Official Discussion: DLC Week of 4/12 - Fleetwood Mac & Stevie Nicks 6 Pack!

[hmxhenry]

Everyone saying Harmonix knows best is being silly. Nobody knows best. We all learn. But you would think after doing this for a few years Harmonix would do a better of job of mixing up old songs and new songs, and keyboards heavy songs and guitar songs. And why have weeks when you release 6 to 10 singles when you could save some of those singles to release on weeks when there is just one artist.

I think it's safe to say that we do know best. There's obviously plenty of room for improvement, but we're certainly the most informed, the most experienced and the most qualified to determine where we can make those improvements.

A lot of people have been pointing to leaderboard scores and fan sites that track estimated sales metrics and that's great from an amateur analyst point of view but they should not be viewed as hard data. There are a lot of variables that aren't immediately visible and the end results are sometimes tens of thousands off from the reality.

We actually get to see the sales numbers, play though numbers and consistent purchase history when we do steady streaks of old songs, mixes of old and new songs, collections of singles, etc. We didn't get to 3 years of consistent releases and 70 million plus downloads by accident.

All legitimate complaints. And keeping cards close to chest makes no sense. Announcing albums and future releases builds up hype.

Now that there's no competition at all on DLC, maybe it's time to start hyping future DLC, dudes.

(Don't you guys notice that traffic goes up here and at Rock Band related sites when leaks are leaked or clues are clued? Hype drives up interest. Who cares if Moving Pictures had a problem or SRV took a while to come out...the hype still helped both...)

There's definitely a lot to be said for hype, but I'm a lot more interested in the analysis of hype plus results.

Forum traffic is definitely not a clear indication of what the rest of the RB community is interested in. The core community here on RockBand.com definitely skews more towards the hardcore. Not everyone is looking for new songs every week, not everyone is playing those songs online and not everyone is as informed as the people here on the forums. Forum reaction and actual sales certainly do not always go hand in hand.

The bulk album announcements are a really interesting test case. We made that announcement at a time when we had a large block of albums lined up and we knew that we had them locked into a calendar. That's not always the case. That's part of the reason why we make announcements on a weekly basis rather than monthly. The schedule is often very fluid and it's not uncommon for weeks to shift on short notice. When we have the luxury of having things secured far enough in advance to promote ahead of time we do sometimes promote ahead of schedule. We don't keep cards close to our chest because we like being sneaky, we do it because artists and labels are protective of information and we can't risk announcing something today that may change tomorrow.

Also, regarding the conversion of forum hype to actual popularity, you would think after the hype for Texas Flood reached a fever pitch that it would have shattered all sales records for any DLC released by any game ever and we'd all be Scrooge McDucking it in vaults full of money.

I know that people on the internet aren't necessarily the most trusting people in the world, but it's obviously in our best interest to make sure that the community is happy and that DLC sells well. Like I said before, there's obviously room for improvement in promotions, scheduling, marketing, etc. and I'm in those meetings every week lobbying for the community. But in the meantime, trust that we've got access to more data and more reliable data regarding sales, plays, trends and site traffic than anyone else. We're going on a lot more than guesswork here, and while the results may not always be what the forums would expect (or like to see) we're crunching these numbers to make things as appealing as possible to as many people as possible.

[big_old_tom]

Scrooge McDucking. That cracked me up so much.

[twilight klaas]

Henry has Spoken!
Thanks for trying to explain it...again.
So how did those 11 Pro Guitar/Bass upgrades sell for legacy tracks?
Any chance of seeing one or two more upgrades to older tracks soon?

[Salvatoris]

I think everything he said still ignores the obvious fact that since the release of Rock band 3, HMX has been pushing hard to release songs with keys support. The result of this is a much heavier helping of music from the 70s and early 80s. I absolutely hate that keys were ever added to the game for this reason alone. From now on, no matter how great or in demand a band is, if they don't have keys in their songs, we are less likely to see them as DLC... and that is a bummer.

[Catch-22]

I think everything he said still ignores the obvious fact that since the release of Rock band 3, HMX has been pushing hard to release songs with keys support. The result of this is a much heavier helping of music from the 70s and early 80s. I absolutely hate that keys were ever added to the game for this reason alone. From now on, no matter how great or in demand a band is, if they don't have keys in their songs, we are less likely to see them as DLC... and that is a bummer.

I don't work for HMX but I think that is just plain false. The addition of keys may make some better more suited to Rock Band and thus more likely to occur but it doesn't diminish other bands in any way.

[Dragonclaw]

I think everything he said still ignores the obvious fact that since the release of Rock band 3, HMX has been pushing hard to release songs with keys support. The result of this is a much heavier helping of music from the 70s and early 80s. I absolutely hate that keys were ever added to the game for this reason alone. From now on, no matter how great or in demand a band is, if they don't have keys in their songs, we are less likely to see them as DLC... and that is a bummer.

Well I am the polar opposite...I was getting tired of RB but the inclusion of keys got me hyped again and with the 70's and 80's DLC I not only play a lot more but I spend a WHOLE LOT more on DLC than I did before...I see the potential of a lot of great bands that just wouldn't feel right without Keys...

[mikeyts]

We didn't get to 3 years of consistent releases and 70 million plus downloads by accident.

Impressive! Of course, you carefully stated "downloads" (as opposed to "sales"), which I'd guess counts export packs and freebies (I could be wrong), but still.

[bjyaritz]

Great to hear what Henry had to say. I always knew deep down that those who claimed to know sales numbers were bogus. For two years, I didn't have internet at home. I used to bring my 360 over to a fellow rockband buddy of mines house for downloads. Seriously, I had yet to show hardly any scores of online play until RB3. But I did have over 800 songs and never played online. Internet just gets expensive. I chose dlc over online play. And I am quite sure that I am not the only one who has downloaded songs at a friends house.

[Candies]

I have not been interested in the lastest DLC and I usually buy most of it. Haven't played RB in weeks, but will probably get FM/SM.
You need a little injection via Canada to the DLC content!
Metric - anything (Stadium Love would be a good pick-I would love to see the top tier ppl battle for pole position)
Alexisonfire - anything would be good

[SirDavidTLynch]

I think everything he said still ignores the obvious fact that since the release of Rock band 3, HMX has been pushing hard to release songs with keys support. The result of this is a much heavier helping of music from the 70s and early 80s. I absolutely hate that keys were ever added to the game for this reason alone. From now on, no matter how great or in demand a band is, if they don't have keys in their songs, we are less likely to see them as DLC... and that is a bummer.

I'm sure a lot of people who play keys love what Harmonix have been releasing, especially with a back catalog of over 2,000 songs they can't play. But that hasn't stopped Harmonix from releasing songs with sparse keyboard parts, or no keys at all (including nearly 1/4 of the RB3 disc).