Back when we were developing our last game at work, we tracked how many downloads our demo got on Live’s Marketplace. It became a bit obsessive; we’d ask for almost daily updates on where we were at.

The thing is, you can track how successful a game is doing in the retail space (or is going to do, by demo downloads) by tracking how well it’s doing in the Marketplace.

As I’ve been dowloading songs for Rock Band, on a weekly basis it seems now, I’ve noticed that Rock Band stays in the “new releases” DLC section every week, guaranteeing its awareness stays up higher. Not only is EA getting a crap-ton of free press from this strategy, I’m hoping they make a bunch of money on it, to boot.

In light of how used games is hamstringing this industry, Rock Band could be the mighty carrot that gets people to start paying very real attention to Direct Downloads. I have so far downloaded roughly $20 worth of songs (and I’m not even grabbing every song). If this pace keeps up, I will have downloaded an equivalent amount of merchandise to buying an expansion game within the next month. EA could feasibly wind up netting two, three, even four times their normal single title revenue with DLC, and completely bypass the brick and mortar outlets for everything past the initial sell-in, guaranteeing a revenue stream which cannot be sold used.

Granted, it’s an easy business model when you’re selling songs for a music game, but could any other title/genre keep up this kind of pace?

I guarantee you EA is exploring this option.