Sunday, September 14th, 2008
by alphaxion
Inane ramblings of a broken mind, todays topic: The future of the music industry
There’s never a day goes by where we don’t hear or read a story about how the digital delivery and consumption of music is going to kill the big record label business. You see plenty of rhetoric flying around about how the labels face battle after battle against the giants of the tech world and a p2p network using customer base… but you never hear about the monster that lurks in the shadows, watching the battle unfold whilst it carries on with its own agenda; obscured from the world as everyone else is transfixed by the war unfolding before them in the music industry, paying scant attention to this shadow as it slips on by.
Yet, this shadowy figure could prove to be the next “gate keeper” to the musical world, and certainly dwarfs the music and pretty much the movie industries too.
It has a sprawling community that is deeply integrated with the industry itself and provides a constant source of energy and material with which to feed upon. Taking on board their input and creative drives, not to mention the community’s ability to take a single item and breathe a life into it that simply didn’t exist before. Self replicating, self referencing and self enhancing, yet it also voraciously consumes the other mediums in an almost borg like assimilation to become merely another facet of its own culture.
Like no other creative industry, its own community has a noticeable impact and actually has a voice.
Yet much of this community is quite invisible to the rest of the world – incomprehensible to those outside of it, seeing instead a bewildering swirl of memes and a practically alien culture, yet it is intimately aware of those outside of its own boundaries… and provides one of the greatest opportunities to aspiring and established musicians alike.
I am, of course, talking about the gaming industry and the community that surrounds and strengthens it.
Don’t believe me? Let’s take the example of a certain Jonathan Coulton.
An artist that published a load of his irreverent songs onto the net as a side to his gigs, hoping to make a few extra dollars out of the global reach of the internet, he had no idea that the gaming community would take so well to him.
From here, machinima (movies made out of ingame footage) makers picked up on his fun songs and began using them as the basis of their creations in order to amuse their peers.
With every stream and download of their movies, his name would be etched in their memory.
Last year, a song of his called “still alive” was used during the end sequence of the game Portal and has taken on a life of its own, providing Jonathan with a media campaign that would have taken the best viral marketeers to orchestrate. Yet every day, more people will hear his music in some random flash animation or providing the storyline to a humorous video short which helps to swell his fan base and increase sales of his music, tickets and merchandise.
Who needs some record label to siphon off fat chunks of cash from your sales and take ownership of your hard work?
It is a widely known fact that “big music” will chew up and spit out an artist, rarely leaving them any better off yet lining their own pockets until the next big thing is launched by them; once the public has become tired of the current “thing” – is there any wonder so many harbour ill feelings towards them.
Yet, they were the only game in town. Without them, your name would never be seen or heard by anyone, your music would remain cursed to obscurity on a close friends dust covered mp3 player.
The games industry stands as a much more approachable prospect, how often have you found yourself humming away to a tune that provided the backdrop of that level you spent hours trying to crack? Or that insanely catchy tune from the little flash based game you blew your lunch break on? (“now you’re a hero” by the guys at reachground from the You have to burn the rope game is one such infectious tune that will burn its way into your mind, for those who haven’t listened to it until now I am truly sorry).
I feel that it’s only a matter of time before we start to see the practice of sending in demo tracks to development studios instead of to record labels and games becoming a much larger part of the music eco system. The options for a musician to make a living out of their talent will surely expand, and as a consequence so too will the quality of the games that make use of their productions.
The record labels will always be around, in one form or another. But I firmly believe that the combination of the internet and the gaming industry will ensure that they are never in such a dominant position ever again.
So, if you or someone you know is a budding or an established musician, I’d recommend giving up on trying to impress the record labels and begin hunting down a list of development studios near you. Visit websites such as wegame or gamevideos and begin talking to machinima crafters.
Who knows, your gloomy instrumental work or your pop punk could be just what they’re looking for. Not to mention help drive up your online sales of tracks and tshirts 
