The Ailing Music Industry

There are forces within the music industry that often complain that internet downloading is hurting sales of records. Though this may be true, there are also many more opportunities for musicians and their producers alike to make money in the era of new-media.

One such obvservation I've made is the release of several artist exclusive editions of Rock-Band and Guitar Hero. For instance, AC/DC, Aerosmith and The Beatles have all, or are in the process of releasing editions of the game that exclusively feature a track-listing by that artist. They must produce significant revenue, because they keep coming out.

If regular albums aren't selling anymore because of the internet - than the problem needs to be reassessed. The internet is here and it isn't going away. Thus, neither are free downloads. The solution is to offer an incentive to get the consumer to buy the product.

Bear with me here. Instead of Artist 'X' releasing their album with fifteen tracks onto a CD, or Vinyl - why not release it directly and exclusively into a Rock-Band or Guitar-Hero format?

The traditional business model for the music industry is broken - but the solutions are everywhere. A band releasing their new material exclusively to videogames would be at the very least, an unprecedented attempt to generate revenue, but also an interesting experiment in the increasing saturation of video-games into Western culture.