Music Ally

There could be even closer links between the way music and music downloads for videogames are sold, according to MTV’s games boss Paul DeGooyer.

“We would love to see a world where in your premium bundle for the next Muse album, you’re able to also receive that album on your console of choice, and be able to play it,” he said, speaking at MIDEM’s Images & Brands summit this morning.

That’s ‘play’ in a game sense, obviously. DeGooyer also said that the launch of in-game download stores for Rock Band has changed the way the music industry sees gaming – it’s no longer just a licensing opportunity. The Rock Band games have now generated more than 60 million downloads, according to DeGooyer.

Tim Riley from Activision/Blizzard agreed that the relationship between games publishers and music rightsholders has changed significantly.

“We used to go to the labels and explain what we were doing, and it would be us requesting music from them, rather than the labels pitching music to us. A lot’s changed… We’re sitting in on meetings with [major label] marketing people and they put us as a priority.”

DeGooyer admitted that the big numbers around the music game genre has thrown up hurdles in the relationships involved, though. He didn’t specifically mention Warner Music Group, but WMG boss Edgar Bronfman Jr. has made no secret of his views that games firms should be paying more for their use of music.

“Once you have a hit with games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, the conversations become a lot easier on one hand, and on the other they can become a lot more difficult – you have labels and publishers wondering if you’re making money at their expense,” said DeGooyer.

However, he hopes that the increasing download revenues from in-game stores – as well as initiatives like MTV’s Rock Band Network, which lets labels create their own downloads for the in-game store – will head off those concerns.

Music Ally liveblogged the games session for the Midem(Net) Blog – click here to check it out.

Tags: MIDEM, MTV, Rock Band

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 11:25 am and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.