Last month saw an interesting bit of back and forth between Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Acitivsion boss Bobby Kotick which began with Edgar complaining that the music industry wasn't getting enough money from games like Activision's Guitar Hero and ended with Kotick firing back that delivering a not-so-subtle threat about which music they'll choose to include in the future. Now in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Kotick takes the money argument full circle.
There's a misunderstanding of the value we bring to the catalog...When you look at the impact it can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it's really significant, 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.
Goodness, Bobby's getting a bit vicious now, isn't he? He does have a point though. I'd say most of the money I've spent on music in the past two years has been for video game DLC. Poor, put-upon record labels. The Future of Videogames, According to Activision CEO [Wall Street Journal via Edge]