Along with the continued expansion and evolution in mobile circles, the growth of mobile content has progressed in leaps and bounds over the years. Ringtones and wallpapers have evolved to the point where interested, tech-savvy users are making their own and sharing them with friends, transcending the traditional market flow because of the greater demand. The music industry has taken a hand in making the mobile content industry what it is now, with artists and record labels providing music for mobile content providers to share and sell as ringtones and track downloads. The reciprocal is also true: ringtones and single-track downloads have lent artists greater exposure and potential popularity across user bases.
These are developments that have been exacerbated by the onset of popular mobile applications for trimming tracks to ringtone length, searching for and downloading ringtones, and even bringing video game ports to mobile smartphones. One popular mobile game app is Rock Band, an iPhone favorite that sees players tap along to their favorite songs in an effort to approximate the vocals, drumbeats, guitar riffs and similar elements in putting the song together. The game has inspired nostalgia, awareness of various eras and styles of music, and a lot of fun and renewed or newly-inspired musical interest in general, and as such has sold well as a mobile app.
Among the first to tap the mobile music gaming craze with Tapulous-powered iPhone apps for Soulja Boy and Lady Gaga, Universal Music Group is targeting a similar market with a new mobile game. The recording industry’s largest business group and record label family is putting together an all-new $4.99 iPhone/iPod Touch app called Six-String. Developed by renowned guitar simulator-app maker Frontier, the app is targeted to be totally separate from the previous Tapulous UMG apps – a UMG spokesman clarified that Six-String’s release is “about [UMG] leveraging our core assets” in order to create a strong, expanding musical experience for their consumers.
One way they’re doing this is by highlighting new releases like the March 23-launching “Raised on Rock” from The Scorpions. The Scorpions’ new track isn’t alone on the lineup, though – there are five other songs in the game, which are Show Me The Way [Peter Frampton], Thnks Fr Th Mmrs [Fall Out Boy], Runnin’ Down A Dream [Tom Petty], According To You [Orianthi] and You Give Love A Bad Name [Bon Jovi]. Additional songs can also be purchased from within the app – players choose from a list of 20 titles, and can even buy the song, ringtone and video from iTunes.
The game is more guitar-playing-focused than Rock Band’s beat-matching style – players actually pluck, strum and change chords onscreen in Practice or Studio modes, where they either try the song out to test their skill or enter the studio and compete to earn points and climb the ranking ladder. This is also an ingenious way to promote songs old and new, and an excellent way to tap into the music aspect of the mobile music market by using the new mobile app technology to reach more audiences than ever before.
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