Further Thoughts on What Omni-channel Means

DJ the Black Madonna in GTA Online

In what may be a first and only example of Tech meeting mainline music publication, I reference a Rolling Stone Article about How Grand Theft Auto is Changing the Way the World Experiences Music. Here’s the summary:

GTA V and its multiplayer GTA Online mode has already proven itself a thriving game and money maker for both developer Rockstar and publisher Take-Two — with sales approaching 100 million copies and bringing in more than $6 billion, now one of the most successful video games in history is also becoming something else, perhaps not too unexpectedly: A powerful tool for music discovery.

….

In the five years since launch, GTA V and GTA Online gamers have listened to more than an estimated 75 billion minutes of music from the game’s 18 radio stations, according to Rockstar’s own analysis provided to Rolling Stone. Taking place inside the game’s bars and now in player-run clubs, the music is produced by its four well-known DJs, including the Black Madonna. And dance music, in particular, plays an important part of Rockstar Games’ own culture.

What It Means

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We spend a lot of time talking to customer about “omnichannel” support and 99.9% of the time it means supporting:

• Web
• Mobile Web
• Mobile Apps
• Physical store to web and vice versa

and that’s about it.  We keep saying we need to think about omnichannel and we need to support it.  Marketers swear they are looking in all the right places to push their product and to allow their product to make money but in reality, we all think about the known.

Then out of the blue, a channel we don’t even think about streams “75 billion minutes of music” In reality, that probably doesn’t touch Spotify or any of the top 5 music streaming services.  But I’m willing to bet it hits the top 10.  Think about it. A top 10 channel is not a web site, mobile web site, or mobile app.  It’s a video game.  The one that caught that isn’t one of our industry news sources but Rolling Stone.  In some ways that signifies the maturation of our industry.

Of course, it also means digital is really just the new reality and we should stop putting artificial silos between digital and the “real” world.