Gee, turns out the video gaming world, a vast demographic with alot of disposable cash, really does buy music. This is something the music industry is discovering for themselves as the album sales of bands that show up in fake-rock music games have doubled over the past year. Not only is the industry taking notice, but the bands are, too. Locking in a track on Guitar Hero or Rock Band might be worth mad bank to an older band, but to a newbie group just off the club scene, that kind of exposure can be the start of a career.
Music video game sales have doubled in the past year, reaching nearly 2-billion in the human dollars. That’s less than traditional music sales, who pulled down about 10-billion in the big monies, but as CD sales decline, music games are catching up fast. In a few years, sales in both media might be equal, which has already given huge leverage to artists who want to free themselves from the recording industry’s draconian leash.
The video games are also giving more power to upcoming artists. Guitar Hero: World Tour lets users upload their own songs, and other games are certain to follow this trend. If a band can create, compose, and market themselves through video games, then what grave lever can the record industry spike under the bands to lift them into audio slavery? Will the chains and bondage of present recording contracts (which claim power over everything surrounding the artists, down to their very names), still hold an attractive weight for new bands?
The future for the recording industry appears to be one where they must make a deal with a devil greater than themselves, not merely for fame and exposure but for bare sustenance, the lifeblood of raw money that feeds their bloated bodies. As their own market designs become obsolete and irrelevant, shall it be video games and the broad channels of communication that define modern gaming that takes their place as the guardian of music? We’ll see.
Still, no matter how the music of the future finds its way into our lives, one thing is for certain. Most of it will suck.
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