Music based games have grown hugely popular over the years. They were mostly a niche genre when I started playing Dance Dance Revolution back in 2000. As the Bemani craze was rooted in DDR, many gamers sought out the other Konami games, like Beatmania, Pop N’ Music, Guitar Freaks, Drumania, and Keyboardmania.
Fast forward a couple years and the music game genre is a booming business with sales from software and downloadable content. These games are so popular that many bars often host Rockband nights for their many inebriated patrons to make fools of themselves. Let’s just face it, these games are very fun and tap into our dreams of becoming rockstars.
Well, these games require music, preferably from well known bands from past and present. These require the music to be licensed from the record labels. As reported by Reuters, Warner Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman draws comparisons between MTV’s launch and Apple’s Ipod launch to music based video games. In addition, he also states that since these games are wholly dependent on content own and controlled by them and they should be getting more money.
Truthfully, I feel that the record labels should be grateful that are often getting residual sales because of their music being in these games. Generally, it seems that the music industry is behind the times when it comes to promoting their product in the best possible manner for themselves and the artists they represent.
Source: Reuters
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