the stuff that comes with a game you buy in the store.So you have eleminated so many exspenses,so why is DLC so much more.Licencing and royalties ,Sony Microsoft?Even with all that it shouldn't double or tripple the price of each song.Should it?

Can someone explain this to me because I just don't get it?

I will try to the best of my ability.

I will ignore your first paragraph, for the reason of my own sanity.

Lets start with what is considered more money. Well, many people consider $.99 a fair price for 1 song on Itunes. Well, that's your starting point. Why is it your starting point? Because if a song on this game, which has re be broken down to 4 tracks, mapped out in the game, put back together, create animation (lip sinc) for, and then tested, tested, and tested costs less (or remotely close) to $.99; the general public will start to question the norm. That means record labels (which I think should be illegal, BTW) will have to take less of a profit each song.

That being said, I wouldn't doubt about $1.75 per song, or $18-$20 albums. Sony and Microsoft, I am sure will get a cut, but a very small one. They are not doing any work on the songs, nor do they have anything to do with licensing. All they have to do is make it available. But also remember, Harmonix has teamed up with MTV. If MTV sees an opportunity, they can almost do whatever they want, and can back Harmonix if need be.

Hope that helped.

[BenGmanUk]

Because people will pay it, simple as that...

[Bakkster]

Also, licenses are cheaper when the band is guaranteed to get money from it. So for the 45 licensed bands, they will all get money from the disk sales. However, if any of those songs were DLC, not everyone would buy them. So for the license owner to get the same amount of money from the license, they need to charge more. Add the extra costs for DLC, like the 30% off the top from MS, and DLC ends up being more expensive.

[HPLabonte]

man, i'd pay $200 for what we're getting. Since GameStop now owes me $30 since I pre-ordered it at 199.99, I'm gonna end up spending that 30 on DLC.

[crivit]

I totally agree with the OP, I still can't fathom why DLC should cost more that the songs on the disc.

Sony and MS get a cut...Sure but they ALSO get a cut of the disc sales. That's why they make the systems to begin with.

I've also heard people say it's the difference in quantity. They can sell it cheaper if they know they are going to sell 60 songs at a time. Fine I'l take a package deal. If HMX will sell me a card for $60 that will allow me to download 58 songs,or even 45 since the the # of licensed tracks, I'll buy it. Of course I've always thought the argument was BS anyway, since no one really knows how many copies of the game they'll sell to begin with.

[RiskyChris]

Take economics 101.

The price of a good doesn't scale due to its cost to produce. The DLC could cost $0 to make for all HMX care, it will be priced at what the market will buy.

[toefer]

Take economics 101.

The price of a good doesn't scale due to its cost to produce. The DLC could cost $0 to make for all HMX care, it will be priced at what the market will buy.

True, but seriously, in this case, I think the price is dictated more by how low HMX can get it than how high they think they can sell it for. Nobody is thrilled with the idea of $3 per song, so I doubt if that ends up being the price that market price was the determining factor. In this case, it's more likely that $3 would be as low as HMX can go (limbo!), provided they still get at least a little profit from the deal.

As I've said before, and people can hate me for this, I hope DLC is popular music, that way it sells more, and costs less. I don't want to "subsidize" the high cost of DLC because 8 people wanted some obscure song. I think each individual DLC song should be able to carry it's own weight, and HMX shouldn't rely on a blockbuster title to make up for the crappy sales of some lesser known offerings. In the context of a social rhythm game, playing songs everyone knows is much more fun than playing songs you don't know.

Not to turn this into a DLC pricing thread, but I'm probably similar to many others in the sense that:

For ~$2.00-2.50 each, I'll only buy songs I really like.
For ~$1.50-$2.00 I'll buy almost all the songs that I even remotely like
For ~$1.00-$1.50 I'll buy everything they offer

[espher]

Depending on the tune, $3/song would not be unreasonable, although I would be a little bit hesitant.

But I compare that to most other games where you can get a level for around that price (or more than that for, say, Forza 2), and it seems okay. It just seems high when you're using to buying crap off iTunes.

[crivit]

Take economics 101.

The price of a good doesn't scale due to its cost to produce. The DLC could cost $0 to make for all HMX care, it will be priced at what the market will buy.

Yes, but there is also price elasticity. At least up to a point, lower prices can result in higher sales which equals more overall profit. Just as an example I'll give my personal reaction to potential DLC prices. I'm not saying this is reasonable/feasable or whatever for HMX to sell at this point, so please hold the flames.

At $3 a song I'm never buying anything. They'll make more profit per dowload from the ppl that do, but they'll likely sell alot fewer downloads.

At $2 a song I'll buy a few, maybe spending up to $10 a month depending on what's released.

At $1.50 a song I'll buy quite a bit more, but probably not any stuff I don't already know I like.

At $1 a song I'll get everything regardless of what it is.

Judging from the What the download songs should cost thread as well as my personal reactions I think there is a definate price elasticity going on with potential DLC. The trick is going to be for HMX to find the sweet spot that gives them suffencient profit while encouraging maximum sales.

[blackjack]

Ok heres the thing, 170 bucks is CHEAP for a guitar mic and drums. wii contreller sets cost 60 each so thats 180 for 3 player on a WII I think were getting a pretty good deal here so shut the hell up cuz rock band is going to, well, ROCK.

Also they're probably going to sell us the DLC songs at $1.50- $2.00

[toefer]

Yes, but there is also price elasticity.

I'm glad someone agrees with me. If Rock Band is as big a success as people here think it's going to be, then there's no reason for expensive DLC. They just need to find the right balance between price and expected downloads at that price.

[crivit]

Ok heres the thing, 170 bucks is CHEAP for a guitar mic and drums.

Yes it is, no one in this thread is complaining about the package price. The game by itself is $60 and and includes 45 licensed tracks, 58 total. Now imagine the game is $170 by itself with no instruments. Is it still a good deal then? If DLC hits $3 and up a song like the GH2 DLC then we're talking about that kind of price for a full game's worth of songs. Maybe not a big deal if they were only going to release 20 or so songs over the life of the game, but with the potential hundreds of songs for DLC it adds up rather quickly.

[joeincolorado]

I look at it like this. Back in the day, it was all about to make a million dollars, sell a million "thingamajigs" for a dollar. But nowadays companies have this..."Why sell a million for a dollar when I can just sell one for a million dollars." It's all about getting rich quick. Unfortunately, for the consumer, we get hit. Personally, they could make so much more money selling this DLC for a cheaper price because, I'm in the same group as some of the other posters. You make these songs cost around a dollar, I'll buy everything you've got.

[RiskyChris]

I look at it like this. Back in the day, it was all about to make a million dollars, sell a million "thingamajigs" for a dollar. But nowadays companies have this..."Why sell a million for a dollar when I can just sell one for a million dollars." It's all about getting rich quick. Unfortunately, for the consumer, we get hit. Personally, they could make so much more money selling this DLC for a cheaper price because, I'm in the same group as some of the other posters. You make these songs cost around a dollar, I'll buy everything you've got.

You sound like you've done a lot of market research to make this claim.

You really feel you're qualified to say they'll make more money at a "cheaper price"?

[joeincolorado]

You sound like you've done a lot of market research to make this claim.

You really feel you're qualified to say they'll make more money at a "cheaper price"?

Well, it only makes sense. Let's think. If I have $5 and I can get a song for a dollar, I'll buy 5 songs. Now, let's continue where I still have $5 and I can get one song for $5. Looks like I'm only getting one song...if any at all. I know, as a consumer, I'm more willing to buy more if the price is less expensive.

Look at dollar menus at fast food restaurants. I'll spend $5 on the dollar menu because I get more stuff. I spent more than I normally would on a value meal, well, a lower end value meal and, in my own mind, I got more stuff. The business made more money and I, as a customer, feel fulfilled in my purchase. It's really all about buyer's remorse. If I buy 5 songs for $5, it doesn't bother me if one or two wind up not being what I wanted. But if I buy one song for $5....that better be the greatest song on Earth in my mind. And if it winds up not being what I wanted...so sets in buyer's remorse. Which makes it less likely that I'll return and buy another $5 song.

Sure, they got the initial $5 from me...but I probably won't come back. So, as a business, would you rather take a little loss for a big chance of someone returning to buy more product...or make all of your money in the initial purchase and have a smaller chance of someone returning to buy more product?

This is all hypothetical, of course.

[cyninja3]

well they are going to sell this game with out the equipment for 60 bucks so its not a big deal

[JackBNimble]

Ok heres the thing, 170 bucks is CHEAP for a guitar mic and drums. wii contreller sets cost 60 each so thats 180 for 3 player on a WII I think were getting a pretty good deal here so shut the hell up cuz rock band is going to, well, ROCK.

Also they're probably going to sell us the DLC songs at $1.50- $2.00

Here's the thing .The bundle isn't the issue,no one said that was an unfare deal.

[ZkDotNet]

LOL at half the people not catching what the thread is about.

DLC whining is passe. Licensing costs are different for downloaded music, that's all there is to it. Deal with it, or don't buy it. Have a problem with it? Take it up with the record labels.

[Nilsen31]

I'd pay wutever it takes to get Led Zeppelin in my game.

[toefer]

After a few people made the point that $3 DLC would mean that a 45 song disc for $59.99 would sell as DLC for $135, it made me realize that DLC really needs to be quite a bit lower. I can understand people's arguments of "well, on the disc, there is a guaranteed number of copies sold, so you can get cheaper licensing" or something along those lines, so in that case, sign me up for the Rock Band Expansion Disc.

I'll gladly take 45 new songs on a disc, if they are along the lines of the 45 we are getting now, and pay $60 for it. Plus, I'm sure they can set it up so that when you put the disc in your console, it installs those songs onto your hard drive, and bam, ghetto DLC.

Sure, I won't love every song on the disc, but I'm in that boat of people who will buy every song if it's between $1.00-$1.50, and in this case, at $1.33 per song, I'm sold.

[ZkDotNet]

Actually, there was a discussion just like this a few weeks ago. The thread was locked and people were directed to post DLC pricing concerns here: http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=19 .

[JackBNimble]

Also, licenses are cheaper when the band is guaranteed to get money from it. So for the 45 licensed bands, they will all get money from the disk sales. However, if any of those songs were DLC, not everyone would buy them. So for the license owner to get the same amount of money from the license, they need to charge more. Add the extra costs for DLC, like the 30% off the top from MS, and DLC ends up being more expensive.

So your saying that it's cheaper to mass produce a game and guarante the licenced bands money from a disc sale!When DLC is not mass produced and you have eliminated all the overhead between production and the retailers.The songs are still licenced,and royalties are still payed but only on the true sale of the DLC.
So what would happen if HMX only sold 50% of Disc games?Are the licenced bands still garanteed the same money?

[Bakkster]

Yes it is, no one in this thread is complaining about the package price. The game by itself is $60 and and includes 45 licensed tracks, 58 total. Now imagine the game is $170 by itself with no instruments. Is it still a good deal then? If DLC hits $3 and up a song like the GH2 DLC then we're talking about that kind of price for a full game's worth of songs. Maybe not a big deal if they were only going to release 20 or so songs over the life of the game, but with the potential hundreds of songs for DLC it adds up rather quickly.

Yeah, but you probably wouldn't pay $3 each for the Fallout Boy, Molly Hatchet, and Iron Maiden songs, would you? Hence why tracks on the game disc are subsidized.


Well, it only makes sense. Let's think. If I have $5 and I can get a song for a dollar, I'll buy 5 songs. Now, let's continue where I still have $5 and I can get one song for $5. Looks like I'm only getting one song...if any at all. I know, as a consumer, I'm more willing to buy more if the price is less expensive.

Look at dollar menus at fast food restaurants. I'll spend $5 on the dollar menu because I get more stuff. I spent more than I normally would on a value meal, well, a lower end value meal and, in my own mind, I got more stuff. The business made more money and I, as a customer, feel fulfilled in my purchase. It's really all about buyer's remorse. If I buy 5 songs for $5, it doesn't bother me if one or two wind up not being what I wanted. But if I buy one song for $5....that better be the greatest song on Earth in my mind. And if it winds up not being what I wanted...so sets in buyer's remorse. Which makes it less likely that I'll return and buy another $5 song.

Sure, they got the initial $5 from me...but I probably won't come back. So, as a business, would you rather take a little loss for a big chance of someone returning to buy more product...or make all of your money in the initial purchase and have a smaller chance of someone returning to buy more product?

This is all hypothetical, of course.

Ah, but what if the thing you're buying cost the company $3 to produce. At $5 they make $2 of profit. At $3 they break even. At $1 they lose $10 for every $5 you spend. The company needs to sell for more than it costs to produce, and then they need to hope that people are willing to pay at least that much. So the best we can hope for is for slightly about that cost. It doesn't matter how many people pay $0.25 for a song, they will still lose money.

[Bakkster]

So your saying that it's cheaper to mass produce a game and guarante the licenced bands money from a disc sale!When DLC is not mass produced and you have eliminated all the overhead between production and the retailers.The songs are still licenced,and royalties are still payed but only on the true sale of the DLC.
So what would happen if HMX only sold 50% of Disc games?Are the licenced bands still garanteed the same money?

The labels charge less when their song is packaged in a bundle.

Think of it from their point of view. You can either charge $1 per song as DLC and sell 100,000 copies, or you can charge only $0.20 per song on the disc and sell 1 million copies. Even though you make 1/5th per song, you are selling 10x more songs. Conversely, since you will sell fewer songs as DLC than on disc, you charge more for DLC to try to make the same amount of money from that song.

Make sense?

[Jimmik]

All I know is DLC should not be priced to the profit they can make for each song. The individual downloads are insignificant - the big picture is how much money they make FOR ALL DOWNLOADS TOGETHER. If you break the numbers down for every song it doesn't make sense. HMX only makes a song once and sticks it up for download. Once they find out how many downloads they will get for each song, the price's effectiveness will be revealed. If they release a song for $0.50 and every single owner of the game buys it, they will still make a profit (I'm assuming. No, I don't know how licensing works >.>)

Just my thoughts

[joeincolorado]

Yeah, but you probably wouldn't pay $3 each for the Fallout Boy, Molly Hatchet, and Iron Maiden songs, would you? Hence why tracks on the game disc are subsidized.



Ah, but what if the thing you're buying cost the company $3 to produce. At $5 they make $2 of profit. At $3 they break even. At $1 they lose $10 for every $5 you spend. The company needs to sell for more than it costs to produce, and then they need to hope that people are willing to pay at least that much. So the best we can hope for is for slightly about that cost. It doesn't matter how many people pay $0.25 for a song, they will still lose money.

Actually, with that argument, if it costs them $3 to produce, they're only producing it once...so, yes, they'll lose money the first few sales...then gradually make money. It's something that only needs to be made once and then can be sold over and over again...the same thing. It's not a disc or anything that can be held physically...it's data. Data that once is made, never needs to be made again. So, let's say it costs them $500 to produce it...well, after 500 sales, they'll start seeing profit, especially if it's for something people want more of. Even if people are taking cuts off it, Harmonix will eventually see profit.

[toefer]

Yeah, but you probably wouldn't pay $3 each for the Fallout Boy, Molly Hatchet, and Iron Maiden songs, would you? Hence why tracks on the game disc are subsidized.

Your point makes no sense. According to what I said a few times, I'd buy everything if it was between $1.00-$1.50, which means I would buy Molly Hatchet, and Fallout Boy.

To me, the ability to choose songs isn't worth paying twice the price per song.

Say HMX licenses 100 songs for DLC, and charges $3 for each one. Say I found 10 I really want, that I think are actually worth $3. Harmonix made $30. Hooray for them. Now say they sell it for $1.50, and, true to my word, I buy them all. Harmonix just made $150.

You can argue about the different profit margins when selling for $3 compared to $1.50, but in this case, HMX already paid the development fees to make the songs. Those costs are incurred, the money is gone. They're in the hole. At this point, it's time to try to climb out of the hole.

But to flesh it out, based on the 30% figure you've quoted for MS's cut, and 75 cents for the license:

at $1.50, HMX gets 30 cents per song
at $3.00, they get $1.35 per song

Continuing on, if I buy 10 songs at the $3 price, HMX gets $13.50 of the $30 I spend.

With the $1.50 songs, they'd get $30.00 of the $150 I spend.

It doesn't matter that they are getting a lower % of what I spent. All that matters is the money they are getting. The development costs are fixed, and don't depend on the number of downloads, therefore maximizing the revenue is all that matters to them.

[crivit]

The labels charge less when their song is packaged in a bundle.

Think of it from their point of view. You can either charge $1 per song as DLC and sell 100,000 copies, or you can charge only $0.20 per song on the disc and sell 1 million copies. Even though you make 1/5th per song, you are selling 10x more songs. Conversely, since you will sell fewer songs as DLC than on disc, you charge more for DLC to try to make the same amount of money from that song.

Make sense?

Makes me want to wait for expansion discs instead of DLC. If it's so much easier for them to make more profit off of discs, what's the point of DLC? It's worse for the consumer because they don't actually physically own the data they are paying MORE for. The only downside is the wait time. Unless of course DLC is actually much more profitable than you've been led to believe and the consumer is getting scammed. Not bashing HMX here, they havne't even announced prices yet, more of a commentary on DLC as a whole.

[Apples]

There are already 50 pages of this discussion in progress.

http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=19&page=50