Fox, Indiespace Find Music For 'the Lounge'
Saturday, December 16 2000
Published on AllBusiness.com
This issue's column was prepared by Steve Traiman.
FOX INTERACTIVE, publisher of the highly anticipated PC action game "No One Lives Forever" (which hit stores Nov. 10), teamed up with Indiespace.com for a search to find music for the special-edition bonus CD, "In The Lounge," that is included with the game.
The team picked two unsigned acts from Southern California out of hundreds of entries from around the world. The songs "Void" by Red Delicious and "El Dorado" by Archie Thompson were chosen to be featured on the '60s-inspired "Lounge."
The tracks are available on the PC game's second disc. It also contains eight original tracks, including the game's theme song, "The Operative," all created by Los Angeles-based studio musicians and personally selected by Chris Miller, the game's producer.
Gamers who purchase "No One Lives Forever" at retail chain Best Buy for $44.98 (suggested retail price) also get an exclusive, bonus music CD featuring remixes of six "Lounge" tracks. They also receive a free shareware version of Microsoft's SideWinder Game Voice, which allows multi-player chat and voice commands. Its estimated street price is $54.95. Gamers receive a $10 mail-in rebate offer on the SideWinder system, which includes a headset and a control pad.
"No One Lives Forever" is a first-person action/adventure PC game set in the '60s, developed by Seattle-based Monolith Productions. Players assume the role of agent Cate Archer, a beautiful but deadly operative working for UNITY, a super-secret organization fighting to free the world from the clutches of H.A.R.M. From tense subterfuge to in-your-face combat, the game ups the ante for spy action with killer weapons, vivid international locales, and deadly archvillains.
"It's more than just a great game," says Karly Young, director of worldwide brand marketing for Fox Interactive. "The '60s theme allowed us to offer a unique musical experience that gamers and music fans will both enjoy. The music search was a great way to bring new talent into the gaming world as well as offer a new medium to the artists to get their music heard."
"Bundling music with interactive games could be a whole new form of music promotion for independents," says Jeannie Novak, founder and CEO of Indiespace.com, a leading Internet artist development, promotion, and distribution company that she established in 1994.
"Based on Web activity to date, we're thrilled about the future possibilities [for such projects]," Novak says. "Each artist's track is being downloaded 7,000-20,000 times a day from the Indiespace Web site. This has demonstrated that independent music is viable [and] appealing to a large audience. The tracks selected for the CD will get even more exposure as more games are sold and the music is shared by players."
MEASURING STREAMING AUDIENCE: Fairfax, Va.-based Multicast Technologies (MCT) released its MCT Player Nov. 29, which it says is the Internet's first multicast audio player. According to Jim Junkala, co-founder and president/COO, it is the first to deliver CD-quality sound and to track multicast streaming traffic.
Until now, there was no way to measure the audience of multicast [audio] streams, Junkala says. The
FOX INTERACTIVE, publisher of the highly anticipated PC action game "No One Lives Forever" (which hit stores Nov. 10), teamed up with Indiespace.com for a search to find music for the special-edition bonus CD, "In The Lounge," that is included with the game.
The team picked two unsigned acts from Southern California out of hundreds of entries from around the world. The songs "Void" by Red Delicious and "El Dorado" by Archie Thompson were chosen to be featured on the '60s-inspired "Lounge."
The tracks are available on the PC game's second disc. It also contains eight original tracks, including the game's theme song, "The Operative," all created by Los Angeles-based studio musicians and personally selected by Chris Miller, the game's producer.
Gamers who purchase "No One Lives Forever" at retail chain Best Buy for $44.98 (suggested retail price) also get an exclusive, bonus music CD featuring remixes of six "Lounge" tracks. They also receive a free shareware version of Microsoft's SideWinder Game Voice, which allows multi-player chat and voice commands. Its estimated street price is $54.95. Gamers receive a $10 mail-in rebate offer on the SideWinder system, which includes a headset and a control pad.
"No One Lives Forever" is a first-person action/adventure PC game set in the '60s, developed by Seattle-based Monolith Productions. Players assume the role of agent Cate Archer, a beautiful but deadly operative working for UNITY, a super-secret organization fighting to free the world from the clutches of H.A.R.M. From tense subterfuge to in-your-face combat, the game ups the ante for spy action with killer weapons, vivid international locales, and deadly archvillains.
"It's more than just a great game," says Karly Young, director of worldwide brand marketing for Fox Interactive. "The '60s theme allowed us to offer a unique musical experience that gamers and music fans will both enjoy. The music search was a great way to bring new talent into the gaming world as well as offer a new medium to the artists to get their music heard."
"Bundling music with interactive games could be a whole new form of music promotion for independents," says Jeannie Novak, founder and CEO of Indiespace.com, a leading Internet artist development, promotion, and distribution company that she established in 1994.
"Based on Web activity to date, we're thrilled about the future possibilities [for such projects]," Novak says. "Each artist's track is being downloaded 7,000-20,000 times a day from the Indiespace Web site. This has demonstrated that independent music is viable [and] appealing to a large audience. The tracks selected for the CD will get even more exposure as more games are sold and the music is shared by players."
MEASURING STREAMING AUDIENCE: Fairfax, Va.-based Multicast Technologies (MCT) released its MCT Player Nov. 29, which it says is the Internet's first multicast audio player. According to Jim Junkala, co-founder and president/COO, it is the first to deliver CD-quality sound and to track multicast streaming traffic.
Until now, there was no way to measure the audience of multicast [audio] streams, Junkala says. The