Video Games Saved the Radio Star

It’s ten o’clock at night. A young man stands on a street corner as a beat-up truck pulls up in front of him, and he climbs in. His forty-five year-old professor is in the driver’s seat. They stop at the professor’s house and step down a dark set of stairs into the basement….and rock out. On a regular basis, they go to his place to jam out to the greatest hits of The Ramones, Jet and Blue Oyster Cult, to name a few. And this is happening in basements all over America.

In a world where music sales are down and file sharing is up, music is getting a much-needed digital boost in music games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero and American Idol: Encore. More astonishing than the record-breaking sales and hefty price tags of these games is the eclectic list of song titles that comes from each one. Everything from Lynard Skynard and Ozzy Ozzborn to Radiohead and OK Go is represented here. That’s a playlist to satisfy even the pickiest audiophile. And the tune is universal. You can hear the echo of color-coded button clicks everywhere from local bars to ten thousand dollar casino tournaments. In a world where rock classics like Free Bird are resurrected into the pop culture lexicon, it’s easy to see why even Dad wants to get in on the game. Who’d have thought that one day the kids would be in the basement jamming to their father’s music? Now he won’t need to shout at them to turn that noise down.

This trend in pairing music with games may be one way to make music pirates pay for the songs. Why steal Aerosmith off the internet to play on your computer when you can pay $59 to play them on your XBOX? Maybe because Steven Tyler and company are actually working very closely with Harmonix, the company that produces Guitar Hero, on a game that allows players to live out the career of the band in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. So rocking out in a virtual world may not shut down music piracy, but at least it gives fans a chance to remember why they used to pay for music.

A more novel strategy that may work is seen in Grand Theft Auto IV. As you drive around Liberty City you will hear over two hundred songs varying from electronic to classical jazz. That’s because Rock Star Games made a deal with Amazon’s music division. With the cash saved from stealing cars, you can pull out your in-game cell phone and pay for the song you’re hearing. Though I can’t imagine Niko Bellic actually wanting to pay for something that could so easily be stolen. Look for Grand Theft Audio coming out this Christmas.