Activision: Warner Disrespectful of Music Games

Following complaints from Warner Music that music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band don’t pay enough for licensed songs, Activision responded, labeling the comments as “one-sided” and disrespectful.

“[Warner simply isn't] respectful of how much we’ve done to bring new audiences into the market,” said company CEO Bobby Kotick. “We’re introducing a whole new group of artists to new audiences that is resulting in their iTunes downloads being exponentially higher than they would otherwise be, [as well as] new album sales and new merchandising opportunities.”

“This is an entirely different business [than iTunes] that is very technically complex,” concluded Kotick. “We’re going to favor those publishers that recognize and appreciate how much we can add value to their artists.”

Warner Music has quite a few artists under its umbrella, including Avenged Sevenfold, DragonForce, Linkin Park and other bands who have appeared in the aforementioned music games. In fact, Roadrunner, a Warner music label, noted that sales for DragonForce increased after the band was featured in Guitar Hero 3.