14 DAY TRIAL // The music-games genre is one of the most rapidly expanding on the market nowadays. It has already surpassed the sports genre, and is becoming more and more popular, with titles such as Wii Music or SingStar emerging on the market.
However, the true innovative games in this genre were Guitar Hero and Rock Band. These titles brought their publishers, Activision and MTV, respectively, massive sales and created true phenomenons. While they might appear to be almost the same in their newest versions, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2, in terms of gameplay and instruments, the policies of the two games are quite different.
While Rock Band focuses on weekly releases of DLC (Downloadable Content) packs filled with songs from the most popular bands, Guitar Hero has a more strict policy. Activision charges bands who want their songs to be played in the game, and doesn't release a large number of DLC packs, focusing instead on more games, like the band-specific ones, for example. A good instance of that is Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
It would seem that this harsh policy has cost Activision a contract with Apple, regarding the rights to the songs of the legendary band The Beatles. As most of you know, MTV has just announced that it has signed a contract with Apple, the owner of the Beatles song portfolio, related to the development of a game focused on the internationally famous band.
Martin Bandier, Sony/ATV CEO, one of the companies working with MTV for the future Beatles game, declares that, “It was presented as if they were doing the music business a favor. It's true you can choose other types of music, and somewhere along the line someone's going to do it for free for the exposure ... When it comes to the Beatles, the leverage changes. We're very happy with the terms of our arrangement with MTV.”
Even though the strict policy of Activision was bound to make it lose some contracts, nobody thought that one with the Beatles might be lost over the fact that the company refused to offer less restrictive contract terms to its partners.