Unofficial "We Refuse to Spend $3 On One Song" Thread

[Magnet]

I mean even "Call Me" is available for $2 and that's a way more popular Blondie song. So what makes this song special to allow for it to run for $3?

Or any song for that matter.

Well, with Call Me (and all other non-RBN RB DLC), the basic role of the record label was to send masters to Harmonix and receive money.

By publishing songs themselves via the RBN, they now have to make the master tracks into a fully playable Rock Band song on their own - either by hiring an authoring company or having people within their own company do the work. Though there is a huge advantage in the RBN of selling a ton of songs on Rock Band without having to wait for your turn in Harmonix's long DLC queue, there is now the burden of expenses incurred by getting the music in the game. Their perspective may be that charging an extra dollar on top of the standard $2 price point is a way to make up for those additional expenses.

[T-Hybrid]

I mean even "Call Me" is available for $2 and that's a way more popular Blondie song. So what makes this song special to allow for it to run for $3?

But that's exactly what Henry was talking about. There is no such thing as criteria for a $3 song. A $3 song is any song that an artist decided it is going to charge $3 for.

It's up to each customer to individually decide which songs are worth what to them. But to open this thread as though a $3 song is some kind of crime is downright riddiculous.

People need to stop acting like the price of a song is any kind of statement about how significant that song is comparred to the other songs around it. EMI just said "We've got this song, we're going to charge $3 for it."

If that doesn't sell well, they'll maybe mark it down after a few quarters. But if it sells well enough that they make back whatever they were looking for, then they'll say "Aw to heck with it" and release more at that same price point.

But the fact is, the $3 price point is there. And as in any business, it's always smart to start high and drop the price down than to start too low and piss people off when you raise it up.

[kingtonyx]

Well, with Call Me (and all other non-RBN RB DLC), the basic role of the record label was to send masters to Harmonix and receive money.

By publishing songs themselves via the RBN, they now have to make the master tracks into a fully playable Rock Band song on their own - either by hiring an authoring company or having people within their own company do the work. Though there is a huge advantage in the RBN of selling a ton of songs on Rock Band without having to wait for your turn in Harmonix's long DLC queue, there is now the burden of expenses incurred by getting the music in the game. Their perspective may be that charging an extra dollar on top of the standard $2 price point is a way to make up for those additional expenses.

Well, that's a good point.

[T-Hybrid]

The last thing I want to see is some sort of hierarchy on the RBN ("us big labels get 3 bucks, you indies get 2, and unsigned get 1").

Which is ironically what the creator of this thread (and some supporters) appear to be advocating.

What I love about the RBN is that's its literally an open market. Songs from anybody can coexist at whatever price points they feel fit. So yeah, a $2 JoCo song may be more "worth it" to you than a $2 song from Ron Wasserman (were those $2?)....but to somebody else it may be exactly the opposite.

[HelloMaster]

But for those of you advocating/discussing 3 dollars being appropriate for long songs: just no. This isn't a cell phone: you can't start charging by the minute. (And if you do, every band out there is going to start submitting 10-minute "extended versions" of every song in their setlist.)

I don't know, you're painting a fairly grim portrait of bands. I think the whole RBN forum has shown that most bands are in it for the fans. They're looking for an audience, not a quick buck. In fact, some bands would charge nothing at all if it was an option.

I don't want any hard pricing rules beyond some kind of ceiling (which we have at $3), but I follow the logic of charging more for longer songs. For one thing, they take longer to produce, and for another, the player gets more for his or her money. It's been said above. If you're used to paying $2 for 3-4 minutes of gameplay, then $3 for 7-10 minutes is a bargain.

[wrldindstries302]

Well, with Call Me (and all other non-RBN RB DLC), the basic role of the record label was to send masters to Harmonix and receive money.

By publishing songs themselves via the RBN, they now have to make the master tracks into a fully playable Rock Band song on their own - either by hiring an authoring company or having people within their own company do the work. Though there is a huge advantage in the RBN of selling a ton of songs on Rock Band without having to wait for your turn in Harmonix's long DLC queue, there is now the burden of expenses incurred by getting the music in the game. Their perspective may be that charging an extra dollar on top of the standard $2 price point is a way to make up for those additional expenses.

Great

but what does the customer get for their extra dollar?

Nothing.

There needs to be a good reason to the consumer for it to cost extra. People can say "well it's worth $3 to some people", but that doesn't mean anything. I'm sure there are a couple people out there who would pay $10 for this song. Does it mean they should charge that much?

For example, Chinese Democracy cost millions and millions of dollars to make, but it wasn't sold for $40. It was priced at ~$15, just like every other album.

[Starfleet_Rambo]

Blondie charging $3?!

I didn't really enjoy spending $2 on "Call Me". "Atomic" is a pass.

[I_Love_You]

This is just made up numbers. I'm not saying that they couldn't be true in some cases but I could easily just make up numbers that give reasoning for charging $3

"The $3 song is apt to sell only 80% as many as it would at $2 but based on the profit per track it would be a good idea"

It's all speculation at this point. I agree that for some (and probably most) tracks selling them at $1 could sell more then twice as many as it would at $2, but it's its conjecture. EMI putting tracks at $3 to see how they sell could be a way for them to get hard numbers.

And for a band like Blondie, which is a big name who is no longer producing music and is already in the game, generating new fans is not as much of a concern. If you are playing RB you know who they are and I don't think putting "Atomic" at a cheap price point will create new fans.

I'm pretty sure I said the numbers were made up, but based on how many people I've seen say they'll instantly buy a $1 song on these forums, I figured it was an accurate assumption.

[prhs2057]

Well, with Call Me (and all other non-RBN RB DLC), the basic role of the record label was to send masters to Harmonix and receive money.

By publishing songs themselves via the RBN, they now have to make the master tracks into a fully playable Rock Band song on their own - either by hiring an authoring company or having people within their own company do the work. Though there is a huge advantage in the RBN of selling a ton of songs on Rock Band without having to wait for your turn in Harmonix's long DLC queue, there is now the burden of expenses incurred by getting the music in the game. Their perspective may be that charging an extra dollar on top of the standard $2 price point is a way to make up for those additional expenses.

When Harmonix is doing the publishing do they still take 70% of the profit from the song like they do for RBN or do they get even more profit for doing the official charting?

[Ehfahq]

Great

but what does the customer get for their extra dollar?

A song released quicker than if it went through the normal DLC process. A song that even gets released that might not ever have through normal DLC.