Rock Band 2 Dev Talks Track Selection, Exclusivity Deals

IGN spoke with Eric Brosious, audio director for Harmonix, about selecting songs for the upcoming Rock Band 2 release. He talks about balancing difficulty between instruments, bringing a wider range of genres to the game, and his view on the competition for songs and artists between Harmonix and Activision. "We prefer not to sign exclusive deals with artists because while it seems like the competitive 'business' thing to do, in the long run, it's really not good for anyone. We think we should be working to get more music out to more people."

In the grand scheme...

[Anonymous Coward]

exclusivity deals wouldn't help either game. Props to harmonix.

Re:In the grand scheme...

[Moryath]

And shame on Activision.

I hate to support EA under any circumstances, but they've proven they know when to leave the hell alone - not like Activision, who get their hands on a franchise and pretty much universally ruin it [penny-arcade.com].

Look at Guitar Hero. Harmonix's first two were awesome; 3 was passable. Then we were hit with "Rocks the 80s", and even worse, "Aerosmith edition" - I mean, what is this shit? Halfway through the 31 songs and I've barely played 5 actual Aerosmith songs? They taunt me with "The band covered X song on Y early tour date" info and that song's not even on the menu?

"Exclusivity" agreements explain why Rock Band's only Aerosmith song was the piece of junk "Train Kept a-Rollin" instead of a good one. They probably also explain why the "Best of the Who" download set included the crappiest cover I've ever heard of Amazing Journey, and left Sensation and Pinball Wizard completely out.

The less exclusives we see, the better. Unfortunately for Harmonix, you know for a fact Activision isn't going to play fair on this. They're desperate to get anything to get people to buy the next Guitar Hero after being 2 and a half times burned (one for 80s, one for Aerosmith, 1/2 for GH3 for the crappy boss battle setup).

Re:In the grand scheme...

[JCSoRocks]

Largely about money? With RB2 you'll be getting a TON of new tracks for MUCH less than it would cost to buy them individually (or even in a pack). They've also vastly improved the interface and how quickly you can actually get in there an play. They also added free play for drums as well as coaxing Microsoft into adding the ability to allow you to transfer RB1 DLC to RB2... The instruments have been improved too (3 optional cymbals for drums, etc). but yeah, you're right, they're totally just squeezing this one out for the money... ugh.

Re:In the grand scheme...

[quantumplacet]

You're missing the point. Sixty bucks for what will end up being over 100 songs after the 20 free song download is considerably cheaper than if they just released all those songs as DLC. By making it a sequel it gives them the chance to clean up things from the original and make it a bit better, meanwhile the fans get a crapload of new songs for a good price. And if you don't want to pay that price, you can keep playing RB1 and all future DLC will still work with it. Only an idiot could actually bitch about this