Anyone Can Play Guitar on 'Rock Band' as DIY Store Opens

MTV Games who own the video game Rock Band have this week opened the Rock Band Network Store, enabling any band or artist in the world to upload their own music videos.

The game which, along with Guitar Hero, allows players to play along with famous groups like the Beatles and Red Hot Chili Peppers -- is now theoretically open to anyone; from pub bands up. however the process of creating a video suitable to sell on the platform is quite complex.

The Wall Street Journal reports that already many third-party companies like Rhythm Authors LLC and RockGamer Studios will "typically charge $500 per minute of music" -- to create the multitude of music, lyric, choreography and camera angle files needed to make the video work.

With the high cost of producing content, and the low returns -- tracks are sold for between 99 cents (61p) and $2.99 (£1.83), with MTV Games keeping 70% of the profit -- so far it is mainly bigger names who have started preparing their songs for sale on Rock Band.

MTV's senior vice president for electronic games, Paul DeGooyer, explained to the paper, "We expected this to be an initiative that would appeal to unsigned artists. What was surprising to us was how many artists with hit records have offered themselves up."

It is reported that million-selling artists Creed and Evanescence have already offered tracks during the online store's trial period, and that independent label Sub Pop are getting ready 25 tracks from their bigger artists including Mudhoney, the Shins, Postal Service and Sleater-Kinney.

Head of A&R at Sub Pop Tony Kiewel said: "At $3 apiece nobody's looking to 'Rock Band' as a discovery tool," but that it was a good way to sell artists already commercially successful.