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Universal Music Group (UMG) announced the launch of Beat Galaxy, a new “music hub” on Roblox, the popular gaming platform that boasted more than 66 million daily active users as of March 2023.
Beat Galaxy includes a rhythm game component — the subgenre of games devoted to interacting with music — set to tracks from UMG artists as well as a future venue for virtual concerts, according to a press release.
“Beat Galaxy creates a next-generation music discovery experience on Roblox that not only provides an opportunity for a fun social gameplay, but creates true utility for music discovery beyond the algorithm in a community-driven way,” Yonatan Raz-Fridman, founder/CEO of Supersocial, said in a statement. (Supersocial makes games for Roblox.)
In recent years, the music industry has been increasingly interested in tapping into the gaming audience, which is massive, youthful and scattered around the globe. In 2021, the analytics company Midia Research called gamers “the new frontier of music’s fan-centric growth.”
That’s in part because there are plenty of statistics suggesting that gamers are actively interested in music. In 2022, the IFPI reported that 44% of gamers watched a virtual music concert on a gaming platform in the last three months. “42% of Gen Z gamers listen to other music while gaming,” according to a Deloitte study, “and 34% hear music in a game and then look it up online to stream or buy.”
In the case of Roblox, which grew rapidly during the pandemic, music industry interest has resulted in a steady stream of partnership announcements. A smattering from the last 19 months: Spotify teamed up with Roblox on a virtual music island, Elton John created his own virtual experience, Warner Music Group launched Rhythm City (a “music-themed social roleplay experience”) and the K-Pop group TWICE dove into the (virtual) fray. On Dec. 8, Cher announced a four-week Roblox event to promote her new Christmas album.
Alvaro G. Velilla, senior vp of new business at UMG, described Beat Galaxy as “a living, breathing music experience.”
“Alongside Supersocial,” he added, “we believe that we’ve created the go-to music getaway on Roblox.”
The first UMG artist to partner with Beat Galaxy is YUNGBLUD.
Austin-based booking and live music management software company Prism.FM has secured $5 million in Series B funding, the company announced.
Andrew Lindner, founding partner of Frontier Growth, led the effort, personally investing $1.55 million through a syndicate investment pool with Connor Ryan and other members of Frontier Growth’s ecosystem. Existing investors also participated in the round including Stephen Cook, Jay Jensen, Kip Mclanahan, Advantage Capital, Rich Arnesen and more.
The new capital will be invested in product, engineering, and go-to-market strategy for the industry leading platform that brings venues, agencies, and promoters together in one system. Prism’s CEO and founder Matt Ford says that Prism has already been used to plan hundreds of thousands of shows at over 10,000 venues worldwide.
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“We have seen unprecedented growth after supporting the live music industry during the pandemic,” says Ford, chief executive officer at Prism. “We saw the music industry nearly collapse and were fortunate to be in a position to help. We were one of the first funders of NIVA, continued investing in our product, and worked out payment arrangements with customers who were struggling. We will continue to stand with the industry and grow our product to help live music thrive.”
In addition to unprecedented growth in the talent buying ecosystem, Prism has also found significant traction in new market segments like touring promoters, performing arts centers, and Broadway presenters.
Lindner also recently made a $30 million investment in live music software platform at Venu, through Frontier Growth.
“Matt and I have a shared passion for the music industry,” says Lindner. “It’s an industry that is rapidly evolving and adopting technology at an accelerating pace. The Prism team has shown a deep commitment to supporting live music and have a real connection with their end users. Their platform gives promoters and independent venue operators a better way to manage the critical function of talent acquisition.”
Ford has launched multiple software companies servicing the live music industry, such as spotlight.fm and Solstice. He has also started and ran a concert promoter business, organizing an annual festival and booking thousands of shows annually at various venues in Austin, Texas.
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Source: FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty / E3
The zombie that was E3 finally got the blow to the head to keep it from returning. The Electronic Entertainment Expo announced via X, formerly Twitter, that it has run out of extra lives for the convention.
The great Gene Park at the Washington Post broke the story before E3 confirmed the sad news that the beloved convention born in 1995 will not return.
“After more than two decades of hosting an event that has served as a central showcase for the U.S. and global video game industry, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has decided to bring E3 to a close,” the Electron Entertainment Expo said in a statement. “ESA remains focused on advocating for ESA member companies and the industry workforce who fuel positive cultural and economic impact every day.”
In a post on X, E3 wrote, “After more than two decades of E3, each one bigger than the last, the time has come to say goodbye. Thanks for the memories.”
The once popular gaming convention has been on life support since COVID came through and shut down the in-person video game convention in 2020. The ESA tried to hand on for dear life with a virtual convention in June 2021 that everyone agreed was a mess.
The ESA did make a valiant attempt to bring the in-person convention back but failed in 2022 and 2023 due to the conference failing to attract exhibitors.
Before the then-raging pandemic officially killed E3, the convention was dying slowly. Game Awards founder Geoff Keighley, who claims he was at every E3 since its exception, pretty much assisted in taking down E3 by founding Summer Game Fest in 2020.
The last time there was an in-person E3 event, only 66,100 people came out.
Gamers Are Sharing E3 Memories
With the announcement, gamers and people in the gaming industry have shared their fondest memories while saying goodbye to the convention.
“I understand why this happened, but it’s heartbreaking all the same. E3 was like Christmas for gamers and having all the conferences take place in one week was such a treat. So many good memories spanning so many years. Thanks for everything, E3,” Sony Santa Monica writer Alana Pearce said on X.
“E3 has had a huge significance in my life,” Spawn On Me founder Kahlief Adams wrote in a post on X.
What a sad day for the gaming world. Attending E3 was a dream for me, and I was close to achieving it, only to learn this year’s convention was canceled.
So long E3.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty
A federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected by anticompetitive barriers that have damaged smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire.
The unanimous verdict reached Monday came after just three hours of deliberation following a four-week trial revolving around a lucrative payment system within Google’s Play Store. The store is the main place where hundreds of millions of people around the world download and install apps that work on smartphones powered by Google’s Android software.
Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, filed a lawsuit against Google three years ago, alleging that the internet search giant has been abusing its power to shield its Play Store from competition in order to protect a gold mine that makes billions of dollars annually. Just as Apple does for its iPhone app store, Google collects a commission ranging from 15% to 30% on digital transactions completed within apps.
Apple prevailed in a similar case that Epic brought against the iPhone app store. But that 2021 trial was decided by a federal judge in a ruling that is under appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nine-person jury in the Play Store case apparently saw things through a different lens, even though Google technically allows Android apps to be downloaded from different stores — an option that Apple prohibits on the iPhone.
Just before the Play Store trial started, Google sought to avoid having a jury determine the outcome, only to have its request rejected by U.S. District Judge James Donato. Now it will be up to Donato to determine what steps Google will have to take to unwind its illegal behavior in the Play Store. The judge indicated he will hold hearings on the issue during the second week of January.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney broke into a wide grin after the verdict was read and slapped his lawyers on the back and also shook the hand of a Google attorney, whom he thanked for his professional attitude during the proceedings.
“Victory over Google!” Sweeney wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. In a company post, Epic hailed the verdict as “a win for all app developers and consumers around the world.”
Google plans to appeal the verdict, according to a statement from Wilson White, the company’s vice president of government affairs and public policy.
“Android and Google Play provide more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform,” White said.
Depending on how the judge enforces the jury’s verdict, Google could lose billions of dollars in annual profit generated from its Play Store commissions. The company’s main source of revenue — digital advertising tied mostly to its search engine, Gmail and other services — won’t be directly affected by the trial’s outcome.
The jury reached its decision after listening to two hours of closing arguments from the lawyers on the opposing sides of the case.
Epic lawyer Gary Bornstein depicted Google as a ruthless bully that deploys a “bribe and block” strategy to discourage competition against its Play Store for Android apps. Google lawyer Jonathan Kravis attacked Epic as a self-interested game maker trying to use the courts to save itself money while undermining an ecosystem that has spawned billions of Android smartphones to compete against Apple and its iPhone.
Much of the lawyers’ dueling arguments touched upon the testimony from a litany of witnesses who came to court during the trial.
The key witnesses included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who sometimes seemed like a professor explaining complex topics while standing behind a lectern because of a health issue, and Sweeney, who painted himself as a video game lover on a mission to take down a greedy tech titan.
In his closing argument for Epic, Bornstein railed against Google for exploiting its power over the Android software in a way that “has led to higher prices for developers and consumers, as well as less innovation and quality.”
Google has staunchly defended the commissions as a way to help recoup the more than $40 billion that it has poured into building into the Android software that it has been giving away since 2007 to manufacturers to compete against the iPhone.
“Android phones cannot compete against the iPhone without a great app store on them,” Kravis asserted in his closing argument. “The competition between the app stores is tied to the competition between the phones.”
But Bornstein ridiculed the notion of Google and Android competing against Apple and its incompatible iPhone software system. “Apple is not the ‘get out of jail for free’ card that Google wants it to be,” Bornstein told the jury.
Google also pointed to rival Android app stores such as the one that Samsung installs on its popular smartphones as evidence of a free market. Combined with the rival app stores pre-installed on devices made by other companies, more than 60% of Android phones offer alternative outlets for Android apps.
Epic, though, presented evidence asserting the notion that Google welcomes competition as a pretense, citing the hundreds of billions of dollars it has doled out to companies, such as game maker Activision Blizzard, to discourage them from opening rival app stores. Besides making these payments, Bornstein also urged the jury to consider the Google “scare screens” that pop up, warning consumers of potential security threats when they try to download Android apps from some of the alternatives to the Play Store.
“These are classic anticompetitive strategies used by dominant firms to protect their monopolies,” Bornstein said.
Google’s empire could be further undermined by another major antitrust trial in Washington that will be decided by a federal judge after hearing final arguments in May. That trial has cast a spotlight on Google’s cozy relationship with Apple in online search, the technology that turned Google into a household word a few years after two former Stanford University graduate students started the company in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.
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Source: Joe Buglewicz / Getty / Alex Jones
Elon Musk continues to make X, formerly Twitter, one of the world’s worst places, all in the name of “free speech.”
For his next dumb move, Elon Musk announced he is reinstating far-right Hulk Hogan, aka Alex Jones, account on the struggling social media platform.
How did Musk come to this decision?
It only took one of his infamous polls shared with his 165 million followers, with 70% of them in favor of giving the conspiracy theorist his account back.
Alex Jones and his Infowars program were banned by Twitter in 2018. He was also ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook victims after claiming the 2012 shooting that left 20 kids and six adults dead was a hoax.
Musk notes that policing Jones will be X users’ jobs through the community notes feature.
“The people have spoken and so it shall be,” Musk said in a post he shared Saturday evening. He continued, “It is a safe bet that Community Notes will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction.”
He then tried his best to make sense of his decision, adding, “I vehemently disagree with what [Jones] said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not? That is what it comes down to in the end. If the people vote him back on, this will be bad for X financially, but principles matter more than money.”
Elon Musk Is Singing A Different Tune
Musk reinstating Jones’ X account is a big about-face from his stance in 2022, where he rejected users’ calls to bring him back.
“My firstborn child died in my arms,” Musk said in a post. “I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics, or fame.”
Yeah, okay.
After trashing companies for no longer advertising on X, we don’t think reinstating Alex Jones will help lure them back.
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Photo: Joe Buglewicz / Getty
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Source: SEGA / Crazy Taxi
There were plenty of significant announcements and reveals from The Game Awards 2023, but Sega could lowkey stole the show with its Power Surge trailer.
The Game Awards 2023 are still the talk of the internet, whether it’s Geoff Keighley’s fumbling of the show, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 not taking home any awards, or Bethesda announcing Marvel’s Blade while not confirming if it was an Xbox exclusive or not.
But one of the biggest surprises came from Sega after the iconic game developer confirmed the return of its classic franchises, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, and Streets of Rage, each with brand new games coming.
Thank Sonic The Hedgehog For Inspiring Sega To Bring The Classics Back
Sega, who at one point seemed done with making games, revealed that the recent success of Sonic The Hedgehog’s latest titles was why it decided to drop new games from classic IPs.
“In recent years, Sonic the Hedgehog has forged new paths for SEGA, bringing the franchise to life and reaching new audiences in ways we had only dreamed of in the past. Building off that success, we are digging into our legacy and reimagining several franchises to bring these games to more audiences around the globe,” said Co-COO of SEGA Corporation and CEO of SEGA of America, Shuji Utsumi. “Today’s announcement is just the start of our initiative. First and foremost, our ambition will be to create great games with memorable characters and worlds. We hope fans of all ages will look towards our future with anticipation as we release these projects in the coming years.”
Sega notes each game is in different stages of production while not sharing the official titles of the games.
You can peep the announcement trailer below.
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Photo: SEGA / Crazy Taxi
Hidden behind a white sheet and sunglasses, an anonymous music-maker called Ghostwriter logged on to TikTok in April to post his first video. In it, he announced his debut single, “Heart on My Sleeve” — and signaled a seismic shift in the music business. Using an artificial intelligence voice filter that disguised Ghostwriter’s own timbre behind that of Drake and The Weeknd, “Heart on My Sleeve” was the first song to show just how far AI music had come already and what novel challenges and opportunities it would present to artists.
The song also proved that artists would struggle to control how their voice and likeness are used in the age of AI — even superstars like Drake and The Weeknd who have the resources to fight back. Universal Music Group (UMG) issued a strongly worded statement soon after the song’s posting, condemning “infringing content created with generative AI,” and the song was quickly taken down from most platforms. But fans continued to post it to TikTok and YouTube every time it was removed. As Ghostwriter later put it in his Billboard cover story: “The genie can’t be put back in the bottle.”
“Heart on My Sleeve” forced the industry to reckon with the limitations of existing “right of publicity” laws that protect artists from having their voices and likenesses commercially exploited without their authorization. The strength of this right varies from state to state, and at the time the song was released, there wasn’t a precedent for issuing takedown notices for these types of violations, like there is for copyright infringement claims.
Likely as a result of the song and other AI concerns, UMG general counsel/executive vp of business and legal affairs Jeffrey Harleston went to Capitol Hill to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in July, asking for a “federal right of publicity” to be created to help protect artists. Streaming services also voluntarily entered talks with the major labels to form a system so that labels can request takedowns for right of publicity concerns.
Still, some artists consider Ghostwriter to be a revolutionary. Artist-producer Grimes took to X (formerly Twitter) after the release of “Heart on My Sleeve” to write, “I think it’s cool to be fused w a machine, and I like the idea of open sourcing all art.” Shortly after, she launched GrimesAI, a voice model trained on her recordings that lets fans shape-shift their voice into hers at the click of a button. She also collaborated with TuneCore to allow fans to distribute their resulting songs to streaming services under the tag “GrimesAI” to distinguish it from her own catalog.
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YouTube recently built on this same idea with the experimental program Dream Track. It lets fans use voice models of Charlie Puth, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, Demi Lovato, Troye Sivan, Charli XCX, Alec Benjamin and Papoose with the approval of partners UMG and Warner Music Group (WMG).
Songwriters and publishers have also started using AI voice technology. This summer, Billboard reported that AI voice models were used to help writers pitch song ideas to artists. The AI-altered pitch records had been used as an internal reference for the writers to gauge if the track sounded appropriate for a particular singer while composing, and sometimes the records with the AI voice applied were also sent to the artist’s team in hopes that they would increase their chance of landing the song.
In a recent interview with Billboard, pop artist Lauv said he has seen that usage firsthand with one of his songwriter friends who was pitching a track to Nicki Minaj using AI. Lauv himself is also leaning into the new technology: In November, he partnered with AI voice startup Hooky — one of many startups in the space — to translate his new single, “Love U Like That,” into Korean. After getting Korean American songwriter Kevin Woo to translate the lyrics and sing a Korean version, Hooky applied Lauv’s AI voice model to map Lauv’s signature sound over Woo’s.
Ghostwriter’s manager previously said he also believes that artist estates and catalog owners could use AI voice models to market their music. WMG is now experimenting with the catalog of late French singer Édith Piaf. The company is creating AI models to resurrect her voice and likeness for a controversial new biopic called EDITH to “further enhance the authenticity and emotional impact of the story,” according to a press release.
“Heart on My Sleeve” represents just one of many burgeoning areas of AI that can transform the music business in the future. Concurrently, as startups like Kits.AI, mayk.it, Hooky, Voice-Swap, Supertone and Lingyin Engine hope to capture the AI voice model market, AI-generated beats and loops promise to upend production music libraries and the overall creation process. AI “functional music,” soundscapes designed to fit user needs for sleep, focus or relaxation, also promise an evolution in wellness and ambient music. And as AI stem separation unlocks possibilities for remixing, synch licensing and restoring old audio files (the new Beatles song, “Now and Then,” used the technology to restore John Lennon vocal recordings), there are surely even more use cases for AI that are yet to be discovered.
While legal and logistical questions remain with the technology, Ghostwriter’s team is pressing on. He has teased a second single (“Whiplash” featuring the AI voices of Travis Scott and 21 Savage) while expressing his desire to collaborate with other artists. As such, Ghostwriter’s manager believes it is of the utmost importance for the music business to band together to “define an equitable arrangement for all stakeholders” when using AI. As he previously told Billboard, “We had an opportunity [with “Heart on My Sleeve”] to show people the value in AI and music … I like to say that everything starts somewhere.”
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.
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Source: adidas / Roblox
Fashion continues to make its mark in the gaming space thanks to great collaborations, and that continues with adidas teaming up with Roblox.
Roblox is no stranger when upgrading the drip in the game. Since the game’s 2006 inception, big names like LeBron James, Gucci, and Vans have partnered with the popular game. Now it’s adidas’ turn to throw its name in the mix.
The new Roblox collaboration saw adidas launch a series of pop-up shops featuring bespoke outfits and other officially licensed clothing, allowing players to their avatars in adidas signature pieces like the classic tracksuit and other accessories via the Roblox Marketplace.
They will also be featured throughout different Roblox experiences coming soon.
adidas partnership with Roblox will also see the brand work with Roblox’s top creator, Rush Bogin (Rush X), to bring some limited-edition user content to the game.
It will also feature items like adidias Oversized Trefoil Cross-Bodu Bag, Trefoil Crown with Halo, Black Hair with Beanie Headphones, and more.
Players can get their hands on pieces from the Adidas x Rush X collection through a series of drops in the game through December.
Per the sportswear company, the collection is on a first-come-first-serve basis, with the first 10,000 collection packs being available for free. After that, the prices will range from 85 to 500 Robux.
To learn more about the collaboration, head here.
You can see more photos in the gallery.
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Photo: adidas / Roblox
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When Travis Scott performed a virtual concert inside the battle royale game Fortnite in April 2020, it drew 12.3 million concurrent players at its peak — the largest in-game gathering in Fortnite history. But despite this pull, “music has always been a little bit of a one-off” for us, says Nate Nanzer, vp of partnerships for Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite.
“We’ve done a concert here, and then a year-and-a-half later there’s another one. We haven’t had a persistent space to celebrate music before.”
This changed Saturday (Dec. 8), as the company rolled out Fortnite Festival, a music-focused game made in collaboration with Harmonix, the developer behind titles like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Players can create a band with friends — or forge ahead solo — and perform hits on a variety of virtual instruments.
“For almost 30 years now, we have been trying to invent new ways for people to experience music through gameplay,” says Alex Rigopolous, co-founder and studio lead of Harmonix. “We never had an opportunity to do that on anything like the insane scale that Fortnite offers.”
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Epic Games previously dabbled in music by purchasing the platform Bandcamp in 2022, but the partnership proved short-lived. In September, Epic announced that it was laying off 16% of its staff and that the licensing company Songtradr was acquiring Bandcamp in September. (Layoffs hit Bandcamp as well.)
“While Fortnite is starting to grow again, the growth is driven primarily by creator content with significant revenue sharing, and this is a lower margin business than we had when Fornite Battle Royale took off,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney wrote in an email to staff.
Fortnite is known for unbridled mayhem: Up to 100 players fight to death on an island, with the goal of being the last one standing. Rigopolous believes the game’s new music component may attract new users who steered clear in the past.
“Not everyone on Earth is interested in a battle royale game,” he says. In contrast, “basically everyone on Earth loves music.”
Fortnite Festival players will initially be able to drum, strum, or sing along with more than 30 songs, including the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and Psy’s “Gangnam Style.” Players form a team, pick their track of choice, and choose an instrument — in addition to the usual suspects like guitar and percussion, they can select vocals, bass, keytar, and more. Once they’re transported to the stage to perform, game play may remind some users of Guitar Hero, with brightly lit notes zipping towards the user indicating what button they’re supposed to press on their keyboard or console.
Epic Games’ goal is eventually to have “hundreds” of songs available to play in Fortnite Festival, according to Nanzer.
“There will be a rotation of songs that anyone can play for free,” he explains. “If there’s a song you really like and want to be able to play whenever you want, you can go buy that song” to retain access to it. Nanzer says “music rights holders will share in the revenue from sales of music in the game.”
We’ve taped the launch setlist to your amp, so you can prepare for the Festival 😎These sweet Jam Tracks will be on rotation starting in just three more days, so study up! pic.twitter.com/gYJc8jzfLN— Fortnite Festival (@FNFestival) December 6, 2023
These tracks — “Blinding Lights,” “Mr. Brightside,” Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” — are already massive, billion-stream hits. “Most of the music in the game is going to be huge hit music, household names,” Rigopolous acknowledges. But the hope, in time, is to introduce music from “lesser known artists who are cool and people should hear.”
“We have lots of pitches already from our label partners,” Nanzer adds. “We really want this to become a real opportunity for [the music industry] to reach this audience in a way that they’ve never been able to reach them before.”