Incoming!

I apologize for over one day of delay, but there are some good news to share.

RS2014 ComDev D. Amrich announced what according to his information is scheduled for upload in the next PSN store update (Wednesday, April 1st):

QUEEN	Bohemian Rhapsody
QUEEN	Killer Queen
QUEEN	Fat Bottomed Girls
QUEEN	Stone Cold Crazy
QUEEN	Keep Yourself Alive
LYNYRD SKYNYRD	Free Bird
BOSTON	More Than a Feeling
Muse	Hysteria
Muse	Supermassive Black Hole
Muse	Time is Running Out
Muse	Muscle Museum
Muse	Stockholm Syndrome
Muse Song Pack - BUNDLE
System of a Down Song Pack - BUNDLE
PEARL JAM	Black
Oasis	Wonderwall
Oasis	Champagne Supernova
Oasis	Supersonic
Oasis	Live Forever
Oasis	Some Might Say
Oasis Song Pack - BUNDLE
THE OFFSPRING	Self Esteem
THE OFFSPRING	Come Out and Play
THE OFFSPRING	Gone Away
The Smashing Pumpkins	1979
RAM JAM	Black Betty
Aerosmith	Dream On
Aerosmith	Same Old Song and Dance
Aerosmith	Oh Yeah
Aerosmith	Legendary Child
ERIC JOHNSON	Cliffs of Dover
THREE DAYS GRACE	I Hate Everything About You
HEART	Barracuda
Weezer	Island in the Sun
Weezer	Buddy Holly
Weezer	Hash Pipe
Weezer	Undone - The Sweater Song
Weezer	My Name is Jonas
FOSTER THE PEOPLE	Pumped Up Kicks
BLINK-182	Dammit
The Doors	Riders on the Storm
The Doors	Roadhouse Blues
The Doors	Light My Fire
THE BLACK KEYS	Gold on the Ceiling
THE BLACK KEYS	Just Got To Be
THE BLACK KEYS	Mind Eraser
The Black Keys Song Pack - BUNDLE
THE STROKES	Reptilia
THE STROKES	Last Nite
THE STROKES	Juicebox
THE POLICE	Message In A Bottle
THE POLICE	Roxanne
THE POLICE	Synchronicity II
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL	Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
ALBERT KING WITH STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN	Born Under A Bad Sign
JUDAS PRIEST	Living After Midnight
Rise Against	Swing Life Away
Rise Against	Satellite
Sum 41	In Too Deep
Sum 41	Still Waiting
Sum 41	The Hell Song
Sum 41	We're All to Blame
THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND	Whipping Post
RICK SPRINGFIELD	Jessie's Girl

He also stated hat they "are working smoothly with Sony to resolve this issue. There is no need to clutter their forums and blogs with complaints; it's being handled and both companies are working together. Thanks."

Apparently there "was obviously a communication breakdown. That's been taken care of, and while I appreciate people making Sony aware of the issue, that message has clearly been delivered and everyone's voices heard. We have a path forward and I do not believe actively messaging Sony about it will accelerate any timeline on either side. We have what we need and we're working with the established workflow."

So, I personally will not stop observing and commenting the progress on Sony's blog posts and forum, but naturally, if we are really making this kind of progress, I won't complain. I encourage everyone to do likewise and merely encourage SCEE to keep up the (in that case) good work.

Store Update 2015/03/18: SoaD & Survivor

Cheers everyone.

Many of you will still be disappointed at the number, but as you might have already seen this morning, four "new old" songs are finally available to European PS4 Rocksmith 2014 players. Before you start cheering, though, it should be mentioned that as of now there are still cross-buy issues persisting with this content, which means that if you previously owned one of these songs, you will most likely not be able to download them without be charged. If anything changes regarding this, please let us know asap. Update: Cross-Buy issues seem to be fixed. If you are still struggling with them you might want to take a look into the PSN Store and try to "rebuy" the PS3 versions (that also state "PS4"). THey should be marked "Free" [of charge].

The System of a Down songs that have been added this morning / last night.

Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" still without cross-buy

Currently we also do not have any statement or ETA. In case we get one, we'll let you know. If you'd like to support our claim to SCEE, head to the blog and leave your vote and comment. More importantly, support this thread on the official EU PS forums with votes and comments, you will also find updates on the matter there.

As always, check and retweet tweets with hashtag #RSDLCScandal if you are on Twitter.

Move onto PS-forums!

Hello everyone,

the last two weeks yielded progress. Very small progress, but progress after all (check the two blogpost on the last two updates for details). Nevertheless we are still waiting for an official and comprehensive statement, and we still feel like a large part of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) is unaware of the mess that persists in the EU PSN store when it comes to Rocksmith 2014 DLC.

While we are waiting for this week's Wednesday Update, or any hints on what that might bring, we have come across another possibility to let as many people in the PSN and in SCEE know of the unacceptable situation that the PS4-owning European RS-community is in. In addition to posting our complaints on top positions of the weekly PSN-updates, we will now frequent the official Sony Forums.

In this thread, opened by fellow disgruntled RS-player R2_ back in January, we will collect complaints on the situation and post updates. We want this thread to be one of the most frequented, most upvoted threads on the whole board, so all types of community representatives at SCEE become aware of the bad mood that their PS-Store policies have caused. Again and as always, stay focused on facts and do not become insulting. Childish rants are oh so easily ignored, but a bunch of disappointed customers that point out unmistakable failure of customer service has to be treated with an answer sooner or later. So, be patient, upvote, comment and spread the word.

The target is 1000 upvotes and 100 comments. Join the mob. ;-)

Store Update 2015/03/18: And again...

...no serious improvement.

Screen from the German PSN Store showing what has been added today

Two packs for already existing content have been added. Apparently a pricing issue with the Killswitch Engage Pack for PS3 has been fixed, while the added Pack for PS4 goes under a wrong price.

It might be technical issues on my end, but when posting on the newest blog post regarding the store update, I have been encountering quite a few issues. It seems posts are now (have they before?) moderated. If they have resources for that...?

As always, support our comment on the EU Blog and be sure to hit Twitter to check for the #RSDLCScandal hashtag.

Indications of Progress

As we have learned from Rocksmith2014 ComDev Dan Amrich, we might be expecting some more Rocksmith2014 Legacy DLC in next week's update. Also he mentioned, that we might be getting some sort of schedule on the matter.

"[...]

Internally, I am happy to report that we have a better dialog going. We are revisiting the remaining DLC with the Ubi EU team and working out a fresh schedule for its release. Then our EU team can work with SCEE to create a schedule.

If the content needs to be resubmitted, we will resubmit it. I have been told that the DLC data packages that we (Studio SF) deliver for posting in the EU are still good to go and do not need to be rebuilt on our end. Any balls that have been dropped by Ubi on either side can and will be picked up, if that's the case, but we will still need to work within the SCEE workflow."

Dan's Post in the Ubisoft Forums

"OK -- legacy PS4 DLC tentatively slated for March 18 should be the Killswitch Engage and Alice in Chains packs. That's not much of a schedule, as it's really just one week into the future, but we are looking at the remaining DLC and will hopefully have something more comprehensive soon."

Dan's other Post in the Ubisoft Forums

I personally am happy that we seem to be getting somewhere. Still I am a bit disappointed with the size of the the improvement: Killswitch Engage and Alice in Chains songs are already available as singles, so it is merely a monetary thing.

Let's just hope that this is just the (second) warm up.

Store Update 2015/03/11: Something!

...nevertheless only a tiny bit of progress.

In addition to the new Jeff Buckley content, SCEE managed to make the Megadeth and the Avenged Sevenfold Packs available to EU PS4-users. Worth mentioning is that

• apparently all songs in these packs have been previously available as singles in the EU PSN Store
• the Megadeth Pack (3 songs) is quite reasonably priced at (£3.29/€3.99/$5.95) but "Purchased"-tags don't show up properly after buying the pack (see screen below), that is probably just a visual glitch though [I can confirm by now, that at least for me it was solely visual]
• cross-buy issues seem to remain for the newly added packs (they do apparently not show for free for previous owners) [please let me know if you can confirm that]
• two cross-buy issues have apparently been fixed for blink182's "What's My Age Again?" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" (contradicting reports on this, someone managed to download the tracks)

Weird (hopefully only) visual glitch after purchasing the surprisingly cheap Megadeth pack

Needless to say, this is very little progress. Nevertheless it is progress. So we can deduct that there is at least someone at SCEE spending time on fixing our issues. We just hope that he speeds things up!

Head over to the PS EU blog to support our comment there. We'll see whether we can squeeze out some more info. Also let me know if any of the issues are reported falsely!

Content not yet submitted / not yet gone through the usual process?

As a response to our latest comment fireworks on the EU PS blog, blogger Jawad was so kind to give us a statement regarding the missing DLC content. It reads:

"With regards to Rocksmith content, content purchased on PS3 should be available to PS4 users. This is of course based on what Ubisoft have currently submitted to us. If anything is missing then it has yet to be submitted/go through the usual process before it can be published.

I hope this answers the main question."

Considering that the delay by now amounts to four months one has to wonders what is keeping the content from going through the "usual process". Nevertheless we have got a written statement by Rocksmith 2014 ComDev that Ubisoft has submitted all the content at launch of the game and that should rule out the first alternative.

Statement of RS2014 ComDev Dan Amrich in the Official Ubisoft Forums

Statement of PS-EU blogger Jawad Ashraf on the current Store Update post

Therefore one can only assume that it is stuck in the (queue for the) SCEE uploading process. Our questions to Sony now are:

• What is the reason for this delay?
• More importantly, when will the content be uploaded?

Store Update 2015/03/04: Nothing!

Dear followers, as most of you already know, today's update did not yield any legacy content for Rocksmith 2014. On the plus side, we managed to put our claim in as the first comment to their announcement. That should make it even more difficult to ignore our questions.

Be sure to head over to the PS-EU-Blog and leave your vote and comment. Also tweet links to the comment or this blog with hashtag #RSDLCScandal. Just remember: [facts + politeness] > [insults + ranting]

UPDATE: This time at least we got a reply from Jawad. It does not say much, but he might at least mention our questions SCEE-internally. A step forward, imho. Keep going, everyone!

Reply by one of the main bloggers from the PSN Store Team (SCEE)

Other than that the response from the RS-community was great. Lots of upvotes and comments on the PS-Blog, retweets, views on the blog, reddit comments. Keep this going and participate in our weekly appearance on the EU-Store-Update post and I'm positive that we'll get somewhere with this.

Thanks everyone!

The RS DLC Scandal

The promises...

The music video game Rocksmith 2014 was announced as a replacement of the original Rocksmith (RS1), rather than a sequel*. In order to convince RS1-owners to upgrade to the all-new RS2014 version it was - and still is - stated, that previously purchased Rocksmith Downloadable Content ("DLC", additional songs), will be transferable without a re-purchase. Same was to be true for the 52 songs on the RS1-disc, which would be available via Import-tool for a comparatively small relicensing fee.

When the game was released for the next-gen consoles (XBox One and PS4), similar promises were made for the upgrade from the previous console generation to the new one. In other words, DLC purchased for Rocksmith 2014 on PS3 would be easily transferable to the PS4-version of the game, without additional charge (same was to be true for the XBox 360 and XBox One).

Screenshot from FAQ on the RS2014 homepage as of March 4th, 2015

Naturally, at least on Amazon.co.uk, these possibilities are (still) advertised as a main feature.

Screenshot from the amazon.co.uk product description of the Rocksmith 2014 PS4 game as of March 4th, 2015

...that were not kept.

In a few days the release of the PS4-version of the game will be 4 months ago (it was on Nov. 4th / 7th, 2014). While the so-called legacy DLC (so songs that were released prior to the current generation version of Rocksmith 2014) had been added for the the American PlayStation Store and the global XBox Store over the course of a couple of weeks, European PS4-customers can still only download a small portion of the promised legacy DLC. The reason for this regional deviation is that the company responsible for the EU PSN Store is SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe), whose processes and schedules differ from the counterparts SCEA (US), SCEI (Japan) & SCEK (Korea).

For an overview of which songs should be available, but are not, head over to the Ubisoft Forums, where DJPelle keeps a detailed and always up-to-date list of the missing and available content. The entity of persisting issues is tracked here by R2_.

While that alone might not sound too dramatic, there are a couple of aspects that worsen the matter considerably:

• While new customers might merely feel bored by the more narrow song library and treated unfairly compared to US-customers, for some customers the issue is, that much of the missing content has already been paid for on a previous generation.
• Customers that try to inquire about the missing content run into a customer service brick wall of standardised or even automated answers that merely try to put them off. Also, Sony employees refer them to the Ubisoft customer support, stating that it was a publisher related problem, while them on the other hand refer them back to Sony. Oftentimes they do not get an answer at all. 
• Official PlayStation bloggers and tweeters, or any other public representatives remain completely silent regarding this matter and simply ignore the increasing number of questions that their customers are raising regarding this issue.
• The only statement available to customers comes from the Rocksmith 2014 ComDev D. Amrich, stating that "SCEE is adding legacy DLC as their schedule allows. It appears there is a different workflow in SCEE than at SCEA, Microsoft, or Steam. Keep an eye on the PlayStation Blog in the EU on Wednesdays to see what has been added to the EU PS Store. That is where tracks from the back catalog are posted when they are made available." With the amount of games and content currently released for PS4, that is very alarming "timeline". Considering SCEE's communication policy on the matter one might easily jump to the conclusion that their schedule will never allow the addition of RS2014 legacy DLC.
• In addition to the lack of legacy DLC, there has been a multitude of labeling and referencing issues with Rocksmith 2014 DLC in the European PSN Store. We will not be going into detail on these issues for now, but they did put the put a bad light on the quality of SCEE store maintenance.

What to do?

We, the disgruntled customers, are currently trying to unite in order to force SCEE to gives us a statement and a timeline on this matter. Since they have failed to do so in private Customer Service inquiries, we use the public stage to create awareness and bad publicity.

Here is where we are organising ourselves:

• Ubisoft Forums: In this thread, RS2014 ComDev Dan provides us with anything he knows about upcoming uploads and issues. We, the users, provide him with information about (un)known issues, comment and discuss the latest news on the matter and think about how to get SCEE to deliver the promised DLC.
• PlayStation EU Forums: We have recently moved our complaints to the EU PS forums. As opposed to Ubisoft's Community Devs, Sony representatives have not been communicative at all, at least regarding this issue. Therefore we do not expect a statement anytime soon. The aim is, nevertheless, to make this thread one of the most upvoted and commented threads on the board in order to catch their attention. Support there would be extremely valuable!
• Twitter: We are also trying to promote the matter on Twitter via the hashtag #RSDLCScandal. Not much traffic as of now, so be sure to tweet away towards the official Sony account, using this hashtag.
• PlayStation EU Blog: Every Wednesday, SCEE announces what they have put up in the PSN-Store. Posts are usually published in the afternoon. Some of us try to get one of the earliest comments on the recently published post and all the others upvote and add their comment to the earliest post (do not distribute on to several comments, but concentrate on the earliest one we got!). That already worked quite nicely last week, and Sony openly ignored the maybe most upvoted comment I have ever seen on the blog.
• This Blog: I created this Blog as an information HUB for your reference. Link it if you want to promote our cause, and let me know about anything worth putting up that is still missing. I'll try to update it with the latest news on the matter.

About Rocksmith 2014

Rocksmith 2014 is a music video game produced by Ubisoft. It has been described as a replacement to the 2011 rhythm video game Rocksmith rather than a sequel. The game's main focus is the feature that allows players to plug in virtually any electric guitar or bass guitar and play. It was announced at Ubisoft's 2013 E3 presentation.

from Wikipedia Article

Disclaimer

This Blog Post aims to support our claim towards Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to finally add the missing Legacy DLC of Rocksmith 2014. Read the other posts for more information.

It has no commercial intentions and will go offline once we have achieved our goal. This is a private initiative.