California-based video game maker Electronic Arts (EA) has announced a joint venture with music publisher Cherry Lane Music Publishing to establish Next Level Music. Next Level Music will sign both new and established artists, create original music and exploit Electronic Arts’ library of theme music.

With $3 billion (all figures U.S.) in revenues, Electronic Arts is the biggest video game company in the world. Not only is it bigger than all other video game publishing companies combined, it is even bigger than other entertainment companies such as Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation.

Cherry Lane Music Publishing is a large, U.S.-based independent music publisher. It has about 100,000 copyrights. It will administer the music created for Electronic Arts games and promote the music for use in commercials, TV shows, movies, trailers and ring tones.

Electronic Arts had already been approached about licensing music that originally appeared in its games: Universal Pictures wanted to use orchestral music that was composed for the Medal of Honor series for a trailer promoting the movie Seabiscuit, and MTV enquired about licensing music by rap artist Just Blaze that was composed for the NBA Live video game.

EA Trax was set up as a licensing division in 2002 to market Electronic Arts core audience, males between the ages of 18 and 34, to record companies. Video games are most popular among men of this age and sales increased 26 percent a year over the last five years among this demographic.

This group is more likely to be exposed to new music via video games and the Internet rather than via traditional sources such as radio or music video channels. Music in video games is regarded as a special game feature, and Electronic Arts games now show on-screen graphics that identify the name of the artist and the artist’s record label whenever a song begins to play within a game.

When EX Trax chose two songs by remixer Zach Sciacca (also known as DJ Z-Trip) for inclusion in the 21-song soundtrack of the popular series Madden NFL 2005, a grateful Mr. Sciacca acknowledged that Electronic Arts provided him with a huge audience he could not otherwise have reached.

More recently, rap artist Snoop Dogg has re-recorded the 1971 song “Riders on the Storm” with the surviving members of The Doors as the theme for the Need For Speed Underground 2 video game.

The surviving members of The Doors were themselves seeking ways to promote their catalogue of songs to a new generation. Record labels were once reluctant to license songs for video games. However, when Electronic Arts was looking for songs to be included in the Madden NFL 2005 soundtrack, record labels sent 2,500 songs. The cost to place a song in a video game is between $5,000 and $15,000.

With regard to game soundtracks, Electronic Arts is now including the soundtrack inside a game’s box. This move proved successful for the NBA Live 2003 soundtrack which was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies.

(Abstracted from Hey, Cool Music. And There’s a Video Game, Too By Noah Robischon, The New York Times, November 15, 2004)