Heaven 17 songwriter tells Rockstar to "go f**k yourself" after "iniquitous" GTA 6 royalties offer
"Naturally excited about the immense wealth that was about to head my way, I scrolled to the bottom of the email…"
Band member and co-songwriter of Heaven 17 Martyn Ware has told Rockstar to "go fuck yourself" after being offered $7500 - that's around £5700 - to include their 1983 hit, Temptation, in Grand Theft Auto 6.
In a candid explanation posted to X/Twitter, Ware did not play down his dismay at the offer and stressed that predecessor GTA 5 grossed $8.6bn.
"I was recently contacted by my publishers on behalf of Rockstar Games [regarding] the possibility of using [1983 hit] Temptation on the new Grand Theft Auto 6," Ware wrote.
"Naturally excited about the immense wealth that was about to head my way, I scrolled to the bottom of the email [regarding] the offer…"
"IT WAS $7500 - for a buyout of any future royalties from the game - forever…" Ware added in a follow-up tweet.
"To put this in context, Grand Theft Auto 6 [sic] grossed, wait for it… $8.6 BILLION.
"Ah, but think of the exposure…," he added, before signing off with: "Go fuck yourself".
When pressed in his comments that he'd "fucked up" by turning down such an opportunity and "long-term win", he responded:
"I haven't 'fucked up'. I've worked in artist rights advocacy for 20 years. I know the game. This [is] iniquitous."
"For those claiming [Heaven 17] should have accepted the extremely low offer for buyout for Temptation in GTA6 claiming 'increased exposure'… an extra one million streams generates each writer a pitiful $1k each," he explained later still.
When asked what he would have considered a reasonable offer, Ware suggested: "$75K a buyout - or no advance required for a reasonable royalty". Apparently, Rockstar "refused".
Ware's mentions were then swarmed by people pointing taking umbrage with his position.
Take-Two is "highly confident" GTA 6 will make that recently-promised autumn 2025 release window.
The company's CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked about the timing of GTA 6's release during an interview with CNBC. Here, the company exec said the team generally decides upon a release window by factoring in measurable elements, using the "number of bugs in a title" as an example.
For more on the game, here's everything we know about GTA 6 so far.
An earlier edition of this story incorrectly cited Martyn Ware as the lead singer of Heaven 17. This has now been corrected.