quinta-feira, maio 19, 2005: From Beeps to Billboard

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ndeed, video games may stand on the brink of pop-culture consciousness. "Video games are where the film industry was in the 1920s," says Tallarico. Back then, Warner Bros. released Don Juan and The Jazz Singer, the first films with sound. Not long after, the hottest musical acts were vying to get into movies, hoping for fame that would boost record and concert sales. Video games -- an industry whose $10 billion revenues rival box office receipts -- could experience the same phenomenon.

Male consumers already spend more money on video games than they do on music, according to Nielsen Entertainment. Thanks to the latest gaming console technology (see BW Online, 4/25/05, "An X-Factor for the New Xbox?"), video game music has attained higher quality than that of CDs.

SOUND PROSPECTS. No longer a series of beeps and bleeps, video-game music has evolved into an intricate art form, designed for a listening duration of up to 100 hours of play time, vs. the 90 minutes of a movie, explains Andy Brick, who composed scores for The Sims II role-playing game.

The soundtrack for Halo 2, a game in which a genetically enhanced supersoldier battles evil, has sold more than 90,000 copies since its release last November. Peaking at No. 162, it marked game music's first entry into the Billboard 200 chart. (A typical movie soundtrack, on the other hand, sells only 10,000 copies and never comes even close to the chart.)
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"VITAL PART OF THE PLAN." Of course, most game publishers aren't ready to evolve into music publishers, particularly considering that not all soundtracks do as well as Halo 2. Instead, some are working with outfits like Sumthing, a record distribution company created by Nile Rodgers, who produced the record-breaking Halo 2 soundtrack (as well as David Bowie's "Let's Dance" and Duran Duran's "The Reflex"). Perhaps later, more game publishers will change their minds about getting into the business, as game music's fan base grows.

Attesting to the genre's increasing importance, most music labels pitch their artists' songs to video game publishers before shopping it to movie studios and radio stations. "The games are a very vital part of the plan now," says Daniel Glass, CEO of Artemis Records, which has signed performing groups Sugarcult and the Baha Men. "People go to video games now to find new music. The exposure factor and the coolness factor is what the artists want."

Money, more so than fame, will turn the tide. Already, during the last four years, video-game composer compensation has grown by 60%, to about $150,000 per game, estimates Bob Rice, an agent representing top game composers. That's still a far cry from the $1 million-and-up a star composer typically gets from a big-budget Hollywood movie, but the gap is narrowing.

After all, as video games realize their place as the new Hollywood sound-movies, they are where artists like Outkast, Avril Lavigne, and -- oh, yes, Aerosmith -- will want to go.
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