News comes to us today that Motley Crue will be the lucky first band to debut their newest album content in Rock Band before it even hits store shelves with word that their first track, Saints, will be playable as DLC content this week.
While I find the choice of band and song to be entirely “meh” worthy, what I think is important to note here is that I think this is the first time that a mainstream band has released heretofore unreleased material in a videogame, as a sort of launch point for the greater marketing drive for their album.
Certainly, bands have done custom tracks for videogames before. EA has practically made this a foundation of many of their successful franchises. But to get right to the point, this feels like history in the making here. It feels like something special is going on here.
For a long time now people “in the know” have been predicting that video games will eclipse film as the medium of choice for society at large’s entertainment needs. When this critical mass event will actually take place is anyone’s guess, but, could this be the first shot heard round the world?
Has gaming become officially mainstream with this announcement? It’s hard to say, what with the song already released via .mp3 on the band’s webpage and accompanying videos peppered about.
But it’s certainly a start.
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What about Revolution X with Aerosmith? I don’t think it preceded the release of the music in the game, but it certainly was a vehicle for Aerosmith.
Pretty sure some of the Madden games have included songs that weren’t yet released.
This is the first time a band has debuted material that people could specifically choose to purchase in a game, though.
what about the music from Quake?
The band logo is all over the nailgun’s ammo boxes…