Video game goliath Electronic Arts (EA) had an interesting Rock Band related tidbit come up in their quarterly investor conference call yesterday.  Apparently, EA execs revealed the publisher’s deal with Viacom (the company that owns MTV, MTV Games, Harmonix, and Rock Band) expires at the end of their fiscal year, which is March 31, 2010.

PlasticAxe noticed on EA’s 2011 fiscal year key titles offerings had no mention of any Rock Band games; no theoretical Rock Band 3, and surprisingly no Green Day: Rock Band.  (See EA’s list of fiscal year 2011 key titles here.)  PlasticAxe also found this noncommittal quote from EA’s chief operating officer John Schappert:

“Our deal with Viacom and Harmonix continues through Fiscal Year 2011. As you can see from our modelling, we have not included a lot of revenue for distribution next year, but we continued to have talks with them and hope that maybe there’s an opportunity to continue the relationship beyond that.”

Not sure what this could mean. Could Viacom/MTV Games be miffed at the handling of EA’s distribution of Rock Band 2 (I’m feeling for you people overseas) and shopping for a new publisher?  Or are Viacom/MTV Games thinking of keeping a larger portion of the pie by publishing and distributing it themselves?  Or is there something more unnerving and more sinister going on…

[via Joystiq and PlasticAxe]

One Response to “Is Rock Band Done with Electronic Arts?”