The fact that the one thing about Stadia constantly pratted by the press and public was “When will Google kill it?” impacted its growth profoundly. Google’s culture killed the Stadia, not the lack of investment. And as a company, they are in bad shape product and leadership wise.
Pyrocynical used Midge Ure’s cover of “The Man Who Sold the World” in a video covering Half-Life 2 or a mod of it, and that meant Midge needed a cut, the original writer David Bowie, his estate needed a cut, Kobalt Songs, who owns the rights for Midge’s cover needed a cut, Warner Chappal, who owns the Bowie library needed a cut, ASCAP needed a cut, PRS needed a cut…
You only get a small fraction of who owns what off SongView. It’s a removed. Pyro paid $24,000 for the sync rights. That’s the budget for like five of his videos right there.
I wish this process was easier. Contacting a label’s sync office is typically the start of the nightmare.
Perpetual sync rights licenses aren’t unheard of, but typically these require an ongoing revenue split of sales or a big up front. More often than not, limited rights are used to save scratch and because its going to be for a set period, like 30 days (for an ad campaign).
In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if Take Two opted for perpetual, and decided they won’t afford a per unit sale anymore, and pulled the game to stop paying.
So its due to sync rights. Oof. I wonder if some of the song licenses (looking at you, Experience Hendrix) are the culprit.
The Line really is an example of a painfully average game held up by its narrative, and hot damn, how well it held up. I adore some of the moments of this game, especially for their vicissitude.
We’re now at the “I dunno how much more worse we can make it but let’s keep adding more shit and find out” phase of the failure of the Suicide Squad game.