Like the Game? Buy the Music

So 50 Cent: Bulletproof sold a million copies. Apparently, the game includes an absolutely huge amount of exclusive 50 Cent content in the form of bonus tracks and videos, and one suggestion for why the game--which was not exactly brilliantly reviewed--sold so well is that many 50 Cent fans wanted to get their hands on the content they couldn't find anywhere else. This sort of thing isn't new, trying to gain attention for a game based on the attachment of a celebrity. However, an AP article describes evidence of just the reverse happening. That is, people will play a game and hear music from an artist they've never heard before, then go out and buy that music.

Chicago band Fall Out Boy sold 70,000 copies of their new album in one week after the music was featured on "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland," a skateboarding game, Riley said.

"They weren't on the radio," he said. "The only thing you can attribute the sales to is the game." Activision has doubled its music spending in the last five years, Riley added.

When Electronic Arts Inc. bought Selasee's single "Run" for its "FIFA 2006" soccer game, the Ghanian reggae singer had yet to sell a song. Sales of his first album have taken off since the game's October launch; iTunes and Napster now stock it. Now based in the United States, Selasee regularly plays large venues.

It seems to be a win-win situation for the artists and the publishers funding the games. The artists get a broader range of exposure than they otherwise would have without radio support and the backing of a large label, and the publishers are spending less money because they're not dealing with established artists who command high royalties. Publishers probably also enjoy getting a certain amount of indie cred from music fans who perceive the trend as being born out of a desire to promote lesser known music. As usual, of course, the article eventually devolves into less-than-useful comparisons between the film and game industries, helpfully stating that maybe one day games, and original game music, will be able to stand tall next to Older Brother Hollywood. Says music audio man Alastair Nicholson: "In time, there's no reason why a video game soundtrack shouldn't stand next to a film soundtrack in terms of artistic integrity." Considering the lack of artistic integrity present in most film scores, I'm not sure this is all that encouraging. Not to mention, it does grave disservice to the unique possibilities of interactivity in game scoring (which seems to be more and more ignored in favor of simply hiring Hollywood composers or wannabe Hollywood composers to knock out an Elfman or Williams ripoff) as well as the unique styles pursued by many game industry composers (and I'm not just talking about Mario or Mega Man here). Maybe one day somebody in the mainstream press will write a positive article about video games without implying that some day games might eventually hold a candle to film. Quality aside, they're entirely different forms, people, quit it.