Rock Band weekly DLC ends in April
By
Martin Gaston, News Editor
Harmonix ends weekly DLC updates for plastic band simulator; has released over 4000 tracks across 275 consecutive weeks.
After 275 consecutive weeks of new content, publisher Harmonix has announced Rock Band DLC will cease on April 2.
"In recent months we’ve scaled production down as we’ve transitioned resources onto other projects," wrote Harmonix on its blog. "With several new titles in development and developers needed to usher these new games along, April 2nd will be the last weekly DLC release for Rock Band."
"We’re incredibly proud of the DLC milestones we’ve set, especially producing the largest music library of any game available, and we wouldn’t have been able to release as much outstanding content without the support of our amazing community."
"We hope that you’ll all agree that this has been a tremendous run, and you should know it’s a ride that we at Harmonix have been thrilled to be a part of."
Over 4000 tracks have graced Rock Band's store since the original game was released in 2007, and the publisher intends to continue its current 50 per cent off sale on over 1000 of its tracks.
Last year Harmonix posted a job advertisement for a "combat designer", suggesting that its upcoming projects might take a slightly different approach to its past titles such as Dance Central, Rock Band and the original two Guitar Hero games.
By
Martin Gaston, News Editor
Martin Gaston has absolutely never at all had the song from Beauty and the Beast sung to him at any point during his life, ever.
95 comments
I hope they drop a ton of content in March and April 2nd they release "American Pie" as the only track.
1 Like THAT'S how you do DLC properly. Constant stream, varied content and truly adds to the core game and forwards-compatible. RIP RB DLC.
1 Like Thank God this crap is over. I'm tired of seeing all the Rock Band tracks clogging up the "New Releases" section for game add-ons. 80% of the new releases are RB tracks.
2 Like Rock band has always been a constant for my gaming since 2007, and this dlc was a way of seeing how many ways they could surprise me. From the awesome first week to the Flight 666 Iron Maiden DLC and epics later on, I was rarely disappointed. To see it come to an end is very sad, but i cannot wait to see what else they can put out
1 Like LAME! 4000 songs is not nearly enough!
In all honesty, great job guys. Normally I consider having a lot of DLC to be a bad practice but considering musical tastes vary so much from person to person being able to chose the songs I want is amazing. If I just go with the base song on a game I might like maybe 6 tracks, with DLC I can get all the great songs I want.
@vault-boy Funny thing is I remember looking at the track lists for each rock band and finding a few songs where I thought "Really, why this one?" then I played it and heard something... whether it was a vocal part or a strong bass part or a good ensemble song... they always made sense.
Contrast to Guitar Hero when I had the same question after I played some songs and I was left with only "I guess it was cheap".
1 Like I'm honestly surprised they kept it going for as long as they have. Kudos for continuing to bring out songs YEARS after 99% of people stopped playing GH/RB.
1 Like That sucks, there are still a lot of songs I would liked to have seen. Hopefully the content will be beefy till april.
2 Like It's a pity that other games don't get that kind of DLC support, I would have loved to see Star Trek Legacy, for example, get such support instead of being abandoned shortly after release. That game had so much potential that was never realised.
More developers should support their games more often.
1 Like 5 years and 4000 songs later is more support than any console game has received that I can think of. HMX has always been there for their fans and other companies can learn from the example they've set. Us players in the RB community still have our servers up and plenty of past DLC to keep us occupied. All I can say is thanks for the years of fun HMX.
Ok, we've done the plastic band simulator, now how about a rubber band simulator, because that sounds almost as exciting.
Bad puns aside, it's fun to think of what the DLC-haters would think about this, I mean 275 weeks of DLC, that's really impressive. As long as it was good content I don't mind this.
1 Like @dlCHIEF58 Go back to your little world where everyone (with absolutely no exceptions!!!!) who shows dislike for a game you own and like, plays CoD. His dislike for this game doesn't automatically mean that he likes another game.
1 Like @DrKill09 Because we already bought our gear, and take care of it. Therefore, we don't need to go buy the guitars/drums/mics in droves at this point.
@dlCHIEF58 You are hilarious!
I haven't played COD since Modern Warfare 2. No, currently, I'm playing Far Cry 3, Skate 3, Cryostasis, Mirror's Edge, AVP 2010, Insane 2, Test Drive Eve of Destruction, NFS Hot Pursuit 3 and Most Wanted 2, and soon Crysis 3.
And the last online game I played was Gotham City Impostors, but unfortunately, it does not work in Windows 8... yet.
Seriously, if people still play Rock Band/Guitar Hero, why are the guitars always all over the stores unsold. Even Dollar General sells Rock Band now.
6 Like @nurnberg What? Milking? REALLY?
They supported the game since 2007 with DLC, optional DLC, most of it, content wanted & asked from the consumers, heck, even begged!
3 Like @ChUmPr0kS @nurnberg When it comes to a music game DLC is different than it is with most. Musical tastes vary so much from one person to another that being able to buy the songs you want directly rather than buying a game with 100 songs and only liking 6 of them is a godsend.
1 Like How is bringing optional content that the players WANT milking? This should be seen as a company supporting their product 5 years after it is out the door, something other developers aren't doing.
Ok so in April at some point they will not be releasing anymore new weekly content but will we still be able to buy what is already there well into the future or will that cease at some point soon too ?
All the content already out will still remain available for purchase (and the RB1/2 songs are still on sale for 1/2 price). All the online portions (leaderboards and matchmaking) will also continue. And those of us on the 360 will still receive new songs via the Rock Band Network, just no official RB3 DLC and this support will undoubtably start to dry up as well.
@Fo_Fai @punkpunker Apparently, milking consumers is considered post launch support these days.
@Hurvl
Being a fan of the rhythm game genre myself, the DLC is worth it. The DLC is very cheap compared to most games, and you don't need all of it to get the full experience, but it does add to the replay value. Track packs vary in price by size, but individual songs are priced at either 80 or 160 MSP.
4 Like People who complain about the "cluttering" of the XBL marketplace because of RB DLC are the fucking worst.
I'm still saving money for Rocksmith and a nice guitar.
This plastic guitar game thing was fun for one game and that was it. I don't see why anyone still thinks this is worth spending money on but then again I'm not like most people.
Thank god. I'm so happy that i will finally be able to go into xbox live marketplace addons and not have to sift through 20 songs before seeing 1 normal add on then 20 more songs.
Hate to tell you (actually I don't) but that will still continue as the Rock Band Network will still be in operation and there will still be independent submissions showing up on the marketplace, along with the demo songs.
4 Like End of an era. Harmonix, great job sticking to the games even after they stopped selling like madness in the stores. I can't wait to see what you're coming up with next.
5 Like I still play Rock Band 2 every once and awhile, but seeing that the DLC is for all three main RB games (with 3 being the exception because of the newer peripherals) and Harmonix has been supporting them since 2007, that's pretty impressive.
2 Like if youre still playing these games
you coulda already been a REAL guitar rockstar and died already
@TheZeroPercent No shit.
I don't know why people thought playing with a toddler's plastic guitar was cool.
@DrKill09 @TheZeroPercent I don't know about cool. But plenty of people play with "a toddler's plastic guitar" because it's fun.
1 Like @TheZeroPercent the total cost of all the dlc may cover that but a real instrument is an investment for someone who is serious about music not to mention that you need to study music theory before anyone can make music.
@punkpunker @TheZeroPercent I disagree. There are plenty of punk bands out there who had no previous knowledge of music theory who did just fine.
8 Like @TheZeroPercent That has to be one of the fucking dumbest things I've read on this site all month. This is like saying "why play football videogames when you can go play for the NFL? Derpdederp..." This is as close as most people will ever get to playing an instrument and actually SOUNDING GOOD. You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than you do becoming a rockstar.
1 Like @Ten_Tigers @TheZeroPercent its clear that the quote is a sarcastic joke ,not really sure how you missed it. whats hes saying is all the time spent playing this could have been spent LEARNING to play on a real axe.
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