February 7, 2009
Record labels eye mobile music games
Seeking newer, cheaper promotional channels, the music industry turns to titles like Tap Tap Revenge. The Christian Science Monitor reports via Fierce Mobile Content.
Three neon bars, a cascade of fast-moving dots, and a bumptious pop soundtrack, piped through an undersized speaker or a pair of headphones. That’s the spare formula behind Tap Tap Revenge, a video game for the iPhone and iPod touch, which has become in recent months one of the most popular applications ever distributed through Apple’s online iTunes store.
According to figures provided to the Monitor by Tapulous, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based creator of Tap Tap Revenge, the game has been downloaded by more than 6 million unique users. (Approximately 100,000 “paid” versions of “Tap Tap Revenge” have been sold, the company says.)
But more important, say many analysts, music games such as Tap Tap Revenge are a bow-tied, brightly colored gift to the ailing record industry, which has struggled in recent years to adapt to the realities of the digital landscape. Even as CD sales slump – the 2008 holiday season was the worst in recent memory – users have flocked to cheap or free downloadable mobile content.
For the savvy label executives, it’s a no-brainer: the relatively low cost of licensing music for a mobile platform is offset by the promise of tremendous media exposure.
Read full article.
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2009/02/022639.htm
| Tweet |
