thereport ISSUE 348 | 20 AUGUST 2014 Contents 06 Beyond music: Game face The kids are alright (at coding) Music and gaming’s next levels 07 Pinboard: Stats, deals, startups and more 09 Country profile: Japan 2 ISSUE 348 20.08.14 COVER FEATURE Game face Music and gaming’s next levels n 2007, music and gaming hit a crescendo – with Guitar Hero, Rock Band and SingStar all at the peak of their powers and impacting on the mainstream of Iconsole gaming. Alongside the cost of the games (several times the cost of an album), there were cash cows to be found in the peripherals market, selling instrument- shaped controllers and overall generating tens of millions of dollars. Exploiting the motion-sensors on the Xbox 360 and Wii, a generation of dance games extended the footprint and brought in a whole generation of consumers who had previously never regarded themselves as gamers. Labels and publishers got SEVEN YEARS AGO THERE WAS A GOLD RUSH IN MUSIC AND GAMING AS ROCK BAND huge windfalls as AND GUITAR HERO OFFERED A BRIGHT SPOT IN A DARK TIME OF TUMBLING CD SALES. IT a new type WAS A SHORT-LIVED GOLDEN PERIOD AND GAMING MOved on – TO MOBILE AND SOCIAL media – AND WASN’t THAT FUSSED ABOUT TAKING MUSIC WITH IT. NOW NEW DEVELOPMENTS report WITH STEAM, TWITCH AND OCULUS RIFT MIGHT JUST PUT MUSIC BACK IN THE GAME. the 3 ISSUE 348 label recently set up its own channel on the 20.08.14 COVER FEATURE platform, Steve Aoki live-streamed his set from Ibiza at the end of July on there and of synchronisation entered the industry Porter Robinson created his own channel on lexicon. Most surprisingly, The Beatles Twitch as part of the promotion of his latest – a year before they licensed to iTunes – album, Worlds, where he talked about how jumped in with their own edition of Rock gaming influenced his music and showed off Band. The sector even branched into dance his gaming set up at home. music (in some ways a precursor to the EDM And therein lie both the power and the boom in the US) with DJ Hero. limitations of Twitch for music marketing. Just as soon as they appeared, however, It arguably suits certain genres more than the wheels fell off the market. Games others (dance/electronica/EDM seems to producer Harmonix ran into trouble and was dominate at the moment) and for artists to sold on by Viacom in 2010, the company really impact here (and be taken seriously having bought it in 2006. Apps and social by the community) they have to be media ended up stealing a large percentage dedicated gamers. Arrivistes will be quickly of their casual consumer base, with them sniffed out. leaving the console in droves for Farmville, But there are other plans afoot here Angry Birds, Candy Crush and Minecraft – that could push the dynamics a little more none of which had music as a core part of towards one of music’s comfort zones – what they did. The music industry’s great namely YouTube. Back in July, Google paid a gaming payday looked to have dried up. reported $1bn to buy Twitch and said it plans Things are, however, bubbling up again to weave it in more closely with its video- for music and gaming – but it is not going to sharing platform. If one looks, however, at be quite the gold rush of seven years ago. the leading channels on YouTube, there is That said, enough is happening for it not to something of a separation between music- be dismissed as a light breeze in a teacup. Top: Twitch has been courting the music business despite a run-in with UGC. Above: Steam dates back to 2003 centric ones and gaming–centric ones, with Here is what is happening and why it could but development of the Steam Machine console and the forthcoming controller (right) is pushing it to the fore very little formal crossover between the two. matter for music. Given Twitch’s moves to mute unlicensed competitions. It, however, grabbed music- There was immediate outcry from the content, it seems its plans are to have music THE NEW PLATFORMS: centric headlines in the past few weeks Twitch community and the company had there – but on its own terms, making this (for TWITCH AND STEAM relating to issues of music content and how to quickly add an “appeal” button for users now) an interesting but niche springboard it is filtered out in UGC uploads (a big part believing their video has been wrongly for music. The music industry is well versed in the of its community draw for gamers keen to flagged for music infringement. The other notably new platform is Steam platform wars between Xbox, Playstation show off their skill and knowledge). Twitch has, however, been courting the – a multi-player, distribution and social and Wii, which - for a brief period - meant The company announced it was taking music business and hoping to position networking platform which dates back to that they were able to push high-ticket price the proactive step of muting sections of itself as a marketing platform rather than 2003 but has made a very pronounced games built around music. In the time since, user-uploaded videos if they contained a hotbed of infringement. The Mad Decent play this year to get into the broader two new platforms have started to exert unlicensed music (either as part of the game their influence and are already testing the or playing in the background) – drawing on water with music. Audible Magic technology to automate the Twitch has, however, been courting the music business report Twitch launched in 2011 as a spin off process. Sound familiar? It’s similar to how and hoping to position itself as a marketing platform from Justin.tv, focused on playthroughs YouTube’s Content ID has been treating rather than a hotbed of infringement” of games and the broadcast of e-sports music used in its UGC uploads for years. the 4 ISSUE 348 expected to go on sale in the US in 20.08.14 COVER FEATURE September. It claims to be compatible with any gaming console as well as mobile entertainment content business, devices – which gives it a significant driven in part by the development advantage over Oculus Rift, which requires of the Steam Machine console and games to be developed specifically for its controller (the launch of which has been platform. pushed back to 2015). Anchored more explicitly in the real world At the start of this year, Steam stated it is Amazon Fire TV, launched in April this was looking to add music, TV content and year and which places gaming alongside the films to its bespoke SteamOS operating ability to stream entertainment content to system. In February, this was followed up Left: the Oculus Rift VR device. Right: ANTVR raised $260,000 on Kickstarter earlier this summer the living room TV. with the news that it was already testing For all of these devices, gaming will be the water with music – namely launching can deliver a huge installed userbase that Music could follow, but perhaps initially with the priority, with film/TV content likely to the beta version of Steam Music that allows is almost double the size of market-leading only a handful of acts having the creative come second in the pecking order. Does users to play music from their local libraries Spotify’s footprint. vision to do something genuinely interesting that mean music will be the poor relation? as they concurrently play games. and creative with it – think Björk’s Biophilia Not necessarily as this could be a side door It takes a 30% cut of games sales so THE NEW HARDWARE: iPad app supercharged for a VR experience. for music into the highly anticipated world it’s not a huge leap for it to launch its own OCULUS RIFT, ANTVR Entry costs and initial developmental spend of smart TVs. download store or hook up with an existing AND AMAZON FIRE TV would be high but Facebook is not short of Having said that, recent sales figures one and take an affiliate cut of sales. But as cash and would want to show off the full show the PlayStation 4 has sold 10m units the music download market starts to shrink Oculus Rift is one of the biggest tech stories extent of what this technology can do so and Xbox One has sold 5m units; and or plateau in developed markets, is selling of the year given that Facebook closed on that could mean – possibly – working with both have music streaming compatibility music this way a viable strategy for Steam? its $2bn acquisition of its parent company, musicians and shouldering some (all?) of because of their parent companies’ broader A more sensible route would be to add Oculus VR, in July. The virtual reality (VR) the costs to give its users something to entertainment offerings – Sony Music music on a streaming basis – letting users device didn’t come out of nowhere, having consume. Unlimited and Xbox Music respectively. connect their music subscription accounts raised $2.4m on Kickstarter in 2012 and Oculus Rift would not be an outlier, Neither of them have seen a huge spike to their Steam profile or striking a direct another $91m from VCs the following year. either. ANTVR is an “all-in-one universal in subscribers as a result of these device deal with one subscription service to be The music business is perhaps cynical virtual reality kit” being developed in sales so games hardware is not necessarily its exclusive partner.