MTV Games along with Harmonix Music Systems have joined forces to bring to music artists, record labels and publishers the Rock Band Network Beta Program. With this new offering, emerging as well as established artists can author and submit all their music and songs to Rock Band.
The Rock Band Network first caught the fancy of music enthusiasts when it was revealed by the companies back in July last year. The Network lets upcoming musicians as well as established ones sell and promote their music as playable Rock Band tracks by authoring the original recordings into gameplay files. These offerings can be espied in the Rock Band Network Music Store which is set to launch shortly.
Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix commented, “We are excited to democratize the Rock Band platform and expand the music discovery experience to the greater music community with the Rock Band Network. We believe this will be great for fans, music lovers, bands and the music industry as a whole.”
The artists will be able to opt from different pricing tiers for their tracks as well as get a royalty of 30% on the retail selling price of the tracks purchased in the Rock Band Network store. Artists have to first submit their songs to either the Playtest or Peer Review section in the creators division of the Rock Band website. All this is done before the track is commercially released onto the Rock Band Network Store.
Paul DeGooyer, Senior Vice President of Electronic Games and Music for MTV Networks Music Group stated, “The Rock Band Network opens the Rock Band universe to musicians at any stage of their career, empowering them to release the songs they choose, on their timetable, via our proven music distribution platform. It is a high-value business proposition that features powerful promotional impact for artists and songwriters, while at the same time adding real sales to their bottom lines.”
The in-game music marketplace is dedicated to the Rock Band Network where fans can listen and play to song samples before making their actual purchase. The tracks will unfurl on the Xbox 360 console for a period of 30 days. A compilation of standout tracks will be available on the PS3 and the Wii.
The exact launch date of the Rock Band Network Store is not yet disclosed by the company.