Soundgarden's Game Gamble

To most established musical acts, licensing songs to a game is strictly an ancillary revenue stream. That might change now that Soundgarden has sold over a million copies of their new "Telephantasm" greatest hits album that was bundled with the new "Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock" game.

This is the first time that a new album was released with a game before the physical CD release, and it went platinum (1,000,000 units sold) thanks to a new type of certification from the RIAA that recognizes game sales as part of the overall sales picture.

After a one week exclusive with Guitar Hero, the CD and downloadable album was released on October 5th. It will be interesting to assess the sales of the standalone album to see how the game impacts the stales.

While the music game fad has worn off, there are still enough players that are interested in both Guitar Hero and Soundgarden to register some big sales.

While this certainly isn't a path that a new artist can take, it does indicate that the album sales landscape has changed significantly, and every avenue must be explored even for established artists.

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