Music Industry Gives Thumbs Up to Music Games for Helping with Sales

Something that music industry executives figured out long after gamers did was the obvious fact that music games are great for the slowing dying music industry. Today, the case for these games was given another thankful nod in its direction by a post over on GamesIndustry.biz siting NPD numbers.

According to the report, the music market in the U.S. has dropped severely and CD sales fell by 19% in the third quarter of 2008, but have now gone up 2% thanks in part, the NPD feels to music games. Their reasoning for speculating this (again, something gamers have known for quite some time) is the different format artists have with this genre to promote themselves and their music.

“Year-to-date through November, the music and dance genre was the best-selling genre in video games, representing 16 percent of total software sales for the year,” said NPD’s videogames analyst Anita Frazier. Russ Crupnick, the entertainment analyst for NPD add that “Even though gaming competes with music for the consumer’s entertainment wallet share, music-related games are evolving into an important source for music discovery that can have positive revenue implications for the recording industry.”

Rock Band and Guitar Hero were mentioned as the key reasons that record companies are starting to see a profit through licensing deals, the addition of long stagnant artists, and the great stage it sets for debuting new music. Even with peer-to-peer sites still giving music industry execs huge migraines, at least with people buying songs they liked in their games is helping out on their looses.

One thing I would like to see though, is more local band content from areas outside of obvious places like NYC, Boston, Chicago, or anywhere in California. There are quite a few great bands hailing from cities that are just as cosmopolitan yet not as large. Louisville, KY, Cincinnati, OH, Memphis, TN and even Fayetteville, AR all have a great local music scene– the bands just bed the opportunity to get out there. Rock Band and Guitar Hero are great venues for them, and hopefully the game makers will start looking in some of the least expected place to find some of these gems.