I'm sure the issue of the legalities of various Caravel properties and resources are fascinating and colorful, as is any endeavor of Erik's, and I say this without sarcasm. I must thank Panther for her summation of the reason I believed that the AE music is public domain. However, I feel it is a less immediate problem than what I am trying to discuss, and that we're getting away from discussion centered on the DROD soundtrack.
That
is a beautiful picture Banjooie posted, though, with the sunlight shining through the feathers and on the grass.
Anyway. Mike, first of all, I pitched the idea in these terms because I don't really know you personally. I know you're running a business, so I appealed to your business sense. I didn't mean to paint you as being greedy for money. I would note that while Danforth Strout is everyone's favorite cutthroat running gag salesman, even he would have to admit that it is possible to make money by actually giving people what they want. Ideally, everyone walks away from Caravel transactions happy with what they got. Good business doesn't have to mean thinking up ways to bilk people.
For example, making it convenient and fast to obtain the music (which means making it available by download) is good for everyone. Rabid fans find it very easy to obtain the music - they don't have to wait around until someone on the forum tells them about this buried utility in an old thread. Audiophiles don't have to go convert from one lossy music format to another just to put the tracks.
Nobody has to buy and download JtRH until they actually feel like playing JtRH. But while more convenient and satisfying their purchases surely means more people get around to giving you money, it also means fewer fans giving up after a short search for a way to get the music they're after. If you care more about the latter, well and good; but what I propose is what you want either way.
So why did I recommend Bandcamp? Well, I mentioned Bandcamp because I know a lot of small game companies put their soundtracks on there, for various seemingly sound reasons that I won't go into because there's no point. We have downloadable DMOD; that's the main thing. I will note that their ability to listen to an album before buying quite easily addresses the issue of players not knowing what they're buying, but being sure to have all the tracks also does that. FDROD will be free online; they can more or less preview there.
I also wish to posit to you that what our long-time fans want and what potential new fans want is not mutually exclusive. Heck, something a lot of long-time fans would like to see
is new fans. I don't know about you, but to me the Caravel community has felt a lot smaller and a bit lonelier every year since TCB's release. I would welcome an influx of new fans, their creativity and their energy, and while we attract them with FDROD, we keep them around by seeming like a nice place to be.
A company with no easily discovered provisions for obtaining the music of the game does not seem like a company thinking about what its customers want, because it is
inevitable that someone is going to want the soundtrack, and of those people some are going to want it in a nice album form for their mp3 player of choice. It is like a burger joint not anticipating that someone's going to want fries with that, and most likely ketchup to go with the fries.
Another thing: I think that while you may have heard that what people want is a rerelease of DMOD, what they
really want is the DROD soundtrack. Make a poll if you don't believe me. I really don't think people were ever crazy about Erik deciding what they'll listen to. I'm pretty sure that was just a result of limited space on the physical CDs.
Someone had to make a judgment call. Now, everyone should be able to get the entire soundtrack and make their own judgment call. (Shame about Emmett Plant's track, but have you asked him about it?)
I don't think it's a good idea to release a "
volume two"
. For one thing, if you were going to have two discs, with music from two games, the logical thing to do would be to divide them by game of origin. One reason for this is consistency in style of music. Another is discreteness of mental association. For another, thirty-odd tracks is not too much for one album -
the Aquaria OST has fifty. Finally, if you release another volume with the rest of the JtRH music and charge more than
one dollar for it, you're charging more than the price of the game the music is from, which your average buyer's common sense will rebel at, and of course they'll feel really gypped when they learn they could've saved money by buying the game and ripping the music from it
legally. Besides, who's going to buy just one volume when you have to buy both just to have one game's complete soundtrack?
So basically what I am saying is that you should put the rest of the JtRH and AE music in DMOD volume 1. Even Plant's track and the not-extended version of "
Ancient Machine"
, if you can. If you won't do it because it makes good business sense, then do it because it's what people actually want. That's a better reason anyway.
P.S. I only mentioned it would cost time because everything costs time and saying "
this costs Caravel nothing"
would therefore be incorrect. I did not mean to imply it would cost an inordinate amount of time, and I get the feeling if I'd said "
costs nothing"
you would be making the same point about how valuable time is.
____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator
[Last edited by Jatopian at 06-03-2012 07:10 AM]
