Universal Globe’s new licensing deal with gaming firm Codemasters for the upcoming Dirt 4 video game has been hailed as an “exciting way of exposing new bands to a new audience” by its senior creative licensing manager Greg Turner.
The first of its kind agreement will see racing game Dirt 4 (released June 9) feature a 45-track in-game soundtrack comprised exclusively of Universal Music acts. Last Friday (June 2), an accompanying soundtrack album featuring 20 songs from the game was also released, including three songs only available within the game and on the soundtrack: Sigma’s Night Drive, Pretty Vicious’ It Ain’t Fun and The Amazons’ Millions.
According to Turner, the partnership is ideal for new artists looking to get their music heard by a brand new audience.
“For the established artists it’s more of a straightforward licensing deal, but for new artists it’s another level of exposure in terms of getting their music out there and having a captive audience,” Turner told Music Week. “The music plays not just while racing but throughout the rest of the game.
“From our perspective, there’s the benefit of having our music throughout the game and having the opportunity to release the album through Globe Soundtrack & Score – our new venture in soundtracks.”
Turner also believes that the exclusive nature of the project makes it a unique prospect within the sync and licensing space.
“The main difference between this and other gaming agreements is in the scope,” he continued. “Game soundtracks have been done before but not quite on this scale where we have such a huge variety of artists on there, ranging from Queens Of The Stone Age and The Hives to Cold War Kids and Earl Sinclair.”
He continued: “As for the exclusive tracks, fans of those acts will be able to check them out via the soundtrack.
That will alert them to Dirt 4 if they weren’t already aware of it. And there will be people playing the game who wouldn’t have heard of some of the newer artists, so they can then go and check out further stuff by them.”
Now, explains Turner, Globe will be looking to forge similar relationships with companies in the gaming sector throughout 2017 and beyond, as it looks to bolster its position in the market.
“We are certainly hoping that this will be the first of many of these kinds of deals,” he concluded. “If games companies see the effort that we’ve managed to pull together on Dirt 4 they may be interested in doing something similar for their own titles.”
Codemasters’ VP development creative services, Stephen Root, added “We worked hard to listen to what Dirt fans wanted from the music on the latest installment of the game. It’s been great working with Globe and Universal Music to hand craft a soundtrack that perfectly reflects the atmosphere, style and action of Dirt 4.”
