If you haven't seen an HMV nearby lately, you're not alone. In fact, unless you live in Canada, the U.K., Hong Kong or Singapore, you haven't seen an HMV in years, if at all. But despite the demise the music store chain faced in the earlier portion of the decade, it has been revitalized in recent years. Not by an increase in music sales, but in terms of video games sales, which is quickly becoming HMV's bread and butter.

Wired's Gamelife blog reports that video games made up 21% of HMV sales worldwide, up from 14% a year ago. Last December, HMV also announced it would be adding a "Gamecenter," a public LAN-based video game playing section, to each stor. HMV's games head Tim Ellis made the following bold assertion:

"We'll always love music -- it's in our DNA after all, but, if it's not too much of a cliché to say it, the truth is that games really are the new rock 'n' roll."

With music piracy being what it is—which is signficantly more financially damaging than that for booming video game industry—this phenomenon shouldn't be a surprise. Nor should it be limited to HMV; the music sections of Best Buy and Borders stores have certainly decreased in size of late, and you can only expect more of the same to come.