Harmonix’s Dance Central garnered quite a bit of chatter at E3 for it’s silky-smooth gameplay and surprisingly high fun factor. Now, it’s getting more buzz, but this time it’s a bit more negative. It seems that new songs for Dance Central will cost a bit more than what Harmonix fans may be used to paying for new Rock Band music.
According to project lead Kasson Crocker “Because [Dance Central DLC] comes with a brand new unique routine with the three difficulties, we have to: engage the choreographer, find the song, license the song, come up with a routine, get them into a [motion capture] suit, shoot all the choreography, integrate the animation, build the filter system, the flash cards, the [voiceover] for ‘Break it Down’ — it’s a pretty elaborate process that is not only a lot more expensive, but a lot more time consuming.”
So essentially the issue is that due to all the extra steps that must be taken Harmonix can’t sell Dance Central content at the traditional $2 price point and still break even, let alone make a profit.
The major question now is how does that added complexity translate into an extra charge for songs? While Harmonix may be able to get away with charging $3-$4 per song for Dance Central much more than that and we’re getting into Modern Warfare 2 map pack pricing territory. Also, when compared to Rock Band the library of songs that would fit into this type of game with its emphasis on specific dance moves is much smaller. The last thing Harmonix would want to do is scare off an already diminished audience with overly expensive DLC.
