Navigating the Metaverse: The Convergence of Music & Gaming

In Part II Roman stays positive and talks about opportunities rather than doom spiral about how hard it is for artists. A new way of approaching how to promote your career and music. These new opportunities have yet to be taken advantage of by the major labels. They are developing in an underground place, just like the Internet did originally, and punk rock.

Marc Brown: So you mentioned in part one of the interview, Rockstar Games. They have Grand Theft Auto. There is an interesting parallel with the music industry in the way they used to sell Microsoft Word. You mentioned SAS, (Software as a Service) where you pay every month for a subscription model. Back in the day, you would buy your new copy of Microsoft Word on a CD ROM and then you would have that version of Word. It might get a little update every six months for a couple of years and then you’d have to buy a new CD ROM. Music is very interactive and of course, games are too and you suggested that they can now be actively updated in a way that they couldn’t before is so interesting. 

Roman Rappak: Definitely. So Spotify is an example of a SAS company and, as long as I pay for my subscription, I have infinite access to music. As a consumer, I would never want to go back to a time when I had to go and find a shop and ask the guy to order the record I like. As much as it’s romantic, I have to say I would much rather have all the music in the world right there. What I don’t like is that this new model isn’t sustainable for the artist. Unfortunately, if artists nowadays can’t make ends meet we might lose all of these incredible pieces of work. We need to look for new answers because otherwise, the conversation spirals into people talking about how miserable the industry is now. It’s hard to find people talking about solutions.

Marc Brown: So okay, the first stage of music and gaming is sort of similar to what we’ve been seeing where it’s just big artists getting syncs or getting placements in games. So how do you see the next phase working? Not just with Ristband but in general. Where are these opportunities for smaller artists going to be?  

Roman Rappak: I’d love to talk about the opportunities, the positive because right now you mostly find bad news about how terrible it is, and I think that there is a mindset shift that we have to make. The beautiful thing about music is that every generation totally rejects and reinvents what came before. It’s part of the rite of passage of inventing the next genre or the next movement. So I don’t even think it needs help. I think this is going to be an organic thing that will just happen. The way I’d like to talk about the opportunities is to first look at the music industry in its traditional form. So if you’re an artist, you make money from licensing your music, from the masters,  record sales, streams, merch, shows etc. Most of those revenue streams have crashed in the last 20 years. Now let’s look at the gaming industry, and not think of it as only PlayStation or things like that. When you order an Uber, there’s an element of gaming in that. Same with social media. I think it’s easy to assume that when someone says gaming, it’s a time waster. My view is that gaming offers a huge amount of opportunities. Historically the people who were in charge of games when it was new and complicated were predominantly men, and predominantly people who were either computer scientists or nerds, because it was really hard to make and use video games. Today we have entered into something akin to the transition that happened between how music was made, let’s say in the 50s and 60s, and the absolute revolution that gave us punk, post-punk, hip hop and rave culture. A lot of that had to do with production capabilities, it transformed everything. I think that is what has happened in gaming. In the last 10 years, what has changed is that you do not need to a Nintendo to develop a game, there are all sorts of interesting and weird things happening in the independent gaming space. First of all, there is an independent gaming space.

Marc Brown: Is that what the Unreal Engine is? A framework for building games on?

Roman Rappak: Yeah, and the reason it’s revolutionary is that if you and I had decided in 1993 that we were going to make a game, we would need to build everything from scratch, the raw code – everything. It would take us years and years. Now there is Unreal Engine, effectively drag and drop. If you want gravity, there’s a button that says gravity and you drag it in. It might sound simplistic, but it has completely changed who can be involved in game creation. 

Marc Brown: So for someone who’s an artist that’s listening to this and who has made a song and put it on Spotify, where do they find these new opportunities on the financial front? How do you see a new revenue stream flowing to artists?

Roman Rappak: I can tell you from my own experience and looking at my own bank balance… I’m not making billions, but I can sustain the lives of the musicians and producers I work with much better by not using the old model and the old infrastructure. I’d say that if we have to rely on streams, there’s no chance of survival. If we have to rely on touring, lots of the small venues where you could build your audience are closing down, so that no longer really works as well as it used to either. I also spoke with someone who works at a major label and they were saying that they used to try and sign artists that were fantastic musicians or songwriters, and then try and teach them how to use social media. Now they’ve flipped it  – they just want to find someone who’s already viral on Tiktok and teach them how to use Ableton, they release a track and they have two million streams instantly. 

Marc Brown: Is that depressing? 

Roman Rappak: It is, but don’t fall into the trap of getting depressed about it. I feel like the right attitude is to say if we’re not invited to that party, then we crash the party. We can also do it all better than they can probably do it. It has been proven to be true! A lot of tech events I go to on AI, VR, that sort of thing, these people in the tech industry have no idea how to get a room jumping. I know people who play in bands that can get an entire room jumping 20 seconds after they start playing. They have something, insights, and knowledge, that the tech industry doesn’t, so how do we translate, and tap into that kind of energy and excitement? It really is an art, the magic of being able to get the entire room focused on the music. Karisma.

Marc Brown: OK, but specifically on the money front, how do you envision artists getting paid? 

Roman Rappak: I never for one minute think that this tech stuff will ever take the place of going to see a band or artist that you love. So the first thing is to think about it a bit like what we talked about with MTV. You see a band’s music video and then you get more into them, and “discover” them. So think of this as a new medium where you can reach billions of people. There are new tools that we are working building to encourage the sharing of music. We want everyone to be able to use these technologies. It isn’t about taking away from what an artist does best – which is recording and performing a great song – it’s about artists accessing an audience and revenues.

Marc Brown: Absolutely. So the final thing I want to talk about is how artists can get involved. You’re very comfortable in this world, but for others, it might not be so obvious how to get started. Plus lots of artists are already snowed under with things they need to do, socials and such. So what should they be thinking about? 

Roman Rappak: I can give one really straightforward and hopefully heartening preface to this, which is that if you’re a musician, whether you are in hip-hop, techno, or folk, one thing I can guarantee is that the golden era for whatever genre you are in has already passed. Take a breath and the exciting part is that no artist in history has had access to all of these amazing tools that exist today. So the first thing is to accept the fact that this is all brand new, the future is completely unwritten – we are writing it now. I don’t think anyone has the “right way” of doing it. Social media, for instance, is a good example of something that’s new but dictated. It’s a big new thing. You’ve got accounts that tell you what you should do, and I find that actually more depressing. I believe that we are at the cusp of a revolution in music and no one knows what’s going to happen. So the first thing I’d say is to start exploring it, start looking at the things that are happening around you. The second thing is to work out if it’s for you. Some people just want to go to a bar and play an acoustic guitar, and that’s amazing. Some people who play music are not looking to be rock stars, and I think a lot of people forget that. I have more respect for those musicians than the people who are playing the music Biz game because just playing music live is really the essence of what makes music great. If you have a curiosity about what’s happening next, if you have some songs that you want more people to hear, then be aware of the fact that there are these new tools that not even the major labels understand yet. If you are blocked or confused, you can even reach out to me on LinkedIn, I will be happy to give you some advice – we’re all learning it together! I don’t have the definitive answers, but I’m definitely on the ship that is trying to write the map.

Marc Brown: Where do you suggest people read more about it? If people want to get a vibe on the community around these tools, any suggestions?

Roman Rappak: Yeah, so if you are an artist who is thinking about how they can use new technology, and I will go back to the MTV analogy here: where there were loads of people making amazing songs but only a few of them understood this medium of MTV and the four-minute video. It didn’t reduce the importance of their music, but it did allow them to navigate this new and interesting world and promote their music and careers. Right now there are so many parts to what’s happening. There’s stuff that’s happening in AI, music generation and more. If we’re talking about AI, a lot of people get very cynical because they think it will replace artists but if you look at it as more of a tool it can be very useful. There’s a podcast called the Voices of VR that’s so interesting – it covers everything from VR to AI and how it impacts lots of things: music, architecture – whatever. You can go through their archive and find ones that relate to music, it’s fascinating. Think of it as an underground subculture that has yet to be discovered. 

Marc Brown: Yeah. That’s a great way to tie it up – it’s not one thing. It’s a basket of things that can have different relationships. But we’re not there yet. 

Roman Rappak: You’re absolutely right. There are really interesting videos of people trying to describe the internet in 1991, and you’d be so shocked at how close it is to what this is. You have one person saying “It’s a fad, “…it’ll never work”, or “I don’t even care”. You have someone else saying, “It’ll ruin the world”,  and then you also have people saying how useful it would be. What’s funny is that all of these people are right! 

Marc Brown: Absolutely! We have access to so much now. 

Roman Rappak: Definitely. To answer your question about where to start…, the place to start could be reaching out to us at Ristband on Facebook, LinkedIn – or whatever. Festivals are taking place around the world that are presenting and doing really interesting things and pushing the envelope. Don’t feel that you have to do one thing or the other. The next interesting step is going to come from you as an artist and everything you’re learning. The next big thing is going to come from somewhere that no one predicted. It will not come from a major label made up of a group of people who are highly paid consultants. It is going to come from some strange underground place, just like the Internet did, and punk rock.

Marc Brown: Okay, let’s end it with that analogy because we’re not going to get any better than that. Roman, I want to thank you – it was a fun chat.

Roman Rappak: Thanks for having me! Stay in touch.