Gone are the days when a sync placement purely involved just TV, film and advertising. An increasingly substantial part of the pie is now represented by gaming.
So it’s great news when we say The Orchard distributes 3 of the tracks on this year’s FIFA 13 soundtrack, including efforts by Duologue, Bloc Party and Stepdad. It will be one of the top selling games of 2012 and while I’m sure the fees generated helpful income, the real win comes from the exposure — it’s absolute gold.
Interestingly, the music supervisors appear to go for predominantly new bands, providing much needed exposure and giving them access to a mainstream audience. Over 1 million people in the UK alone have bought the FIFA 13 game — and it’s only been out a week. Many more of the world’s football (soccer for the Americans!) fans will purchase and play the game, but for lengthy periods of time, the game does not involve ‘playing’ football. It entails scrolling through menus, picking the teams, making transfers and choosing tactics — and all the while, music is playing from a select bunch of 50 tracks from around the globe.
The importance of this cannot be understated. Millions of people will hear these tracks repeatedly. It’s like being on the A-list of a top radio station for a year (until the next edition of the game hits the shelves) with the songs slowly being subconsciously digested. A FIFA-playing friend of mine became a huge fan of Yeasayer, even though he’s normally more inclined to listen to Dire Straits than hipster rock.
If your target audience is male and aged 16-30 — you’ve scored if you have a song placed in FIFA.
