Need input on music licensing deal for XNA Community Game

[sgx]

Hey folks, this isn't remixing related, but this is probably the best place to find people who would be able to give me feedback on this type of music for games business stuff. I already PMed Another Soundscape a bit about his experiences with Artoon (thanks man!), though the deal I'm trying to finagle with the developers of the game I'm working on is a bit more intricate because I'm attempting to retain full ownership of what I make and may plan on selling an album containing the exact music or versions of the music.

I believe the way I will be getting paid for the music will be a certain percentage of the profits once the game is available.

The guy from the team and I have just briefly discussed this, but his initial idea is that the rest of the team is entitled to a percentage of my profits from any sales from the music. He suggested 50% which I think is a pretty huge chunk.

I definitely would be benefiting from the exposure the game would bring to the music, and perhaps that is worth a piece of my profits. However I reach a decent amount of people myself with my music, and that would provide some exposure back to the game as well. It's probably not equal, but the relationship is mutually beneficial. What do you think?

I'd be using art assets from the game for any cover art/packaging if I do a physical item. I definitely agree I'd owe a little something at least to the concept artist on the team.

The guy made the argument that everybody on the team puts in work, be it on coding, art, animation, etc, but they don't get a second pay day. My feeling on that is somewhat of the "tough nuts" attitude. The format of my contribution to the game happens to be viable for a separate release, and theirs is not. That's just how the ball bounces. Also, I have built my own channel for release (protagonistrecords.net) and the listenership to make it worth my time to try and sell all on my own, without any help from the dev team.

I really don't want to have to calculate how much I owe and cut a check every month, especially years down the road where I'm making maybe $4 a month from slow iTunes sales. I also want to have the full ability to remix, let others remix, possibly sell those remixes, quit selling and distribute the album free if I feel like it that day without worrying, "Is this ok with the team," "how much will I owe them", etc. It just makes stuff complicated.

I definitely see how any potential release I do with the music I make for the game will have benefited from exposure due to the rest of the team's work on the game, and perhaps they should be compensated, especially if they give me a splash screen in the beginning saying, "Music by SGX available at sgxmusic.com, itunes, and amazon mp3".

What do you think? Should I agree to toss them a percentage if I end up selling an OST? How much?

Maybe in the name of keeping things simple, I could take a slightly lower cut of the profits on the game and call that my payment for the rights completely own what I do with the music.

Thanks for any input. Our game is gonna be rad if it gets completed!

Oh, that reminds me of one last thing! In the event that the game DOESN'T get completed, or I happen to quit or get fired, I want to make sure that I retain all the rights to any completed or in progress works they obtained from me. Are there licensing document templates for things like this I can look at?

[audio fidelity]

i don't know these deals - but everything is highly negotiable - for you not being well established you don't have lot of weight to pull but feel free to stand on your terms

most deals that i am aware of composers do not make a royalty - but are simply 'work for hire' - but that brings me back to everything is HIGHLY negotiable

if you want the deal to be a certain way just make sure to get it in writing - it it says 'work for hire' they own it and not you

since your planning on using these songs further down the road it makes it for an interesting deal - at the least just make sure you have the right to do what you want with the tracks without their say-so

and the percentage thing is totally your call - on what you think is acceptable - if you had a publisher they would do the work for you - you can even hire a publisher just to push the papers

[Zephyr]

They should be paying YOU for the music and that's that if you ask me. While they all put in their share to make the game, they had no part whatsoever in making the music. If they want royalties for something you made, I think it's unfair, however you can do whatever you choose. I'd try to simply license it to them for use in their game and try to keep the rights to it yourself.

[sgx]

Thanks a lot for the input folks.

[Malcos]

I agree with what the others have said, as far as I know a flat fee is paid to video game musicians. If you had done this for a film, you could also be getting paid every time a copy of the film was made, and every time it was played in the cinema, then paid again for each copy of a dvd made. Hmm paid film work is sounding good!

50% is a hell of a margin for them to be taking - if they did all the work for the album release (packaging, sales, shipping etc) then maybe - but since you are going to be doing all that, seems a lot. Let us know what you decide...

[Beatdrop]

Yeah, I dunno about that bullshit.

When I licensed to Konami, their contract was so straightforward that it was shocking. I retained full ownership of my music and freedom to do with it as I pleased. They paid me a flat rate of $1000 per track licensed, and the only thing the contract said I'm NOT allowed to do is license the song to anyone else for inclusion in a Music Simulation Game for a period of 1 year after the date of the contract.

50% is a ridiculous amount.

[Hy Bound]

I'd say the fair thing to do is that you have them license your music for a flat fee. This would mean you would bank on the fact that your notoriety plus the little bit extra that they would pull in for you would be enough to pay off the rest of the percentage you didn't get per unit sold. It would be a little tough to negotiate that since it seems like you are going to be relatively active in making the music fit in with the game...

However, if you did agree to the terms of percentages on both sides I'd say whatever they were going to give you in the first place and maybe 10% from you to them on the album sold. You could possibly bump that to 15% if you say ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING you make for the game is yours and you can do with it what you will. The only drawback is that if you agree to percentages on the album, it doesn't exactly sound like you would completely own it... But 50% is fucking bullshit. Hell, 25% is pushing it considering you have your own means of publishing/releasing it.

But then again, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Then theres the possibility that the game becomes super mega huge and then you better fucking be getting a percentage.

[sgx]

I appreciate all the input again, folks. Good stuff to think on.

Still discussing with the guy. The 50% figure he mentioned I think was just off the top of his head and he hasn't ever dealt with or thought about this type of business before, and he knows we will be negotiating.

What we decided we need to work out before we talk about music sales, is the nature of my contract with them - am I a development partner, or more of a contractor.

I'll likely be back asking more stuff once I get further here! Thanks.

[dannthr]

Yeah, Beatdrop's contract is about what I would expect from professional licensing situations--with high variance on the price. (I've seen commercials go for about 20 grand for a minute and a half for exclusive 1 yr licenses)

The problem is that you're not dealing with Konami, you're dealing with an indie project.

Here's the bottom line. Either they're paying you for a full buy-out of the soundtrack or you own the soundtrack and you are licensing the music to them non-exclusively.

I have some old indie projects that I'm still attached to because they just keep going, but my agreement with them is that I am licensing the music for use in their game and only their one game for whatever profit I rake in.

If they want to pay full buy-out for the soundtrack, they can, but they can't afford it, so that's not what's happening.

Full buy-out for the soundtrack for me would be a lot for their game but with full buy-out they could probably justify a shitty soundtrack deal.

First thing is first, re: second payday bull shit:

If they sell an art book, then the artists should be in on that action if not entirely in on that action. The programmers are building algorithms and code skeletons that they will use on other projects. The designers are creating systems that they will be able to take with them to other games.

Don't let these guys dick you around.

I recently conducted a preliminary survey on freelance per minute music buy out rates and randomly sampled a few dozen folks from all experience levels:

[Nekofrog]

Yeah, I dunno about that bullshit.

When I licensed to Konami, their contract was so straightforward that it was shocking. I retained full ownership of my music and freedom to do with it as I pleased. They paid me a flat rate of $1000 per track licensed, and the only thing the contract said I'm NOT allowed to do is license the song to anyone else for inclusion in a Music Simulation Game for a period of 1 year after the date of the contract.

50% is a ridiculous amount.

Wow that sounds like an amazing contract.

[Blue123]

Wow man, that graph is actually pretty useful. I didn't have much knowledge of typical pay rates for music, so now I do. This helped me a lot!

[zircon]

Well, for the record, don't expect to get paid anywhere near most of those values unless you're working for for big companies with big budgets. With independent developers you're very lucky to get paid more than $50 a minute at most. In fact, you're lucky to get paid at all. 95%+ of the gigs I've seen are unpaid.

[dannthr]

Actually, casual online games like those found at Big Fish Games . com probably average a per minute fee for custom composition of $150/min to $500/min--for the record.

However, my survey suggests that prices for these services are going DOWN, which is a VERY bad thing considering, even in this year where the economy was poop, the games industry did better than last year. Games are the premier form of entertainment in the united states and as long as there's some ass who will write for $50/min, there will be developers asking for $50/min.

The average reported rate for games categorized as CASUAL ONLINE games in my survey was $252/min (with the lowest respondant quoting about 30 and the two highest respondants quoting 1000).

Now, in my opinion, if you're an average composer with an average number of credits/experience, you should be aiming at about $252/min.

Personally, I've done it for less than that, I have, I'm not afraid to admit that, but I've never done it for $50/min and it's hard not to because the desire to work on a game is very high and I get lots of inquiries that ask for music for less than $150/min--we must resist that temptation if possible.

There are other reasons, of course, to take a job for less. You could be in desperate need of experience, which has a value only to you, you could also just like the project, again, value only to you, and you could also do it for a favor or for charity, and you could also live in Pakistan for all I know--these are decisions you have to make when you bid for a project--just keep in mind that when you bid for a project, you influence the entire industry.

Just a little advice:

NEVER publicly advertise your rates--you may never escape them and forum posts will be dug up for years.

Besides, it's just bad business to quote a project before you even know what project it is.

Per minute fees are not always appropriate. A battle piece may require far more work than an ambient piece but be the same number of minutes--make the project worth your time and don't undervalue yourself, your services, and what your music means to the game.

[sgx]

dannthr, that's very good info - thanks a lot.

Last time I posted, I emailed the guy back proposing a possible combination of up-front payment (perhaps per minute) and a percentage of the profits. It's an XBL Community game and as far as I know so far, there isn't really any sales data out there. I want to make some money on it, so getting paid some directly for the work is nice, but I also want to be in on the profits if somehow it takes off. I didn't talk about specific numbers yet. I haven't heard back from him yet.

This is definitely a very indie group - I believe the 5 other members graduated or recently graduated from college and are planning on working fulltime on the project. I'm not sure if they have any kind of budget. As far as I know, all the other team members are working free until the game starts to make a profit.

Also, I have to be somewhat involved in the development since the gameplay has some interaction with the music. I'm not just making background music - I'll have to tune it and modify it to work well with the gameplay systems. I can't just make tunes and ship em off and because of this, my contribution isn't as simple and quantifiable as the amount of minutes of music I produce.

Still waiting to hear back from him...will go from there once I get a response.

[dannthr]

Independent productions' budgets are a touchy subject, period. It's okay to break the ice, so to speak, and just inquire about their budget and their music needs.

I will look at a project with almost any budget, but I will also make recommendations or suggestions that do not lead to me contracting with them.

Sometimes a game with a very small budget will be able to afford a great title theme but have to license the rest of the music.

Other times, it's important to know the value of the contract to you. If this is your first game, then the credit itself is meaningful to your business--it has value--and so you might consider taking a pay cut because you don't have the provable experience needed to command higher rates or more respectable gigs.

[sgx]

Yeah, I'm assuming I'm going to be working pretty cheap. It is worth it to me because the game concept seems very cool and I think it would be fun to do. Also, hopefully by the end I'll have an interesting OST that fans of mine and the game may be interested in buying.

[PhiJayy]

Yeah, I'm assuming I'm going to be working pretty cheap. It is worth it to me because the game concept seems very cool and I think it would be fun to do. Also, hopefully by the end I'll have an interesting OST that fans of mine and the game may be interested in buying.

Even if you are working cheap. (Hopefully only for a short period of time.) At least after the project is done, you'll feel like you accomplished something...plus if things go really well you're music could be exposed to a lot more people.

I personally would rather license my music to some company like Konami, but it's really all about the exposure. Lot's of ways to get some..

Plus, plus, if you you've got an OST going on...I'll buy it probably in a heartbeat.

[sgx]

I should post an update here.

I was negotiating with their "business" guy who was pretty adamant that they would not be able to pay anyone until revenue comes in. I told him politely that I thought that was BS and that I would require at least a little money paid to me as I complete assignments, while conceding that most of my share can wait till we make money. I stressed that it was important to me that they put their money where there mouth is, since I've worked on a couple projects in the past with the "we'll pay you when we make money" idea and those never were completed. Paying me some money as I work lets me know that they are very serious about this venture.

Soon after that, some stuff went down with a couple members who then quit for other reasons (our game is 2d and apparently our animator is only good at 3d work), and our business guy has decided to restructure, seek investors for funding so they can pay, and do things in a more businesslike fashion in general it seems.

We're working on a one level concept demo which they will demo to some investors and get a real budget. That is the hope. I've agreed to do music for this demo for free. That's not too much wasted time for me if it goes nowhere.

Things are looking better at the moment.

[Zephyr]

Do the music for the demo for free if you want, but don't let them push you around and don't give you money. Those people quitting is just another reason to assume that this might not end up finishing... A lot of these projects fall through. I'd take a small bit of cash for each song that you do (the work is done regardless of if they use it or not) while maintaining the rights to it and with promise of some more money when they make it. Good luck with the negotiations though.

[sgx]

Yeah the people quitting could be a bad sign, but also it may be good. As I understand it, after coming to the realization that the 3D artist didn't really have a role to play and that he shouldn't be on the project, that bothered one of the programmers who was the 3D artist's good friend and they left the project together. As I see it, it's really cutting out the fat and ensuring that those participating are here to make a successful game and not do a fun project with friends. That's what I hope at least!

But yes, I'm not going further than what's required for our demo until i start seeing green in my hand. Pho shizzle!

[dannthr]

Unless they go merrily off and make a "funner" game!

[anosou]

Well, for the record, don't expect to get paid anywhere near most of those values unless you're working for for big companies with big budgets. With independent developers you're very lucky to get paid more than $50 a minute at most. In fact, you're lucky to get paid at all. 95%+ of the gigs I've seen are unpaid.

Truth. My gigs (all XNA) are in that price range (around $50) and are paid per minute, all at once. I always stress that I retain the right to publish the soundtrack but I always do it for free since I don't believe in selling game music I've already get paid for once. It's my way of giving back to the VGM community.

Anyway, XNA games pay shit BUT they're a great way to make a name for yourself. Since Artoon (my first game job) hit #4 all time downloaded XNA game I've been getting more attention from similar developers.. It's all about getting the experience first (1-3 years and then we're talking VGM not music in general) and then request a whole bag of money. Especially with the new crowd of youngsters, inspired by the likes of OCR and uematsu, that does all this for free. Many developers don't recognize quality either so if you find a good one, keep his number and e-mail

I always call BS when they say they will pay me when they get revenues. You shuold get paid when the entire soundtrack is done or per track. Since you're not doing this for a living I wouldn't take dannthr's advice on $251 (no offense) because the competition when it comes to indie games, as I said, is sick. MANY are doing it for free. When you're doing Xbox Live Arcade or Playstation Network THEN you should ask for it.

Also, getting a small % of the revenue is great but be sure to get a contract so they don't bitchslap you with that. I get 5% of Artoon though I have fiddle a lot with setting myself up as a company to accept the payment. something about M$, US and yada yada. Most indie developers accept paypal but if you're gonna do it for a living you HAVE to set up a company.

[dannthr]

The only reason people don't get paid more for game music is because they don't require it. Bottom line.

When all the little guys and beginners who have no concept of their worth go around and sell their music for less--it creates an imbalance in the indie market.

What people DON'T get, especially people with very NARROW vision of the marketplace, is that you're not going to get paid more money by developers who are used to paying you for less. All you have done is taught developers that it's okay to undervalue music services.

It's a marketplace imbalance. You're either a part of the solution or you're a part of the problem. There isn't an inbetween when it comes to these kinds of market dynamics.

[anosou]

The only reason people don't get paid more for game music is because they don't require it. Bottom line.

When all the little guys and beginners who have no concept of their worth go around and sell their music for less--it creates an imbalance in the indie market.

What people DON'T get, especially people with very NARROW vision of the marketplace, is that you're not going to get paid more money by developers who are used to paying you for less. All you have done is taught developers that it's okay to undervalue music services.

It's a marketplace imbalance. You're either a part of the solution or you're a part of the problem. There isn't an inbetween when it comes to these kinds of market dynamics.

I'm talking about Indie devs for such platforms as XNA. We're talking perhaps one or two sweaty students with loans up their throats.

I'm not saying you shouldn't demand as much money as possible, I'm saying it's okay to start somewhere and with smaller devs (we're talking SMALL) $50 is good! Especially if you don't have any experience with composing video game music. Here I'm saying specifically "composing video game music" because it is a different thing than writing a song in your basement.

I see where you're coming from and I somehow agree but being part of the solution is charging $50, not $210, because the real beginners (who might have skill) are charging $0. Because regardless of how you want the market to develop, you can't get work now using the fees you suggested. Again, no offense in any way but I think you're oversimplifying the problem. Beginners are always beginners, you can't charge $210 as a beginner. There IS an in-between.