When 21-year-old singer Eric Doa released the song “>one” last March, he had an unusual collaborator in Valorant. It's not another artist. This is the popular shooter game that attracted millions of players in February. Riot Games, the company that developed Valorant, used “>one” in the lyrics to refer to the game in a trailer introducing a playable character named Gekko. The track is currently Ericdoa's second most popular song on Spotify, with over 36 million streams.
“It was a huge spiritual victory,” says Maria Egan, Riot Games' global head of music and events. “Can I repeat that over and over again?” she asks. “How can we make our platform and other gaming platforms new places where new artists can find an audience?”
This is a frequently asked question in the music industry. In recent years, the industry has struggled to find reliable ways to ensure that its songs reach a wide range of listeners. The gaming community is large, young, and interested in music. In other words, an ideal target for labels. But there have been few notable recent examples of games helping new artists break out or fueling mass music discovery.
“Like music, gaming is global and has significant cultural relevance, but scalability at this intersection remains a challenge,” said Jeff Sawyer, gaming and esports agent at UTA. says. “Players and revenue are scattered in an endless web of product categories and consumer affinities, not all in one big bucket. There are some cool bespoke integrations happening, but for the music industry to achieve true scale in this category, the licensing model will need to fundamentally change.”
The truth is, the game doesn't need more label music to thrive. The gaming industry will have approximately $184 billion in revenue in 2023, dwarfing music (about $26 billion, according to IFPI). As one prominent music technology executive put it, “game business models don't need to support music.”
And even among popular games that put music to the forefront, Space remains highly competitive. “The number of FC slots is still limited, and the number of NBA 2K slots is still limited,” said Steve Schnurr, president of music at Electronic Arts (EA).
The music industry would likely benefit from more games featuring slots with more songs. But gaming industry executives say that is unlikely because of the lack of transparency in the licensing system. “Every time I talk to game publishers, they tell me at least one horror story about negotiating music rights,” says the managing director of Feel for Music, which helps music directors for games and brands. Director Ben Sumner says:
A single recording may have multiple master owners and writers, each potentially working with a different publisher, and the game company must get everyone's approval. Vicki Nauman, who in addition to founding the music technology consultancy CrossBorderWorks has licensed music for many games, once had to complete 143 contracts in order for him to clear 20 songs.
This may simply be too long for the game's timeline, explains Gavin Johnson, director of sync and partnerships at electronic music label Monstercat. “Game developers typically create quarterly, biweekly, or even weekly content,” he says. Especially in the world of “live service games,” which are free to play, dynamic, updated on the fly to reinvigorate player interest, and maintain consistent engagement. (Some of his most popular games in 2023, as measured by monthly active users, were live service games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Minecraft.)
Additionally, the music industry typically requires a large upfront payment to license a song. “Introducing music is often an experiment for games, but they don't want to pay millions of dollars for an experiment,” says Co-Founder of STYNGR, a company that provides pre-cleared music for games. says Alex Tarrand, COO.
With multiple rights holders impacting timelines and high upfront fees, many game developers find it much easier and more financially prudent to outsource their music in-house. I think there is. “If it's going to incur more costs in a way that doesn't actually advance what the game is about, we tend to think, 'Maybe we don't need to spend our time and resources on that,'” said game consultant Toa Dunn. ” he says.
Tarrand's company, STYNGR, is creating a bridge between game and music companies by signing blanket licenses with all major labels and publishers so that game developers can come to STYNGR and incorporate music into their titles. We are working on reducing friction. Instead of paying her STYNGR upfront, the developer cut the revenue share agreement.
Another company, Game Over, is taking a completely different approach, targeting gamers who watch live streams on Twitch and enjoy gameplay montage videos on YouTube and Instagram. His partner Zach Katz said this would allow him to completely avoid the industry's “arm-wrestling” over rights. The label “still believes that winning in the gaming space is tied to interaction with users.” [gaming] It’s a platform,” Katz said. In his view, that's a “mistake.” “At the end of the day, it's a win to have an audience for games and provide them with music. You can do this in other places where gamers congregate.”
Still, both music and gaming executives dream of further opportunities within games. BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok said, “We need to make licensing games easier and more scalable so that only large franchises can obtain licenses.”
“What I'm hoping to do is create a dialogue where we understand that synchronous relationships can bring tremendous benefits, but they still limit us,” Schnurr added. “Let's think about what the term 'sync' means and what it means going forward.” But he said music rights holders may be satisfied with the current system. He acknowledges that there is, and is wary that calls for change could cover up a campaign to marginalize music.
For now, many of the creative ideas for bringing more music into games “just aren't coming to market because of rights issues,” Nauman says.