I'm a professional music composer (g4TV, numerous mobile and online games, AAA title coming soon) who is looking to provide service to student development groups who would otherwise not be able to afford my normal freelance rates. I am exploring different ways of working with online teams so that designers feel that they are getting a good value for paying up front. Among my ideas are... 1. keeping the publishing rights to custom designed music rather than allowing them to be bought out (so I can sell at a lower price and then resell) 2. selling a packaged bundle "RPG starter kit" with basic RPG setting material to get started at a low price point (probably between $25 and $50 dollars)while maintaining resale rights 3. offering a redeemable coupon for developers who want to continue working with me, have serious commercial goals and are looking customized music for their title 4. giving away one song (probably RPG battle music) as a freely available item I am first exploring the idea of working with students and novice programmers, and my goal is help people with a lot of ambition. I'm not sure if these ideas have been tried before, or whether an offer along these lines would be percieved as valuable in the GDnet community. I am extremely open to feedback, and I view this as a personal learning experience in merchandising. Please let me know what you think. All the best, -Matt www.2eastmusic.com matt@2eastmusic.com

I'm definitely interested, especially if it's similar to partners in rhyme's business model

I am neither a game developer or a professional music composer (I'm a crappy one), but I really like your idea. I think 25-50 bucks would be really worth it for professional sounding music. Music really enhances the experience of a game, so good music would be quite worth it. It is an interesting business model.

My question is this though: What happens if somebody's little project takes off and gets sold commercially, would they still be allowed to use your music without paying you royalties?

Also I could envision all sorts of packaged bundles, like Action Game bundle, and Race Game Bundle, Cutesy Platform Bundle etc...

My question is this though: What happens if somebody's little project takes off and gets sold commercially, would they still be allowed to use your music without paying you royalties?

Yes, that would follow logically. However when a project really takes off, its likely to assume that they'd want exclusive music and could afford to shell out a few more bucks - which is why the offer comes with a coupon toward my freelance rates. So in a sense the product pays for its self in that scenario.

Also I could envision all sorts of packaged bundles, like Action Game bundle, and Race Game Bundle, Cutesy Platform Bundle etc...

Right now I'm really focused on the RPG genre, but I'm certainly building towards a model of expansion packs.


Been getting a lot of encouraging feedback so far... I'm launching an online store very soon selling bundled content packs of RPG music at a fantastic value compared to my normal freelance rates. Some samples of the material are available online at http://myspace.com/2eastmusic

Please let me know what you think. All the best,

-Matt
www.2eastmusic.com
matt@2eastmusic.com