News Room Contributor  Posts: 8880 Joined: 12 Nov 2002     | |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 783 Joined: 7 Jun 2008     | "Look, to be frank, we thought the games would suck. Balls, I mean. So we gave the music to them for cheap cheap cheap. And then it was popular. And then we looked at Guitar Heroes II and III, and we though: Well, they're not really that much of an improvement on the popular first one, so welcome to chock full of suck land. And again, cheap cheap. And they were actually pretty popular. And finally we said 'No one in the world will want to play this game with up to three friends while one of them sings.' Anyways, we were wrong there, too. And because we were wrong, we want to get paid more for it. By the way, the artists will never see the extra money we get." At least, that's what I got from this. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3263 Joined: 8 May 2008     | suprise suprise. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 216 Joined: 25 Apr 2008    | Warner cut a deal, now they don't want to live with it. I believe the term is "Suck it up!". What did anyone expect from the music executives? They have a history of being greedy, backwards looking idiots, they aren't likely to change anytime soon. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2254 Joined: 14 Nov 2007    | Ha! Uncouth as it may seem, my only words to heartless soul crushing vampires like Mr Bronfman are "Stick it in your pipe and smoke it!" |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 490 Joined: 23 Nov 2007     | Heh. Hehe. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! You know how record labels used to get bands to sign such crappy contracts? Because if they didn't sign, there was another band, at least as competent, right in line behind them who would sign. I'm sure Sony would be more than happy to charge half of whatever Warner wants to charge. I wonder if Herr Bronfman is truly of just who's got the whipping hand in this relationship? The funny part is, "as made famous by" reveals the glaring flaw in Herr Bronfman's reasoning. The labels only own the recorded music, aka the "master tracks," and not the published music, which is owned by the artists. Harmonix and Activision could simply rely on house bands to lay down the audio, and cut the labels out entirely. Or they should be able to. I'm sure such legal reasoning has been well truly hashed out in the years since Guitar Hero I was released. |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 571 Joined: 22 Apr 2008   | As usual, the big cheeses of music are lagging behind. They never seem to see the next big thing coming, which is why they continue to miss out on mucho dinero. Then they lay blame somewhere else for their own faults. You didn't expect Guitar Hero and the likes to be a hit, then they did. A deal is a deal, so suck it up. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3664 Joined: 21 Jan 2008   | Too bad, so sad. |
Warner Music Wants More Money
Now that music-based videogames have become one of the most successful and lucrative genres in the industry, Warner Music Group wants a bigger piece of the pie.
Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music, compared the efforts of modern videogame companies like Activision Blizzard and Harmonix with the launch of MTV or the iPod. "The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small," he said. According to Gamasutra, Warner has an interest in games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero due to its relationship with many of the bands featured in the games, such as Metallica, Linkin Park and The Used.
Warner Music is the third-largest music company in the world, with 2007 revenues totaling almost $3.4 billion. And while Bronfman himself has been one of the industry's most vociferous critics of music piracy and helped lead the charge against Napster, the original music sharing program, he has recently shown signs of softening his stance: During a November 2007 address of the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress, Bronfman warned mobile companies against making the same mistakes that caused the music industry so much grief.
"We used to fool ourselves. We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was," he said. "We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."
While it's not unreasonable that the industry responsible for creating the content that drives these games would want in on the action, titles like Rock Band and Guitar Hero offer musicians new avenues of exposure and unprecedented access to brand-new audiences; meanwhile, the music industry's endless insistence on more money from every imaginable aspect of the business hasn't served it very well thus far. Perhaps a compromise is in order?
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