When 21-year-old singer ericdoa released the song “>one” last March, he had an unusual collaborator: Valorant. That’s not another artist; it’s a popular shooter game that attracted millions of players in February. Riot Games, the company behind Valorant, used “>one” — which references the game in its lyrics — in a trailer that introduced a playable character named Gekko. The track is now ericdoa’s second-most-popular song on Spotify, with over 36 million streams.
And even within the popular games that foreground music, space remains highly competitive. “There are still a limited amount of slots inThe music industry would presumably benefit if there were more games with more slots for its songs. But gaming executives say the opaque licensing system makes this unlikely.
One recording may have multiple master owners and writers, each of which could work with a different publishing company, and gaming companies have to get everyone’s approval., who has licensed music for many games in addition to founding the music-tech consultancy CrossBorderWorks, once had to get 143 agreements complete to clear 20 songs., director of sync and partnerships at the electronic music label Monstercat.
Another company, Game Over, takes a very different approach, targeting gamers who watch live-streams on Twitch or enjoy gameplay montage videos on YouTube or Instagram. This allows them to sidestep the industry “arm-wrestling match” around rights altogether, according to partner. Labels are “still in the mindset that winning in the gaming space is tied to interacting with the platforms,” Katz says. In his view, that’s “a mistake.
For now, many creative ideas to bring more music into gaming “are just not coming to market,” Nauman says, “because of rights issues.”