While your article here is truly fantastico per usual, I must bring two of my particular areas of expertise to the table in this discussion: Music promotion, and being uppity.

I too recall many an hour of Burnout 3, gleefully smashing 20 cars into oblivion during the Road Rage, and then losing the next race by crashing my own car 20 times. I guess my interest in the game was one-sided. But I do know this: Much of the soundtrack at the time of release was of unknowns. To look at our most familiar cohorts, Franz Ferdinand, we can note their album was released in March of 2004, while the single for “Take Me Out” did not hit the streets until May of that year. A quick glance shows almost all songs were on albums released in between Feb-June 2004, with the only exceptions being larger name (in this field, at that buzz time) being acts like Yellowcard or The Bouncing Souls (both released mid-year 2003). This means, most likely, that the game producers went out and did their homework for six months, pulled together a bunch of demos and singles as they were sent out for post-production/pre-release promotion, and fired off inquiry letters of “have I got a deal for you, kid” quality.
While I can imagine that the ASCAP fees were still astronomically high paychecks for astronomically bad and unproven pop, I imagine some deals being performed here. While Bouncing Souls or Yellowcard could have feasibly demanded a better cut, citing previous Soundscan information or just general name recognition, most of these artists were unproven and without leverage when it came down to licensing negotiations. Granted, almost every artist was signed to a major label, meaning they had pros arguing in their tiny favors (excluding Victory-Records(Chicago indie label)-repped Atreyu), but still, I bet it wasn’t quite the moneymaker the general info on song licensing would have you believe.
As much as the game producers are looking to score an (in their opinion) excellent soundtrack, the bands are also receiving a big ol’ shot of free publicity, albeit one that, as you noticed, is targeted at an audience demographic that does not necessarily correspond in any way to the one for which they would usually aim. For the moment, song licensing is a win twice over for these bands: they get paid to have their music advertised, and given their styles and audiences, have no fear of being labeled “sell-outs” as might happen with, say, the White Stripes. Hopefully, future soundtrack producers will venture beyond the corporate philosophy of playing it safe with small bands on big labels. While the idea that every top 40-lovin’ alterna-skatepunk will wince if indie comes into their lives in any way, the labels should throw off the kid gloves, save some cash, and please the portion of their audience that likes something left of the dial. Besides, picky and commercial-only jerkos, guess what? We know your weakness! Once you hear something endlessly repeated, you love it! (data collected from: Prof. Big Music, study: “My Humps: How Far Can We Sink the Standard” 2005.)

P.S. While playing this game, Yellowcard’s “Breathing” is better than the Love Below getting humped by the White Album while George Clinton’s entire discography does coke off it’s back. Bon Voyage, indie cred! We’ll still miss you! (Okay Yellowcard, now you can move into his room).

~Dan