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Activision: Maybe Music Labels Should Pay Us
By Kris Graft
September 26, 2008
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"You sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse."
Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick has fired yet another shot back at music labels that claim they aren't seeing enough royalties from games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band.
"When you look at the impact [Guitar Hero] can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it's really significant," Kotick told The Wall Street Journal, "so much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse."
Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman recently called royalties from game companies "paltry." But Activision has argued music games add value to the music itself, increasing paid song downloads and ticket sales.
Bronfman also said that music labels have the leverage to charge more royalties because rhythm games are "entirely dependent" on licensed music.
But Kotick also attacked this point.
"We have lots of music to choose from, lots of artists to choose from. A 12-year-old kid has no idea who Steven Tyler is or who Aerosmith is," the exec said.
"The bulk of our consumers will tell you they're not purchasing the products based on the songs that are included. They're purchasing based on how fun the songs are to play when they're playing them."
Activision is so full of themselves. That's not how the business works. Do you think the people that make the NOW CDs suggest that people should be paying them to have their songs on there? Or movies should be paid to feature music from so and so artists? Seriously, it's a really stupid statement. People pay for Guitar Hero. That pays for the licensing costs. If Activision got paid to have music on there AND didn't have to pay licensing, then that'd be ridiculous.
The only way for this to work is if GH was free and people paid the labels to put their music on the games (as in the DLC money goes to the artists/labels rather than Activision).
You know, he's probably got a point. I've dowloaded quite a lot of music (paid for) that I only discovered through playing Guitar hero.
It shows you that both the major record companies and major game companies are full of the same shit (And of course want to make as much money as humanly possible).
With regards to 12-year olds, the South Park parody on this was spot on: "Playing real instruments sucks, dude."