Music games are narrowing their audience, according to InstantAction CEO Louis Castle.
He said that the current business model means publishers are having to spend more money on developing music titles to receive diminishing returns.
"They have to do more and more, and they have to pay more and more, and the audience is getting smaller, because they are choosing a narrower audience. It's a collapsing pyramid."
Castle also noted that browser application InstantJam, which allows users to play and download song MP3 files, will be attractive to both players and music companies.
"Our game starts off with a pretty big base of thousands of supported charts, so it's the opposite, and as new songs come out we're going to be adding to it, and motivate people to go buy songs who have never bought songs," he said.
"It gives to the music industry what they've been trying to do, which is, as music expands, expand the business, expand the opportunity for them to get them a lot more ...
InstantAction, the browser-based platform that enabled gamers to play titles like Secret of Monkey Island and more recently Instant Jam, a sort of Guitar Hero that enables people to use their entire music library for songs to play, is shutting down. The company, which sprung up from the GarageGames business back in 2007, was radically overhauled when former Electronic Arts executive Lou Castle took over as CEO.
InstantAction, an Oregon-based web gaming and digital distribution platform, will cease operations. Gamasutra confirmed the closure, which was announced on the the company's Torque game engine site.
Director of InstantAction's Torque game engine operations Eric Preisz posted the company's statement: "Today, InstantAction informed employees that it will be winding down operations. While we are shutting down the InstantAction.com website and Instant Jam game, Torquepowered.com will continue to operate while InstantAction explores opportunities with potential buyers for Torque. We thank all of our past and current customers for their support."
The company had made several smaller games, like Instant Jam and Monkey Island, available to play using its browser-based tech. The tech's eventual promise was to make large games playable almost instantly through a browser or full screen as the title was progressively downloaded to the user's PC.
"The embeddable version has been announced, and I would like you to play it. Go ahead. I've embedded it right under the "Read More" tag. So take a couple minutes, check it out, then tell us whether you agree with my "hey, this is neat!" preview."
-G4tv.com
