MTV Networks Sees Video Games As Tie-In With TV

It's a business opportunity that some of the bigger Internet social networks, such as MySpace, have missed. So MTV Networks is filling the void. The net is entering the still-hot and growing business for young adults--video games.

MTV will invest more than $500 million in video games over the next two years, which it hopes to incorporate into its traditional TV programming. Previously, it made smaller video game investments, such as buying Atom Entertainment.

Analysts warn that pressing synergistic efforts into MTV's programming plans may backfire on the network's young and always fickle customer base. These viewers have been already drifting to social-networking and user-generated video Internet destinations.

The $30 billion video-game business has always been tempting to many big-time media companies--but few are successful. Many mid- to-small-sized entertainment, video game-focused companies are better at determining what young consumers want, say business analysts.

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MTV says about 47% of its audience plays games--so the fit with video games makes sense. This compares with about 27% of average Web users.

To MTV's credit, the network is concentrating, in part, on the casual games category--simple, mostly ad-supported games that you can play online with little effort or new personal technology devices. The downside, say analysts, is that there isn't much money in that niche yet. The real moneymakers are those expensive console games.

As a result, MTV will release "Rock Band" this fall. It will allow four players to play different instruments, and will be on Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 console game systems.

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