This role has now been filled.  Best of luck.

okay how about this

i'll do the music for this if you program a game for me in return. deal?

I'm writing this as a game developer (Roel from http://tianxiagame.tumblr.com/ *shameless self advertisement*) and someone who tries to make his own chipmusic, and at this point still failing badly (I probably need help...).

The original post wasn't that clear especially when it came to things as rights, payments and such. Something that could easily be avoided by letting be proof read by someone who also makes music on commission.
Also as someone who works in game development I can promise you that rarely people steal an idea, because everyone has there own games they want to make. Not to mention that it if you can out run them or its a fully free game it doesn't even matter. (because if its free you have practically nothing to lose, except maybe name some recognition). This even goes when its still just a concept. Also you don't have to show a lot to someone to show that its a real project and not just a vague future plan.

And for those who replied with nothing good to say: are you obligated to reply? have you forgotten to ask questions? It just seems like poor etiquettes. And remember "if you have nothing good to say don't say anything" especially with stuff like this.

whatever scab

He didn't do a very good job of defending himself, but I still stand by my position--we probably should have tried to talk about this stuff without getting super defensive right off the bat.

Yea if some stranger was opening a grocery store, but they told prospective employees HEY GROCERS WE CANT PAY YOU ANYTHING CAUSE WE DONT MAKE MONEY, youd think they were a pretty shitty businessman. You can either pay creatives in the goodwill of a friend, the equity of a partner, the flat fee of a contractor, or the limited borrowing of a for credit licensee (ie you borrow the music, give credit no exclusive rights). You can't have it all ways.

We get it. You're poor too. But the problem with the original proposition was no payment AND exclusive rights. If you want to play nice, pick only one of the two. There was not even a mention of due credit to the artist. The original legalese didn't read "help a brother out" but "if we do make it big, we don't want legal trouble".

This doesnt say much as you could have made a good amount of money but in relation to 1M it's not much.

So revenue share then? If greed is such a bad thing and you dont make any money anyways you should be offering a slice of the potentially nonexistent pie.

Right and this is why it still costs millions to get Hans Zimmer to compose a soundtrack for the COD series. They could have just come to this board and got it for free.

And only 16 year old musicians pay to play.

love it! strippers do not pay to strip

You got awesome replies because your pitch was so killer. Take a walk in our shoes for a moment and you'll see why you got burned here.

First and foremost you have nothing to show that you're actually making a game other than your word which means nothing on the internet. Development video or screenshots would have added something to your credibility but you came on here with nothing. You didn't even bother to give a description of the game because "shh... it's a secret." How am I supposed to know the game is good or exists at all? I'm certainly not going create a body of work for a game that is absolute garbage. Since there's nothing to show something doesn't seem right but the nail in the coffin was that you wanted to retain financial and creative rights to the musical properties. So now that I've surrendered over these rights all I'm going on is your word that you MIGHT make mention of who actually created the music. Unless you think we are completely naive no one is going to believe you have the best intentions here. Who is to say that you haven't been commissioned by another game developer to complete songs for a game and you're just going to try and scam some chip musicians out of free work? While this scenario may be unlikely you claim it's non-profit but your portfolio of past work is all for-profit. How am I supposed to know you won't be profiting off of your game via Google Ads or some other form of advertising money? So you make the claim you don't have money now but as soon as the game is up and running, you're now collecting money from Google and pocketing all of it and in turn collecting money for work I've done for you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for a some kind of monetary payment out of this project. I certainly don't make chip music because I think there's inevitably going to be a paycheck at the end of the day. I would be happy to do something if I thought there would be great promotion out of it. All the examples you've listed about people paying to play is all about promotion besides strippers they take the risk of making more money at a better club. If that is the payoff then great but if you want to collaborate with people bring something to the table. It's pretty easy here to see what people are capable of. Click someone's name and start listening to their songs. Just because you want small 5-60 second song loops doesn't mean it's going to take 5 or 60 seconds to create any of them. In fact I would probably spend a great deal of time on each amounting to quite a large workload when all is said and done. That's quite a large risk to take on a no name game developer who doesn't even have a single screen shot to show and won't even describe the game.

People have been burned on here in the past with similar projects and people continue to plagiarize chip musicians. So don't act surprised or offended when we're a little apprehensive about your shady project.

Awesome replies.

Only the top 1% of apps on the app store actually make any money at all.  Millions?  You're dreaming.  We've made infinitely closer to $0 than $1M.  We do it because we love it.  We're just as broke as the rest of you plus we have no musical talent or training, so we have to humbly come to you and get mud thrown in our face.

Additionally this project is not an app, it's browser-based and going to be on PC/Mac.  Projected profit - $0.  I'll gladly give you your share of zero.

Everyone seems to think that everyone in their industry except them makes tonnes of money and that they're somehow getting robbed.  I'll tell you from personal experience that comedians actually have to PAY to perform a standup these days, unless they're the top 1% of the hottest comedians.  Musicians PAY clubs to let them perform.  Strippers PAY a club to let them work it.  There's much more supply than there is demand for everything creative these days and I'll virtually guarantee you that five years from now musicians and artists will be paying to get their work featured in games/apps/software simply because of market forces.

That sucks?  No shit, Sherlock.

I'm sorry I couldn't show more of what we've done, it's in development, once it's done I'll gladly show it off and no doubt receive a bevvy of sarcastic put-downs for my trouble.  Ok you deserve to keep the rights to what you've done, especially if you're not getting remunerated for it, I'll change that.  But what cloud do you live on where you think you'll magically make a fortune off of it?  Creativity is an energy that finds it's own path.  Money corrupts everything it touches.  Greed is bad.

If anyone feels like dusting some old tracks off that would otherwise do fuck all for them then kindly state your terms and I'd love to have a listen.

Spacetownsav - Thanks for standing up for the other side of the table mate, I owe you one.

Peace and love to you all.

you guys are really paranoid

whatever happened to creative work for creative work's sake? if you don't want to submit anything, don't, but don't go around acting like they're trying to rob you of all your art. I mean, have you guys considered the possibility that these guys may ACTUALLY be in the same dire financial straits as you? and that this MAY simply be an attempt to make a game, rather than make millions of dollars?

I get it; you don't want to be treated like half-rate artists for your work and you want to be taken seriously. maybe you've been burned before on this kind of stuff. but look at what they're asking for -- 45-60 second loops. not an entire orchestral suite that deals with themes of technology in a post-modern age, just loops. that's like two rows of chains in LSDJ.

I'm coming at you as both a musician (who hasn't made very much off his music) and someone who has tried (and is currently trying) to work on small projects like this. people who ask for something like this are trying to channel the spirit of creative collaboration -- they're not trying to make a million dollars with your music and then run off with it. and seriously, what are the chances that they make millions of dollars anyway? there are literally thousands and thousands of games on the iTunes app store -- how many of them are going to make any more than a couple hundred dollars, if that? what happened to the collaborative spirit that helped this community grow so fast? I guess we're so damn good at writing music that we're above fostering an attitude of creativity and collaboration.

they asked wrong--ok. but that's still no reason to get all haughty about our music.

this is actually relevant:

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/8713/ … r-my-game/

it's how to ask for music in your game