'That Was a Lie' — Mixtape Publisher Refutes Claim That Expired Music Licenses Will Eventually Cause the Game to Be Delisted

MixtapeMixtape Publisher Refutes Claim That Expired Music Licenses Will Cause the Game to Be DelistedThat's Good.By Michael CripeUpdated: May 16, 2026 8:47pm UTC3 commentsComing-of-age video game Mixtape is packed with licensed music from artists like Devo and The Smashing Pumpkins, but publisher Annapurna Interactive and developer Beethoven and Dinosaur have told fans not to worry about the game potentially being delisted down the road.Creative director Johnny Galvatron kept concerns about the game's future from spinning out of control during a recent interview with Kotaku. Despite featuring a full playlist of tracks from recognizable groups throughout its foot-tapping story, he said that the team paid extra to maintain licenses for each track in perpetuity.Annapurna followed up the interview with its own statement in an X/Twitter post. It said, "We heard some people say MIXTAPE would be delisted due to music licenses expiring. That was a lie."We heard some people say MIXTAPE would be delisted due to music licenses expiring. That was a lie. Have a great weekend, everyone. https://t.co/C3VesfWPpz— Annapurna Interactive (@A_i) May 16, 2026 Fears that Mixtape could, at some point, be pulled from digital shelves aren't exactly unfounded. Plenty of games have suffered similar fates due to expired licenses in the past, including Rock Band 4 late last year and the original Alan Wake in 2017. Even Grand Theft Auto 4 replaced a few tunes after some licenses expired in 2018.It's clear Beethoven and Dinosaur wanted to put in the effort to make sure its story and the music woven throughout it remained intact for years to come. One example of a "boundary test" idea that was floated but didn't pan out involved asking Pink Floyd for a song, but the team's supervisor cautioned that the classic rock band wasn't likely to give them the track they were after. That said, when it came to getting the other tunes they wanted, Galvatron told Kotaku the team never ran into any real horror stories and got "pretty much everything [they] asked for.""There's just so many points in the game where Stacy turns the screen and says 'This is the Smashing Pumpkins, and it's fucking sick,'" he add [Conteúdo truncado para controle de custo.]