Recently, That VideoGame Blog conducted an interview with Steve Schnur, EA’s Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing and President of Artwerk (EA music publisher), to discuss how EA is expanding their involvement in bringing new music into games. Artwerk signs new talent and brings their songs into EA while also delivering master recordings, film and TV sync deals, advertising placement and distribution that goes far beyond games. If it has to do with music in many of EA’s games, he’s the one to talk to. So we did. And he had some pretty interesting stuff to say about how big the music world is getting within the gaming world.

Of course even an EA man has to attribute a lot of that success to Rock Band and Guitar Hero (though Madden was making artists famous before that). Those two games are making big bucks right now and as Schnur points out, “a recent survey shows that among all boys and girls in the 8-17 year-old age group, the upcoming Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 are the ‘most wanted’ games this holiday season.” So without a doubt, there is high demand and big bucks there. And we were curious if Schnur knew anything about an EA rhythm game in the works.

“We have some pretty awesome things in development. Naturally, they’re all top-secret. In the meantime, keep your hands on a controller and your eyes and ears open!,” he said after asked if EA and Artwerk had any plans for music style games in that vein. Definitely sounds like EA might be entering the plastic guitar scene some time soon — they couldn’t let Activision have all the fun could they? Of course not.