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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - While Electronic Arts Inc. makes most of its keep selling video games via physical retailers, the company is also proving it can buoy its efforts via music, the Web and wireless.

on Friday announced it's teaming up with Canadian music label Nettwerk Entertainment to launch EA Recordings, a unit that will bring its in-game theme music to digital music services such as iTunes from Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL:, Rhapsody from RealNetworks Inc.
The partnership with also bring downloadable ringtones to cell phones.

Further, after launching a little over two years ago, the company says its Club Pogo - an online subscription service for casual video games - now has more than a million paying subscribers, up from 500,000 a year ago.

Game music growing more popular

Steve Schnur, worldwide executive of music marketing with EA, says that the overall growth in the video game audience is breeding a new familiarity with its theme songs.

"There is new generation of people that their Star Wars and Jaws themes are now the songs from "Medal of Honor" or "Golden Eye," said Schnur.

While the initiative is not expected to make an immediate material impact on EA's financial results, Schnur says the effort is a response to increasing consumer demand for the digital tracks and ringtones - as well as a way for the company to stay ahead of the curve.

EA owns over 3,000 minutes of musical compositions from games dating back 20 years. Some of the themes available include tracks from "FIFA Soccer 2005" by Paul Oakenfold and "Nascar 06: Total Team Control" by Joe Satriani. Other artists on the list include Sean Callery, Da Riffs, Mark Mothersbaugh and BT.

"Assuming they are looking at this as pure incremental revenue," said Mike McGuire, analyst with Gartner G2, "they are in an interesting position to take advantage of changing consumer patterns and chart new territory where other folks have not yet looked."

McGuire mentions that the EA Recordings initiative could hold possibilities to expand their efforts into blogs and podcasts.

Last year, the company made strides to exploit its in-game music themes, joining forces with Cherry Lane Music Publishing to create Next Level Music, which licenses its in-game music for television, film and advertisements.

Alternatively, EA and video game makers Activision Inc. (ATVI: and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (TTWO also work with music labels, popular artists and other rights holders to license popular songs for their in-game music soundtracks. The structures for these deals, however, vary and are largely not a part of these Next Level Music and EA Recordings initiatives.