From ottawacitizen
Theres money in music from them thar games...
Case in point, it was recently revealed that rock gods Aerosmith have made more money off of their crummy co-branded version of Guitar Hero (I say crummy because reviews of the game have been lackluster) then they have on any album that the band has released to date. The revelation recently came from Activision chief executive Bobby Kotick and it unscores a number of really interesting points. First off, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is nothing more than a "greatest hits" montage for the band, with a bunch of indy band songs sprinkled in for variety. Putting out the game cost Aerosmith nothing more than their signature, agreeing to allow Activision to use their music. Secondly, it proves the consumer is still interested in paying for music. They just don't want to buy CDs or single tracks anymore. They want interactivity, add-ons, special content and video games. According Microsoft gaming chief Robbie Bach, more than 60 million tracks were downloaded for Rockband, Guitar Hero and Lips over Xbox Live in 2008.
The trend is stunning, considering Xbox Live (or Sony Corp.'s or Nintendo Inc.'s online store) only offers a handful of tracks for download and most of them sell for around $2 U.S. per track (almost double what iTunes asks). So, there is "gold in them there hills" and it's ready to be mined. But, what do the record labels do instead of cultivating this new source of revenues? They complain about it!
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