The past, the future, and the going-nowhere-fast

Too many interesting news bits already this week to stay on top of them all. Here are a few links.

Arstechnica ran a two-page feature on Tuesday titled "Roots of rhythm: a brief history of the music game genre," and a handy guide it is too. Nice quote from Masaya Matsuura, the Japanese musician, game designer and co-creator of the seminal PaRappa the Rapper:

It pleases me from the bottom of my heart to see the current success enjoyed by titles like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The dream I envisaged 15 years ago, of music games gaining mass appeal, has to a degree become a reality... To me "Rhythm Action" can be viewed as nothing more than a gateway to the endless possibilities that music games hold. We truly hope that our fellow developers can help to unlock the potential of this blooming genre."

In "Game Music Goes Indie," Wired Blog GeekDad extrapolates from the emerging opportunities for independent gamemakers offered by XBox Live Arcade, Nintendo's WiiWare Channel, and the Playstation and iPhone App stores, to point out that this is also great news for musicians and sound designers. The author gives a shout-out to the self-described "unofficial game music arrangement community" OverClocked ReMix, which worked with games publisher Capcom to produce and then release as MP3s the "Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Official Soundtrack."

And yes, there is now a semi-official "stalemate" between Warner Music Group and MTV Games over licensing any part of its catalog to the Rock Band download store. Billboard calls it a stalemate anyway, taking issue with Wired's description of a "boycott" of WMG content by MTV Games. It's all rather convoluted and a bit petty. Ultimately Warner is setting itself up for a fall if it keeps up this kind of intransigence in the face of promising new revenue opportunities.

Guitar Heroics in the news this week

Gametrailers has a good Guitar Hero: Metallica interview/trailer with more gameplay than the usual quick-cut promos on YouTube. Full disclosure: I never had any real love for Metallica. I never detected a hint of a sense of humour in anything they wrote or how they played, which is a wee bit much for corporate metal. Then Lars' bullshit in the early Napster days sealed the deal. So the fact that there are some 45 Metallica tracks on this doesn't really stir my tea. Queen, Thin Lizzy, Slayer, Mastodon, and double-pedal drumming are quite another matter, plus the open drumming with no track to follow is pure win. (Completely hilarious upgrade of lyrics to "One" by MetalSucks.)

Kotaku tells me that EA wants some of this hot music game action. Might Activision, EA and Viacom/Harmonix turn up on music retailer market-share charts sometime soon? There's at least as much skepticism regarding the rock/rhythm genre's future as there is money being thrown at it. Is there actually a shark to be jumped here, or, as I'm inclined to think, will there be steady growth in the music game business overall even if certain high-profile efforts turn out to be epic fails?

And finally, a Wired headline writer rather labors the point with Why The Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero, but the article itself is a very sensible call for Warner Music, Bronfman and his lawyers to chill on the bitching about licensing fees and start cooperating with gamemakers. If it's really true that MTV/Harmonix is boycotting WMG and Warner/Chappell content from the Rock Band online store, the acts that "get it" ought to be kicking up dust. (GH: Bronfman edition pic from Digital Daily link.)

Whattup, G?

On CNET, Is Google's Eric Schmidt the next David Geffen?, in which the mighty G-Force emerges as the next great powerbroker in the music business, what with the current re-negotiations over 3/4 of the Majors' licensing deals with YouTube underway (WMG has thrown its rattle well clear of the pram), and its mobile OS Android underpinning Amazon.com's MP3 sales system. The real question for me is why no-one appears to have seen this coming. I followed a link from this to Amazon, Apple and the price of music from January, which has lots of juicy tidbits on recent shenanigans in the paid online music space. Are the major labels and Amazon in cahoots to stymie Apple? Does MySpace Music have any legs? Is anyone using DRM any more at all? Great stuff.