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EA starts selling soundtracks

Published on 3rd March 2007 by Brett Thomas

"Can you hear me now?" - EA is starting to sell its unreleased soundtrack songs.

Being a game publishing company will make you wear many hats...but who'd have thought one of them would be music sales? Apparently, Electronic Arts realised just that. Yep, one of the world's biggest game makers has now let loose its latest release - EA Trax.

The service sells only songs found on the (rather vast) catalog of video game music featured in EA games. The system features two tiers - a partnership with Apple's iTunes for previously released songs, and its own online store for songs previously unreleased outside of the video games. These songs are all owned by EA Recordings, a daughter company of Electronic Arts.

In the earlier years, it was very popular to license an already released song from a band in order to fit the game. One of my personal favourites was Soul Coughing's "Super bon bon" which I found on the original Gran Turismo, but everyone has his or her individual favourite. But lately, that game has changed to a lot of songs that can't be found elsewhere, like Snoop Dogg's cover of "Riders on the Storm" (originally by The Doors) featured in NFS:U.

No matter which store you buy from, DRM is included on the tracks. However, at this time I don't believe the same Apple FairPlay DRM is included on the original tracks, which are managed by a system from Nettwerk. For everyone who loves to annoy his friends in the pub or the car, EA has said that it will also offer many of them as ringtones.

So there you have it - from game maker to audio mogul. Do you have a thought on EA's newest face? Let's hear it in our forums.

16 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

perplekks45 3rd March 2007, 11:20

Not a surprising turn at all. But again... annoying DRM. :(

EA's soundtracks have been very well mixed lately. Not just that rock stuff from Britain that seems to be the ueber-music right now. :) I like their soundtracks... mostly. And I think it's a good idea to sell them seperated and not like "Fifa OST", "NFS OST" ... as I never ever liked a whole soundtrack.

specofdust 3rd March 2007, 11:27

Don't see why you'd bother really. If you own the game you own the OST, and theres not really any other reason you're likely to want to buy a games OST other than having heard it.

perplekks45 3rd March 2007, 12:26

What if a friend has the game and you played it with him? ;)

specofdust 3rd March 2007, 12:33

Yeah, fair enough, it's not exactly a great idea to target a service at people who may have played a game at a mates house and liked the soundtrack enough to get a few tracks though is it?

Ramble 3rd March 2007, 16:31

Good idea, but I just simply extract the sound from the game.

HL2 music has been on my playlist ever since.

DougEdey 3rd March 2007, 16:32

Waste of Internet Tubes.

randosome 3rd March 2007, 17:03

with drm ... who wants that ....

Solidus 3rd March 2007, 18:18

pointless, just rip the track out of the game - plenty of ways i presume and its free.

specofdust 3rd March 2007, 18:29

It's not free, you paid for the soundtrack when you bought the game. It just doesn't cost extra.

Omnituens 3rd March 2007, 19:02

only EA games music i liked was BF1942/2

speedfreek 3rd March 2007, 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by randosome
with drm ... who wants that ....

Removing from the game sounds a lot more worthwhile than limited playibility while paying for it.

Hugo 4th March 2007, 15:59

I have the option to download the BF2142 soundtrack if I want because I bought the game through EA Link, if that's the case for all games then the service becomes slightly less pointless

BioSniper 4th March 2007, 20:12

but.. but.. most of them contain some form of rather disgusting attempt at music called R&B. Why anyone would buy it out of choice is beyond me.

fastbullit 4th March 2007, 20:36

And in turn R&B is a disgusting attempt at music.

toyomatt84 5th March 2007, 10:38

If anyone has had the displeasure of listening to the FIFA 2007 soundtrack, they'll understand where I'm coming from. Even if the Soundtracks from EA were DRM-free, I still wouldn't buy them. I've never heard a collaboration of terrible artists, quite this bad. It is, by far, the absolute WORST game soundtrack I've EVER heard. With exception to 1, maybe 2 songs, the entire list is nothing but Z class artists playing un-classifiable garbage. I seriously have had no big issues with game soundtracks, until this game. I am so appalled, it's frightening. If this is what's to be expected of EA TRAX, then I'll be glad to say that I'll just turn off game music from the upcoming EA titles to support it. There's a reason why some artists aren't popular. And, it's not because they're "undiscovered". It's because they suck, just that bad.

perplekks45 5th March 2007, 11:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by toyomatt84
If anyone has had the displeasure of listening to the FIFA 2007 soundtrack, they'll understand where I'm coming from. Even if the Soundtracks from EA were DRM-free, I still wouldn't buy them. I've never heard a collaboration of terrible artists, quite this bad. It is, by far, the absolute WORST game soundtrack I've EVER heard. With exception to 1, maybe 2 songs, the entire list is nothing but Z class artists playing un-classifiable garbage. I seriously have had no big issues with game soundtracks, until this game. I am so appalled, it's frightening. If this is what's to be expected of EA TRAX, then I'll be glad to say that I'll just turn off game music from the upcoming EA titles to support it. There's a reason why some artists aren't popular. And, it's not because they're "undiscovered". It's because they suck, just that bad.

Hehe. Have to agree. It's the worst Fifa OST ever. I still remember the good old days of Fifa 98 and 99 with their awesome music (Fatboy Slim anyone? ;) ). I like the idea behind EA Trax but sometimes it seems they're going for 'undiscovered' no matter what. Those bands suck? Who cares? They're U-N-D-I-S-C-O-V-E-R-E-D! :|