1 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

The judging has concluded and we have selected a winner for this contest, the very talented Lars the Laohu!

In the process, my brother and I had a serious discussion about the concerns voiced in this thread. As designers, the last thing we want to do is make other artists feel they're giving up ownership of their work. So we contacted a lawyer friend and learned how to structure a more favorable agreement. The result is that instead of buying this song for $100, we have structured it as a license. Lars still gets the $100 we promised, and we're allowed to give away the MP3 a fun Kickstarter bonus for our card game, but he retains full ownership of the song.

It may not address every single concern raised here -- people in the contest still had to "work on spec" if they didn't have a relevant portfolio piece -- but I hope it shows our respect for Lars and every artist who submitted awesome chiptune music for this contest.

Thanks again for being an awesome community, and for helping us see the light on this issue.

Chris

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2 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Hi folks, just a reminder that the deadline for this contest is rapidly approaching (Oct. 7, 2012).  We've gotten some great entries, but we're always eager to here from more of you.

Chris

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3 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

nickmaynard wrote:

Can I also ask why does it have to be "all rights"? Why not a percentage of sales? Or why not additional money if the kickstarter is successful?

Will you be shipping a physical cd with each game too?

Hi Nick,

We're going with work for hire for two reasons: 1) it gives us the most legal protection, and 2) we don't know yet how we might use the song.  The current plan is for the web site, the kickstarter video, and as a download for SOME copies of the game (not all, this would be a Kickstarter enticement to get people to pledge more), but we might come up with other uses of it in the future.  There is a high enough chance of Kickstarter failure that we don't want to commit to much more than that.

We're already starting to get some cool tracks.  I'm hoping others will take the leap, but as I've said multiple times in this post, this arrangement is not for everyone and I fully understand (and even condone) some of the critiques we're seeing here.  Please do consider the pros and cons of this arrangement before sending your work.  We're looking for someone who we (hopefully) can have a positive and supportive transaction with.

Chris

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4 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

an0va wrote:
minusbaby wrote:

This isn't a competition. It's spec.

Exactly.

I'm afraid I have to get serious for a minute and voice some concerns, mostly inspired by horrible freelance experience I've had and witnessed in the past in this internet music age. I'm not here to convince anyone into doing or not doing it, but $100 flat rate for a All Rights Reserved 10-minute piece of audio is a horribly pathetic deal for a musician of any talent level, even if you were to compose a <30sec loop and repeat it for ten minutes. Obviously it's your decision but in my opinion this isn't worth it for any single musician on here.

OP: In your defense, the game looks interesting and the cards look beautiful in design and artwork, but in my opinion I think this is a straight low-ball deal for what it entails. For something like this it would make more sense like Nick Maynard suggested to actively seek out pre-recorded pieces and contact the artist rather than advertise this offer as a competition or as minusbaby's link expresses, "working on spec." Multiple artists would put in their time and effort to create a brand new song (or maybe, whip out an unreleased song from their backcatalogue) to possibly just be denied their efforts in public.

For the person that their track is chosen: Realize that this kind of deal can essentially be a flat rate where though you get a quick $100, this game can continue selling to any medium and your piece of the pie is essentially done. They can even upload the track to something like YouTube and click the (recently added, yet very applicable) feature of monetization to the video, essentially turning the youtube plays into royalty payments, and you'll still get nothing. Also consider how the audio is going to be distributed: since it's a card game, how will the song be played? Will the track be an accompanying mp3 for playing off of a device or some other means (serious question to OP and overall, maybe card games do this stuff lately-I have no idea). Is this soundtrack going to be for sale? Where does the money go? Consider all of this with an All Rights Reserved deal, that $100 may be the only thing you may ever see. Recognition and exposure are shiny, attractive concepts to any independent artist but always be aware of estimating the potential outreach you might even gain from something like this by either your own research or asking the client directly and then determining the pros and cons.

Back to OP: I don't intend to derail into chunter's topic material or sound harsh to you, personally I don't think you guys are swindlers at all but if I were to make any kind of hypothesis it would be that you guys aren't very familiar with the climate of freelance music gigs. Or maybe you guys really are and you know that some desperate musician will eventually bite at it. But for the sake of your own project and the community here, I genuinely and in the least hostile manner ever suggest that either the licensing agreement changes or the price is seriously raised.

Can't particularly argue with any of this, an0va.  These are all very reasonable warnings to new artists and I'd advise anyone considering doing this to talk it out the pros and cons with some of the more established musicians on the site.

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5 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Auxcide wrote:
chunter wrote:

I am thinking about making a "contracts for dummies" or "what to expect when freelancing" thread in the future.

I think that would be very useful in this community.

Agreed!

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6 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Aeros wrote:

october probably is an insane startup time, but i'll give you this: if you can market this correctly and get all of the liscensing needed if your Kickstarter takes off, you've got a solid product. however, chunter does have a point - you're running into this one blind, and you can get in some deep legal shit with how you're doing this.

This whole thing is insane, but we're hopeful.

Would it be wise to consult a lawyer on all this?  Yep.  Would one hour with a lawyer destroy our entire launch budget?  Yep. This is the best we can do.  We'll be negotiating in good faith and hoping our composer does too. 

And we really do get Chunter's concerns.  I'm not trying to deny that.

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7 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Chunter, I feel your concern here, and I appreciate that you're looking out for your community even if you're mocking us while you do it (which you don't have to do, by the way.  We're very open to your concerns and advice).

To be doubly (triply?) clear, from the competition we will select one person who we will then create a work for hire situation with, contracting with them to create a 10 minute song that will serve as the signature song and sound track for this game. 

The contract we create with that artist will specify that WE WILL OWN ALL RIGHTS to that song.  We will be able to use it in videos on our website and on Kickstarter, and we will be able to ship it to customers who buy exclusive versions of the game.  Unlike many work for hire situations, we will give the artist credit on all presentations of the song (we'll even link to your webpage if you'd like).

This type of relationship is not for all artists, and we completely understand that.  If this sort of arrangement sticks in your craw (and it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't give any artist at least a little pause), we are sympathetic and honestly wish you the best (we love the music here; you guys are amazing), but this competition probably isn't for you.  And as I've said in earlier posts, we know the amount of money is crap.  If we had more money, we'd pay more money, but as it is, my brother and I are dipping into our savings just to get the card art funded.  We thought about just asking for "donation" songs, but we wanted to do something to recognize the artist.

We do hope you'll think about it though.  This could be great exposure.  We've heard of very few board/card games that have shipped with their own songs, and part of our effort here is to raise awareness of chipmusic.  At the very least, your song would be heard by the thousands of people who will look at our Kickstarter.  We hope the Kickstart is successful and your song will be playing while legions of nerds play the game (maybe not legions, but scads...definitely scads of nerds).

Any specific questions, feel free to e-mail us at [email protected].  We're feverishly trying to get the game together in time for an Oct. 14th Kickstart (which seems insane at the moment), but we're committed to this side project so we'll get back to you asap.

Chris

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8 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

SadPanda wrote:

that actually looks pretty dope, I wish I could know more about the gameplay and stuff. I won't do a song because I'm not very good at making gamey music, but if it all works out I may purchase a set at some point. I hate to be the "make a compilation" guy, but with the unpicked songs you could offer a free download as sort of a promotion maybe?

Thanks!

And your idea is not off the mark. If the Kickstart is a success, I think there's a good chance we would come back here and try to commission more songs for a lengthier "sound track," but the winner will get $100 whether the game is funded on Kickstarter or not.  We would likely use portions of the winning song on the Kickstarter videos (and again, the composer would be credited there).

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9 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

The Laohu wrote:

Those cards look very well done and I'm now considering making something to submit.

Thank you!  My brother is the lead designer on this game.  The art is commissioned work from pixel artists, some of whom may be known to this community.  We're trying very hard to put together a quality game on a shoestring and we have high hopes for it.

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10 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

And for the record, in response to Chunter, we will not be licensing the winning composition, but rather buying all rights to it in its entirety.  Again, this would be work for hire.

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11 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

r4c7 wrote:

Maybe some screenshots of the game could remove some skepticism, even if just concept art. This could also help some get a better idea of the type of music.

Good idea and something we probably should have done earlier.

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12 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

And Skeptical Hippo, you are adorable, and we can understand your skepticism. I can't particularly offer anything to assuage your skepticism. We are a start up.  This is a meager attempt at a lifelong dream to make games for a living.  We have little to no starting capital.  We'll be Kickstarting this game so it may not become a reality if it isn't funded (which is a real possibility; a sizable portion of Kickstarts fail). 

This is, for all intents and purposes, work for hire (very little hire, as the case may be).  The winner will get the $100 and full credit on the game and sound track even if the Kickstart fails. I suppose we could be trying to swindle someone out of 10 minutes of chipmusic, but this would be an elaborately complex way to do that, with lots of people as witness to the swindle.  Again, we are not swindlers, just people trying to think of creative ways to get the music that we want to get.  And, of course, the competition gives us some choice in final product that we find appealing.

We hope we get some folks here interested in giving it a shot for kicks and grins at the least.

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13 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

nickmaynard wrote:

one idea - you could find a song you like on the site already and then just offer that person the $100 for the right to use it in your game.

We did think of that idea, Nick, but for better or for worse many of the artists here are composing songs in styles that have evolved quite a bit from mid 80's games. We're really looking for compositions that are, for lack of the vocabulary, more "video gamey."  Also, the competition does give us some options to choose from, whereas it might be more hit or miss going with a single artist.

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14 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Auxcide wrote:

Are you thinking actual boss sounding music (think final fantasy dramatic battle) or more like adventuring travelling dungeon music?

Good question.  I think we'll leave that up to you, the artists.  But keep in mind that the idea is for the music to be playing the whole game, from the "start of the adventure" to the "final battle," so that may inform your artistic choices.

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15 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Fair enough.  But keep in mind that we expect a fair bit of looping will be in that 10 minutes (as with classic games).  Also keep in mind that we're two brothers doing this on the side to try and make our dream come true.  We don't have a ton of cash to pay talented artists what they truly deserve, so we're trying the next best thing.  Please don't think the award value is a comment on what we think of the artists here.  We've been amazed with the quality of the posted music.

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16 Reply by coneal

(52 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I can understand the confusion, because it's a little bit of a gimmick.  To be clear, Boss Monster is NOT a video game.  It's a card game meant to pay homage to old side-scrolling 8-bit games.  The music on the sound track would be played as background music while players play the game.  Our goal is to have some sound to complete the old gaming feel of Boss Monster.

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