Downloading is killing what now?

[andrewducker]

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Comments

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Because we're all downloading music, are we then spending more of our disposable income elsewhere?

The only increase the last few years appears to be in games - presumably down to the rise of things like the Wii possibly coupled with a thought process of, "I could buy a couple of albums or buy a game. I'll download the albums," which would usually result in more money being spent overall if 2 albums = £20 and a game = £35-40.

[andrewducker]

There'll be some of that, certainly. But games have gone ever-more mainstream over the last few years, and that'll be taking a bite out of our expendable cash.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

So downloading is not reducing entertainment spending, just diverting it to different areas. Presumably if music downloading stopped, the overall expenditure wouldn't change much, it would just shift back to a bigger music share and a smaller games share.

I'm amazed the RIAA haven't tried to get money out of the games companies yet cos they'll probably feel they're entitled to it :)

[andrewducker]

It's an interesting question of where the line would be drawn if there was no illegal downloading. Almost certainly not back where it was a few years ago.

And with services like Spotify/Last.fm music is less valiable, as you can have it for free a lot of the time.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

True, but I'm not sure the cause-effect of "More games as a consequence of cheap/free music" as opposed to "Less music as a consequence of more attractive games" is paticularly clear-cut.

[andrewducker]

More research needed!

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Would it? Bear in mind that there's plenty of illegal games downloading too...

[andrewducker]

Not so much for the 360/PS3/Wii is there?

And that's a massive chunk of the market.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Plenty, yes, but nowhere near as much I'd guess. Not sure where you'd find figures though - and even then the figures by data volume would be completely different to those by unit volume.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed the RIAA haven't tried to get money out of the games companies yet cos they'll probably feel they're entitled to it :)

RIAA hasn't, but some music studios have tried to renegotiate the royalty schemes... most especially on the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series.

-- Steve still does see file-sharing as a problem for media vendors, but doesn't think it can be banned out of the picture anymore than prohibition eliminated bathtub gin.