Guitar Hero II song prices blamed on licensing fees. How much does it cost to license songs for video games?

Written by Dan Zuccarelli

Friday, 13 April 2007 03:57

A few days back the internet was set ablaze by angry Guitar Hero II fans upon learning of the pricing and pack structure for the downloadable songs. At over 6 bucks for a 3 song pack, people were (to put it kindly) pissed. Mostly pissed at the price but none to happy about the seemingly random grouping of the songs.

Well someone did a little digging around ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) to find out exactly how much it costs to license track for games. And here's the interesting part:

Some agreements provide for an actual royalty but many provide for a one-time buy-out fee per composition regardless of the number of games actually sold or how many times the game is played. Per game royalties range from 8 cents to 15 cents per composition and buyouts range from $2,500 to over $20,000. As in many other areas, royalties and fees depend upon the value of the composition, the prior history or anticipated sales of the game, bargaining power of the parties and the needs of the video game producer, music publisher and songwriter. (emphasis mine)

So there ya have it. I know the argument is being made to justify the song price, but the internet at large ain't buying it. We're all kind of hoping this will be Red Octane's "Horse Armor" (Remember when Bethesda released the Horse Armor pack for $2.50 to the 360 Marketplace? People nearly burned the place down. Subsequent content was priced a whole lot better).

I bought one pack, and then decided against the other 2 (I really just wanted Killer Queen). And as big a GH2 fan as I am, I won't be buying anymore. Even if licensing fees are that much (even though it doesn't look like it) there's no excuse for the song packs. It's just a way to make you buy one or two songs you have no interest in. Boo Red Octane, Boo.

Comments (1) Add Comment

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written by Danny M, April 13, 2007

you figure they have 48 licensed songs on GH2 at $0.15 thats $7.20 per game. Now obviously theres going to be some songs over priced and some under priced so lets look at from the standpoint of $8.50 (for arguments sake) per game. The cost of development as been more then paid for with the PS2 release and the actual guitar seems like it can be mass produced and sold at a price of $30 reasonably, considering the lack of wireless technology.

So now we're paying $50 for a game, it doesnt seem that outrageous does it?

What is outrageous was GameStop's selling tactics whe I was looking for a spare guitar. They said to by a second bundle and sell back the game, for $20!!!

Upon the day of release your trying to tell me that the game, unopened is only worth $20, WTF?