It appears the Gears of War "Mad World" advertisement has done more than just augment sales of the game. The somber 2001 Gary Jules and Michael Andrews cover of Mad World, originally released by Tears for Fears in 1982, hit number one on the iTunes top sales charts yesterday, according to fan site Gearheads of War. As of this writing, the song is number 12 (direct link) on the iTunes charts. The only other prominent placement of the song currently is an episode of CSI that premiered in late September. Did a gaming commercial really have that much influence on download sales? The use of licensed songs in video games has a long background, with many unknown bands seeing spikes in record sales due to their placement in games such as Madden NFL. How might this coerce music industry big wigs to court game developers into using their songs?
Recorded for the mind-screwing film Donnie Darko, the cover of Mad World was the 2003 UK Christmas number one single. In a sad twist of irony, the Tears for Fears song never hit number one. But no worries, they did pretty well for themselves.
[Via Gaming Bits]
