14 DAY TRIAL // We could have seen this coming, in the age of digital music and popular videogame soundtracks... Turns out that the game's OSTs have more influence on people than the music played by radio stations. Most of the EA sports titles now feature some sort of jukebox that allows you to listen to the tunes you like, included in the game's official soundtrack. Also, I remember at least 4 or 5 bands I've discovered while playing Need for Speed, especially the last three titles of the series.
Steve Schnur, worldwide executive for music and music marketing at EA confirms the phenomenon, claiming that the US listeners got a chance to listen to Franz Ferdinand thanks to EA's games. Also, the Europeans could hear Avril Lavigne, thanks to the good old games' soundtracks. Just think about it: you listen to a random song while racing in NFS: Carbon and you hear again and again, specially if you're a hardcore fan of the game who replays races. If you like the tune, you'll probably buy it from iTunes, or buy the whole album and tell your friends about the hit song you've discovered.
In case you're a Junkie XL fan, you'll surely love playing the latest NFS title, as it features the artist's works and also some songs from Jupiter One, a NY band. Games allow millions of players to listen to the same tune simultaneously and the studies have shown that over a third of the people who discover a new song while playing, download the media product and 20% of them buy the album.
While searching for the NHL series OSTs these days I stumbled upon a song performed by a band called Paramore. I've never heard their name before and when I checked out one of their videos on YouTube, named "Misery Business" I was puzzled to find out that it had 12 million views. That goes to show that quality bands, that never hit the radio stations can be found in EA's games and most of the recent titles.