Motley Crüe’s decision to premiere their new single as DLC for Rock Band seems to have worked out quite nicely. According to figures released by the band in a Reuters article (via Eurogamer), the Rock Band version (for Xbox 360, specifically) of “Saints of Los Angeles” sold roughly 47,000 copies in its first week of release, as compared to roughly 10,000 copies via digital music stores such as iTunes and Amazon.
The popularity of interacting with the band’s music has not gone unnoticed by their management. Tenth Street Entertainment, whose clients Motley Crüe and Blondie have both appeared in Rock Band, stated, “The resurgence of rock has happened because of ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Guitar Hero’. And the reason is because of the interaction with the audience. The more music marketing people look at interaction with the audience as opposed to only radio or a video, the more lasting the experience will be and the longer the artists’ career will be.”
As the article points out, this is a fairly interesting discrepancy, given that the Rock Band version of the song cannot be transferred to any portable music devices or PCs, can’t be burned to disc, and can only be played/listened to inside the game. It’s also worth pointing out that the 5-to-1 purchase ratio is made all the more impressive by the fact that Rock Band — and therefore its DLC — was only available to audiences in North America during the cited week of sales.
Interactivity seems to be the name of the game (no pun intended). Phase is a good start, but maybe someone should work on putting Audiosurf on the iPod or something.
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