Following complaints from Warner Music that music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band don’t pay enough for licensed songs, Activision responded, labeling the comments as “one-sided” and disrespectful.

“[Warner simply isn't] respectful of how much we’ve done to bring new audiences into the market,” said company CEO Bobby Kotick. “We’re introducing a whole new group of artists to new audiences that is resulting in their iTunes downloads being exponentially higher than they would otherwise be, [as well as] new album sales and new merchandising opportunities.”

“This is an entirely different business [than iTunes] that is very technically complex,” concluded Kotick. “We’re going to favor those publishers that recognize and appreciate how much we can add value to their artists.”

Warner Music has quite a few artists under its umbrella, including Avenged Sevenfold, DragonForce, Linkin Park and other bands who have appeared in the aforementioned music games. In fact, Roadrunner, a Warner music label, noted that sales for DragonForce increased after the band was featured in Guitar Hero 3.