Steve Schnur, the worldwide executive for music at EA, believes videogames are now more influential to the music business than radio.

Schnur, who has seen artists including Franz Ferdinand and Avril Lavigne make their debut via videogames, made the statement as part of his keynote speech at the Games Convention Asia Conference.

Schnur said: "A recent poll of core gamers between the ages of 13 to 32 revealed that 55 per cent, and that's growing, learned about their new favourite artist, or new favourite band, or new favourite song – they learned about it from a videogame. That's Europe, Asia, US.

"Even more impressive for a record industry that's having its own problems – over one third of those that discover a song in a game download that song, and over 20 per cent purchase that artist's CD."

Schnur also revealed that EA, in a joint venture with music company Artwerk, has signed four artists in the past nine months. These include Junkie XL, whose work will feature very heavily in a new Need for Speed game.

Schnur went on to add: "But what will the PS4, Xbox 5000 and iPhone 2 bring? All these future devices will be complete home and mobile entertainment supercomputers that represent technology beyond anything we've ever experienced.

"Imagine a world where 80 per cent of the global population is instantaneously exposed to music via videogames, with the power to purchase literally at their fingertips.

"Perhaps for the first time ever, global culture can finally be truly global. Perhaps for the first time ever, music can change the world."