Rock Band Network
The Rock Band Network was a downloadable content service designed by Harmonix with the help of Microsoft to allow musical artists and record labels to make their music available as playable tracks for the Rock Band series of rhythm video games, starting with Rock Band 2. It was designed to allow more music to be incorporated into Rock Band than Harmonix themselves could produce for the games, and it was seen as a way to further expand the games' music catalog into a wide variety of genres. The Network started closed beta testing in July 2009. The Rock Band Network Store was publicly available on March 4, 2010 for all Xbox 360 players in selected countries. Rock Band Network songs were exclusive to the Xbox 360 for 30 days on each song's release, after which a selection of songs would be made available on the PlayStation 3.
The Rock Band Network was based on the XNA Creators Club model and uses peer review to check songs for playability, copyright violations and profanity in a song's lyrics. Harmonix had developed a suite of software tools, including a modified version of REAPER, a digital audio sound tool, and Magma, a metadata packaging tool, for use by artists and labels. In addition, Harmonix had helped to spawn the creation of several third-party companies, based on the previous hacking environment for the creation of custom songs, that will author an artist's song into a Rock Band track. Artists retain full control on their songs, and receive 30% of the sales from the Network. Several artists and labels had committed to expanding the distribution of their music through the network. A second version of the Network, "RBN 2.0" went live shortly after the release of Rock Band 3. The new version incorporated the ability to author regular and Pro keyboard, vocal harmonies, and Pro drums; due to the complexity and time investment, RBN 2.0 did not support authoring of Pro guitar or bass. The Network has been considered a more favorable option for the addition of user-generated content for music games than compared to Activision's previous attempt with "GHTunes" for the Guitar Hero series.
Harmonix has since announced that they would be discontinuing regular DLC updates for the Rock Band series as of April 2, 2013; the Network would remain functional for Xbox 360 users while the third-party technologies, such as Microsoft XNA, remain automated processes, while the PlayStation 3 would see no further releases after April 2. The service was fully closed in September 2017 as Harmonix moved forward with other projects, and all of its songs were removed from the DLC store in February 2018. In May 2018, Harmonix announced it would be bringing the most popular entries as well as fan-requested songs from the Network into Rock Band 4; however, unlike core Rock Band DLC, users are unable to carry over any previously purchased Network songs due to licensing constraints.
Development
Prior to the announcement of the Rock Band Network, Harmonix would regularly add approximately 10 songs each week as new downloadable content for the Rock Band games, consistent with their vision of Rock Band as a music platform and preferring digital distribution instead of new games or media. The downloadable content has been well received by players, with over 50 million songs downloaded by mid-2009. However, without significantly expanding their company, Harmonix realized they could not expand their authoring process. The company worked with Microsoft to create the Network, modeling it after their XNA Creators Club which has produced a series of peer-reviewed titles in the Xbox Live Indie Games series. The resulting model allows artists and labels to author their own songs into Rock Band tracks, and submit them for peer-review before adding them to the Network, with a 30% cut of the songs' sales. Eran Egozy, co-founder of Harmonix, noted that "We're changing the way the music industry is working, and we're hoping there's going to be this big community around it". Harmonix' other co-founder, Alex Rigopulos, sees the Network as the next form of media that people will want to experience music through as with portable music players and in concerts. Rigopulos also stated that creating music in a form that is ready to be used in Rock Band is "just part of what they do now", and considers the Network an attractive way to allow artists and labels to skip the Harmonix middleman in getting tracks to players. The New York Times claims that in order to keep the development of the Network confidential, they internally named the project "Rock Band: Nickelback", believing that the "quintessentially generic modern rock group" name would deflect any attention to it. However, Harmonix senior producer Matthew Nordhaus denied this claim.In anticipation of the announcement of Rock Band Network, Harmonix contacted the ScoreHero and CustomHero communities, groups that have been hacking and modifying songs from Rock Band to put in their own custom songs, in order to engage them in helping use their knowledge of song creation. As a result, a company called was created by Joseph Cirri, the founder of ScoreHero; for a portion of the song's sale, they will assist bands by creating the appropriate note tracking for their songs, peer review them, and help to train others to do the tasks. Within a week of the company's reveal, sixteen bands had signed up for Rhythm Authors' services. Other companies, including RockGamers Studios, TuneCore, and WaveGroup Sound, have also been formed for authoring; while authoring rates vary between the companies, it is estimated to be approximately $500 per minute of transcoded song. Harmonix provided training classes on the Rock Band Network tools and promotion at the September 2009 GameSoundCon Conference in Los Angeles. Harmonix' Greg LoPiccolo stated that he believes the authoring community will also come up with further plug-ins for the authoring software to further automate the song creation process. Similar companies that promise to help author note tracks have also been created since the announcement of the Network.
History
The Network started in private Beta in September 2009, A patch to Rock Band 2 for Xbox 360 users posted in late 2009 included the addition of the "Audition" mode that allowed those in the Beta to try their songs in the game. The development tools and additional documentation were released to the general public in early October 2009. Though originally expected that the Network will become available to general players in November 2009, the open service was not expected to launch until early 2010. An open beta, allowing any player with an Xbox 360 and XNA account, was opened on January 19, 2010. The Rock Band Network Store was opened on March 4, 2010, with over 100 songs available at launch. On opening, it was announced that T-Mobile would help sponsor the store, highlighting an "Artist of the Month". Harmonix will continue to author songs for release as normal downloadable content alongside the Network. Further interactions between regular downloadable content and Network songs will depend on the performance of the Network. Harmonix noted that the delays in getting the Network out was due to lack of internal deadlines within Harmonix as well as difficulties adapting the XNA system to their needs. Harmonix also identified issues with the closed beta period, during which they used mock-ups of songs instead of real ones for the beta testers to review, as when real songs were then added, a number of new concerns were suddenly apparent. Harmonix also noted that legal discussions on the addition of user-generated content added several months to the release of the Network.Limited PlayStation 3 support was announced starting on April 22, 2010. Due to limitations with Sony's store system, Harmonix would initially be able to offer 5 songs weekly, selected based on popularity as well as balance of genre and bands from the exist Network library from the Xbox 360; Harmonix is currently working to expand this number.
The number of songs on the Network surpassed 400 in May 2010, and 500 in August 2010, leading to an average release of 3 songs per day since the launch of the Network. More than 9000 users have participated in helping on supporting the Network review process with over 700 of those as track authors or playtesters. Approximately half of the tracks played in the Network's demo mode are subsequently bought by the players, representing an "organic growth" of the service, according to Harmonix' Jeff Marshall.
Songs from the Network will continue to work in Rock Band 3, and will be treated as regular downloadable content across all modes of the game. Rock Band Network 2.0 was announced upon release of Rock Band 3, with a testing cycle starting shortly afterwards. The second version of the network includes support for new features of Rock Band 3, including vocal harmonies, keyboard support, and Pro modes for drums and keyboard. However, it will not include Pro guitar or bass modes initially; this decision was based on the difficulty of authoring the Pro guitar tracks and the expected limited user base available to test these songs on the onset of Rock Band 3s release. Harmonix will review the demand for such features within a year to consider adding this functionality to RBN 2.0. Other changes include improved authoring tools for creators, and better control of audition sessions for reviewers to better evaluate a song. Beta versions of the tools were live shortly after Rock Band 3s release. The Network 2.0 is scheduled to go live on February 15, 2011, with existing Network shut down the day before. After this event, only players with Rock Band 3 will see new songs available through the Rock Band Network; players of Rock Band 2 will still be able to purchases older songs approved for release before the change.
On September 3, 2010, Harmonix announced the first nine Rock Band Network tracks for the Wii, but gave no release date, simply stating they were "coming soon". The first tracks for Wii were released on September 7, 2010. Due to limited demand for Network songs on Wii platform, Harmonix discontinued further Network tracks for the Wii on January 18, 2011.