Rock Band Welcomes User-Created Music

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Rock Band is offering its users fame - at a price - with a new online store that will allow them to upload and sell video game versions of their own music.

Now anyone can list their tracks on the Rock Band Network store for anywhere from 99 cents (61p) to $2.99 (£1.83) a pop, provided they have the means to produce a file in the game's special format.

It is likely that artists will have to hire a contractor with the specialist programming knowledge to convert their recordings into sound files, lyrics and instructions for camera angles, at a cost of around £300 per minute of music.

Unsurprisingly given the costs involved, early interest has come not from garage bands but established acts that have so far failed to make the Rock Band roster, including chart-metal behemoths Creed and  Evanescence. 

Paul DeGooyer, MTV's senior vice president for electronic games and music told the Wall Street Journal: '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.'

Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated content will come from legendary indie label Sub Pop, which is paying contractors to prepare 25 songs from acts as diverse as Mudhoney, The Shins, the Postal Service and Flight of the Conchords.