For artists looking to connect with deeply engaged fans of music, video games can act as a direct pipeline.
Take Grand Theft Auto, the massively successful franchise famous for its groundbreaking open worlds, over-the-top violence and killer music via in-game radio stations. The franchise’s fifth and most recent installment included radio stations curated by artists Frank Ocean and Flying Lotus, with the latter even writing music specifically for the game.
Of course, in the case of GTA, “most recent” means over a decade ago. With GTA VI finally set to release next spring, the latest trailer, which dropped in May, garnered over 123.8 million views on YouTube as of July 8.
And the song prominently featured throughout the trailer, “Hot Together” — a 1986 deep cut by R&B act The Pointer Sisters, off the group’s 12th studio album — saw a massive spike in listenership following the trailer’s debut.
A look at global On-Demand Audio (ODA) streams via Luminate CONNECT shows “Hot Together” averaged just 3,900 weekly streams prior to the GTA VI trailer. Streams shot up to 1.2M the week of the trailer’s release and peaked the following week at 2.9M.
In just eight weeks post-integration, the track amassed almost 9.6M streams globally. Not bad considering it racked up nearly 300K throughout all of 2024.
In general, gamers have collectively shown a love for music. Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. gamers are music “super fans,” meaning they spend 26% more money on entertainment than the average U.S. consumer and clock around 260 hours each month across gaming, music, video and other media, according to Luminate’s Entertainment 365 survey.
Add the fact that Grand Theft Auto in particular is known for its soundtracks and valued by fans for its music discovery, and you have a gaming franchise that’s especially primed to supercharge an artist’s streams.
As noted in Luminate’s 2025 Midyear Music Report, released earlier this month, nearly 200M global Interactive On-Demand Audio streams were tracked through the second quarter of this year. Interactive streams are ODA streams from interactive (gaming) platforms that allow users to choose their own music and engage with songs as part of the experience, clearly showing the growth in this space.
Whether it’s a current chart-topper or a forgotten classic, music in games is fast evolving into one of the most powerful ways to engage audiences across genres and generations.
