Activision and developer Freestyle Games are moving away from the traditional DLC model for the upcoming Guitar Hero Live. Instead, the game will feature an on-demand approach to accessing music.

Guitar Hero TV will let players jump into channels curated by people (as opposed to automated playlists). The longer you play, the more in-game currency you’ll accumulate. You’ll also get a bunch at the start and when you rank up.

Those tokens are then traded in to play songs on-demand. You’ll also be able to purchase unlimited library access in time blocks. The music library will increase over time, and Freestyle says it is focusing on allowing players to find classics and new tunes.

“Music discovery is a big pillar for GHTV, and we’re going to keep adding new content on an ongoing basis, so you’ll always have new music and new shows to explore,” writes Guitar Hero Live creative director Jamie Jackson. “You’ll start off with access to hundreds of songs, and there will be many more on the way. It’s a living, breathing platform, which means we can bring people the music they want a lot faster than in previous games.”

You will need an internet connection to access Guitar Hero Live, but the software ships on the disc. You also won’t need to pay any extra to access new music via the different channels. That is reserved for purchasing access passes.

Activision hasn’t yet detailed pricing for the real money transactions. It also hasn’t made clear if tokens are part of the cash transaction plan. We’ve reached out for clarity and will update should we receive a response.

[Source: Freestyle Games]

Our Take

If tokens can be earned at a reasonable pace by playing are priced equally reasonably, this might be a great system. Until we understand pay-versus-earn rates and “jukebox” costs, it’s impossible to be definitive about that, though. It’s an intriguing (and quite contemporary) system, and one I’m curious to see in practice.