Hi everyone,

We wanted to check in and say thank you for all the support you have shown us this year.

When we started this project, we wanted to be more open than the traditional development approach usually allows. That meant inviting players into our Alphas and sharing early ideas through smaller trailers and development updates.

Over the past year, we have watched our collective vision for Stage Tour take shape. We still have work ahead of us, particularly around polish and optimization, but the team is pulling out all the stops ahead of launch.

That work will not stop on launch day. We intend to keep developing and supporting Stage Tour for the long term, guided by feedback from the wider community.

A few topics have come up recently that we want to address directly.

Live Service, DLC and “FOMO”

We have seen comments from players worried that our DLC events might be time limited and then disappear. We want to clear that up now.

Anything we release is intended to remain part of Stage Tour, in line with our agreements with our music licensing partners. Events stay up, purchasing them is your choice, and they remain available to buy for as long as the associated music license is active.

Music licenses are long term by design. If a license eventually expires, all that means is that the event can no longer be sold from that point forward. If you already own it, you keep your music and can continue playing it.

This is important to understand. Stage Tour is not being built around limited-time DLC or manufactured FOMO.

Why Not a Subscription?

We were recently asked why we do not simply make Stage Tour a subscription service. It is a fair question, but not one we can fully answer today.

A subscription model in this category requires a significant audience and involves much more than access to music. It would need to account for ongoing features, content and how that model affects the wider Stage Tour ecosystem.

We would not rule it out forever, but it is not our focus today. Right now, our priority is delivering a familiar but fresh rhythm-action experience with fun gameplay and real value for fans, both at launch and beyond.

Hardware and Pricing

We have also seen questions about hardware pricing and whether current prices or bundle offers will increase.

Our philosophy is simple:

Play your way.

We are not going to force every piece of hardware on every player.

The game itself will be $39.99, providing an accessible entry point whether you want to play with a controller, keyboard or compatible instrument. In the coming weeks, we will share much more about our 4-Lane and 5-Lane Arcade instrument types, which support both controller and keyboard play, and show just how flexible and fun the experience can be.

For players looking for the traditional guitar experience, the guitar and game bundle is available for $129.99.

The larger bundles on our site are built around a simple idea: the more you buy, the more you save. They are not intended to recreate one enormous, all-or-nothing band bundle.

Historically, Band in a Box offered great value, but it also created significant retail risk and ultimately contributed to the decline of the genre. Our approach is to build an ecosystem where players can start with the experience they want and expand it over time. When purchasing multiple items directly from our site, we intend to continue offering meaningful savings.

To be clear, we have no plans to remove the current bundle offers anytime soon. The limiting factor will be supply and demand, not an intention to raise the price of those offers. If demand exceeds supply, we will do everything we can to catch up as quickly as possible.

It is still early, and the cost of creating high-quality hardware is far greater than it was during the genre’s original peak. Our responsibility is to maintain that quality while listening to players and offering the best possible range of ways to play.

Thank You

In closing, thank you. Not only for supporting Stage Tour, but for continuing to share your feedback throughout this journey.

It matters, and it always has.

We came back to this genre with our eyes wide open, carrying lessons from the past and new lessons learned from working alongside all of you.

We are listening, and we cannot wait to show you what comes next.

Lee & The Stage Tour Team