With their Metallica edition of Guitar Hero due out this week, the band has been discussing the game and it's significance to the industry. The popular rhythm game series (and competitor Rock Band) have become a major new source of revenue for artists and bands like Rise Against and Bruce Springsteen are even debuting new singles in them.

Metallica's Lars Ulrich sees games like Guitar Hero as the future:

It seemed like the next step -- a whole other platform for musicians to reach an audience. If we talk about this in five years, I think it will turn into an expected way to release an album. What blows me away is six months into the (album) experience how young the audience continues to be. We see whole armies of 10-year-olds who weren't listening to music when 'St. Anger' was released. In a world where music has so much competition, this is a great gateway for them into the music.

Along with major recording artists like Metallica, the games have also featured music from bands like Mission Of Burma, Dead Kenneys, At The Drive-In, AFI and others. The Sex Pistols actually re-recorded some of their music for the game.

You can find the rest of the interview here.