Coming soon to Rock Band for the Xbox 360: Nickelback! Or, at least, the Rock Band Network, for which Nickelback was a codename used by Harmonix to keep the whole thing on the down-low.

The developers wanted to keep the project, which is described as a “revolutionary system that will allow bands, studios and record labels to create and sell playable game content from their master recordings,” as confidential as they could. So, what did they do in order to keep people from digging into it?

“The Rock Band Network is so potentially consequential,” writes The New York Times, “that Harmonix went to great lengths to keep its development secret, including giving it the unofficial in-house code name Rock Band: Nickelback, on the theory that the name of the quintessentially generic modern rock group would be enough to deflect all curiosity.”

I don’t know which part of that is more harsh: that they came up with such an idea in the first place, or the fact it apparently worked. But the jab was not unprovoked; the band has been vocally critical in the past about games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, believing they hinder the rise of new bands.

Of the new feature itself, Harmonix Music Systems co-Founder and Chief Executive Alex Rigopulos said “We’re really going to explode this thing to be the new music industry.”

A new music industry which Nickelback would either not be a part of, or be forced to eat crow, it seems.