Twenty-two percent of music buyers and 35 percent of people under the age of 35 reported playing a music-based video game, in the past three months, according to athe NPD Group.
Many of those gamers reported that because of their in-game experience they either discovered a new song or band or purchased the music, according to the report.
"Year-to-date through November, the music and dance genre was the best-selling genre in video games, representing 16 percent of total software sales for the year,” according to Anita Frazier, NPD’s video games analyst.
“Even though gaming competes with music for the consumer’s entertainment wallet share, music-related games are evolving into an important source for music discovery that can have positive revenue implications for the recording industry,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD.
The report's findings show that year-over-year consumer demand for music among Internet users in the U.S. fell 2 percent in the third quarter of 2008. This overall decline in music acquisition includes purchased CDs, purchased digital music downloads, files obtained on peer-to-peer file sharing Web sites, and borrowing music files to rip to a computer or burn to a CD.