WTF Happened To Guitar Hero?

The Music Industry Fights Back

Another thing that always haunts the site of a big payday is the constant threat of legal action for any and all reasons - whether justified or not. Where Guitar Hero and its contemporaries were cashing in hugely on artists’ music and likeness, said artists and their estates were becoming more and more unhappy with the situation.

Seeing how much was being made from the games, Warner Music decided to make public jabs at Guitar Hero - demanding that they begin paying higher licensing fees for the music they used.

"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," claimed then company Chief Executive, Edgar Bronfman.

CEO Bronfman demanded that the games’ creators start paying more money otherwise Warner would boycott them and stop any licensing agreements in the future. In response to this, instead MTV (Rock Band owners) started boycotting them instead.

It all looked rather petty and ridiculous to any non-concerned party, but it was symptomatic of the wider upset between the gaming and music industries. What was being paid wasn’t exactly chump change, with the Los Angeles Times claiming that each song cost at least somewhere around $35,000 to license. Given that songs featured in the games were in turn making money from iTunes and other purchases due to their elevated exposure, many in the gaming industry thought the suggestion of having to fork out even more was borderline offensive.

When Activision Blizzard finally disbanded its operation and called it quits with Guitar Hero, one of the main reasons cited by the company was “continued declines in the music genre”.

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