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Kickstarter FAQ / issues / concerns


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This type of statement is intended to dissuade people from ever criticizing and that will always be counter-productive.

What's counter productive is complaining about the high cost of a physical album, even when it is clearly labeled as "DONATION". No one needs a physical and they're not entitled to it. We're not talking about buying goods here. You're donating and receiving a reward.

What's counter productive is complaining about the quality control to a guy who already ran a successful 4-disc Final Fantasy project.

I can't help but feel slightly peeved at the way this was answered, and also wouldn't mind knowing the actual print cost per disc of FF6 when that information is available.

Printing costs: $5,600 for 1,500 copies in nice full-color DVD cases with 4 CDs each

Delivery costs: $400 to get the printed CDs to OCR HQ in Fairfax, VA

Shipping costs: $6,500 to ship up to 1,500 copies to donors and project ReMixers

Kickstarter/Amazon fees: $1,500

Studio/mastering budget: $1,000 (remainder) to be used as-needed

That's $15k.

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Until everyone printing albums starts publicizing their bank statements, there won't truly be accountability anywhere. I'm not saying I don't trust your word -- I do, but I also trusted the word of the people running VV.

Okay, but that's different from any of my responses being *inaccurate*, right? As in, you're more trusting than I am, and that's what it basically amounts to? Please remember that on these sorts of topics, it's not as much about my personal level of trust - I feel that I need to be more risk-adverse to look out for & protect OC ReMix as a whole...

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Okay, but that's different from any of my responses being *inaccurate*, right? As in, you're more trusting than I am, and that's what it basically amounts to? Please remember that on these sorts of topics, it's not as much about my personal level of trust - I feel that I need to be more risk-adverse to look out for & protect OC ReMix as a whole...

I can understand that. They were offering to give the album for an $8 donation -- which most-likely would involve international shipping of a double-disc album with an art book. How could that have costed $2 or $4 like you stated before? How could it cost $8? :tomatoface: FoxxDragon was anticipating a pretty substantial loss of his own money in that scenario. I didn't understand what was happening at the time, I admit it. That's my own fault for not keeping up with it as well as I could have in their project thread. But I just don't understand how it could have a risk money-wise, unless you were thinking they might have taken donations and not shipped the albums at all? I think that's a pretty grim thing to presume about anyone... especially with all the work said persons had already done for the album and the very high hopes Mr. Foxx had for printing that art book-based album for mass consumption.

I guess it was mostly that which I felt was inaccurate: the price of 2 to 4 bucks and the discrediting of those who were trying to accomplish the goal. I can fully understand it from the perspective of wanting to avoid it as a potential risk in general, but I didn't understand it on those 2 points.

Anyway.... I hope you don't mind the posts I made on NeoGAF. Hopefully not surprising to you, they were in support of OCR and what OCR is trying to do here. I've been working hard for years here and to be branded just some drama-seeker who doesn't care or sees OCR in a negative light really hurts and I deserve more respect and trust than that at this point. :cry:

Fuck that. I keep it REAL. [/Chris Rock]

You forgot the :lol:

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They have sold fan CDs of Xenogears, Chrono Trigger and other Square titles before. These sort of doujin music projects are fairly common and aren't typically shut down so long as the music is remixed and the performances are original.

Except that's 100% wrong and we've never done that here. They're probably confusing us with KFSS Studios or OneUp Studios (Project Majestic Mix/SquareDance/Xenogears Light/etc) as far as sold Square arrangement albums. And those were licensed indirectly through services like Harry Fox, IIRC, as they were being sold for profit.

Worth repeating, since I'm seeing the claim, but no one's being "paid" for this Kickstarter. The excess will go to improving the album (both the digital and physical), expanding what the supporters get for rewards, and then anything left would go for bandwidth/site costs long-term. No one is achieving personal gain with a cent of this fundraising money, otherwise we'd have musicians with pitchforks coming. We've not sold or profited from promoting free arrangements for 12+ years, but if you're going to complain about this as far as a Kickstarter, you might as well criticize what little we get from the Google AdSense ads. They don't make much money, but you could argue we're getting "paid" by Google, when everything is fed back into costs for the site (bandwidth, printing albums, promoting OCR and the albums that come out). If we can afford to do printed promotional copies of future albums after FF6 because of this Kickstarter, for example, it's worth it, but it would be used as a helpful cushion for future costs, not money that's being pocketed by staff or artists.

90% of the stuff I've heard of OC Remix has been absolutely terrible, most of them have absolutely no sense of what made the original pieces so good in the first place. I mean, often the whole "feel" of the piece will be changed while the original composer's intention was to fit the piece in with the mood and theme of the level in-game. Once you stray too far from that it fails to actually have any sense of what it is to be a videogame theme.

Always annoying when fake hyperbolic stats get thrown out there.

Anyway, this boils down to...

*** "I couldn't play the game with this version in it." ***

So what? That's not necessarily not the point of an interpretive arrangement. It's not designed to be dropped into the original game as a replacement for the original music, so no one should be looking at it that way. The point is to creatively interpret the game music with different ideas, oftentimes in new styles and genres. If you need something to sound like the original music, go listen to the original music. But it's silly to criticize the arrangements for something they're not trying to be.

A whole heap of them just take the main melody and add in a dodgy techno drum beat and ramp up the cheesiness to maximum levels.

Truly spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea what music has been posted here, but spoken with conviction. :lol:

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I agree with Lion here. As a fellow remixer I would like to think that the music I've contributed to site adds different twists to the original themes. I agree that some remixes are better than others but the roots of failure lay in the seeds of comparison. It's so easy to post whatever you want to say on the internet. I think that in this case we can say that someone was just having a bad day and decided to take it out on OCRemix.

I'm excited about this project, I don't care what anyone says, numbers speak volumes to how people really feel about this.

-Derek

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Meh you can't please everyone all of the time. Some people will say "gross this sounds like nothing like the original" while others will say "gross this sounds too much like the original." Some people just like complaining.

Some of my favorite ReMixes are the ones that take the source and creatively change the genre and style into something new and different; others may not agree. But as derako said, the proof is in the numbers. "OCR is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form." The goal is to pay tribute to VGM composers and VGM as a whole and there are many people who recognize that and want to support it.

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Meh you can't please everyone all of the time. Some people will say "gross this sounds like nothing like the original" while others will say "gross this sounds too much like the original." Some people just like complaining.

Ditto.

Unfortunate that some folks seem to want to pick apart this Kickstart solicitation, and OCR in general. I couldn't be happier about all the professional-quality free music I have gotten from OCR over the last decade, and I think this pledge drive is being done just fine (clearly the naysayers are in the minority with the $35k+ that has already been pledged).

I have never contributed to OCR before, and would not buy a hard copy of this album (I'm all digital and vinyl at home), but something about the way this is being presented left no doubt in my mind that I would donate as soon as I saw it, and I will probably keep my disc for a good long time as a reminder of how proud I was to be able to contribute along with so many other good folks to make an awesome project like this a reality.

And I would imagine most of the 600 folks who have already contributed get that we are not buying a product, but donating and getting a thank-you gift for doing so. NPR and other nonprofits do this sort of thing all the time, and I think at a similar ratio of product value to donation amount.

So, in essence, kudos to the folks who put this together, and congratulations on the awesome response!! (...and please do let us know what is going to happen to all the extra moneys when you have figured that out)

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My concern is OCR's underestimation of their backing. I think it was poorly done and they're going to have a lot of trouble figuring what to do with the 200-300% excess without passing it off as profit.

Should've set a funding ceiling limit for the Kickstarter. If Kickstarter doesn't let you do that, I would say this isn't really something that should go on Kickstarter.

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I just want to point out that all of the answers given concerning the Vampire Variations situation were completely inaccurate.

Vampire Variations was going to be a 2 disc professional print for a donation of $8 each, whereas FF6 is going to be 4 discs for $50.

I can't help but feel slightly peeved at the way this was answered, and also wouldn't mind knowing the actual print cost per disc of FF6 when that information is available.

In that thread djp said they should price VV at "2 to 4 dollars"... shouldn't it be reasonable then that this 4-disc album could have been priced at 4 to 8 dollars?

No.

Remember, you're not paying $50 to purchase your own copy of the 4-disc print. You're donating $50 towards funding a very large print run.

Think of it this way: you're not paying for one copy. You're paying for a bunch of copies, and we toss one of them your way as a thanks.

When all is said and done and we've sent out all of the backers' rewards, we still need to have copies of the album left over for promotional stuff.

Kickstarter isn't a store, and people shouldn't think of backer rewards as purchases, even in the not-for-profit way. The situations are not really the same at all.

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it'll be fine, we have so many ideas for additional coolness, we won't be able to do them all regardless of funding. :-)

Pretty much what I would assume. I don't know if there are legal issues or a possible fan outcry to deal with, but for my own two cents, I have faith that the money will be spent in a way that will not make me feel exploited.

I will say (although it's perhaps obvious) that the sooner these ideas are public, the better for this particular concern.

Specifically the Teen Agent Special Edition Box Set and collectible card game

Special silver-bordered holographic autographed portrait-sized Teen Agent CCG cards will surely appease the public, no?

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My idea to fly a crew to Hollywood to produce the 30-minute trailer was taken off the table early.

No one liked my idea of FF6 drink cozies either. :/

Pretty much what I would assume. I don't know if there are legal issues or a possible fan outcry to deal with, but for my own two cents, I have faith that the money will be spent in a way that will not make me feel exploited.

I will say (although it's perhaps obvious) that the sooner these ideas are public, the better for this particular concern.

we had no idea that the support would be this overwhelming, and figured that we would have plenty of time to figure out extra stuff if it got to that point. We even had an emergency meeting last night to discuss it, and will be meeting again tonight. As soon as we have something nailed down, we will let everyone know, and I promise it will be better than cozies.

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Should've set a funding ceiling limit for the Kickstarter. If Kickstarter doesn't let you do that, I would say this isn't really something that should go on Kickstarter.

Why is it such a big deal if this gets over-funded? Even if it generates a huge surplus, it's not like the site is suddenly for-profit. Seriously, it's like it's a crime to generate a huge pool of money that might just be beneficial to a not-for-profit site for years to come.

I am irked by all the "wtf guys, you're too successful!" that I see when projects (including this one) do well on Kickstarter.

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Why is it such a big deal if this gets over-funded? Even if it generates a huge surplus, it's not like the site is suddenly for-profit. Seriously, it's like it's a crime to generate a huge pool of money that might just be beneficial to a not-for-profit site for years to come.

I am irked by all the "wtf guys, you're too successful!" that I see when projects (including this one) do well on Kickstarter.

Also, "worst case" scenario is that we have a huge surplus and are able to have the option to do physical runs of more albums in the future. I certainly would love to see copies of 'Teen Agent 2 : Teen Harder' out in the wild.

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BGC, I am concerned for OCR's appearance in the legal system.

Whether you're handling the surplus well in a harmless not-for-profit way or not, Square Enix isn't gonna care when all they see is you guys generating oodles of funding for something that has Final Fantasy all over it.

However, if you guys have tons and tons of prize ideas lined up for this, it seems you have it under control.

Perhaps if you stated that out in the open you guys wouldn't have had so much negative feedback.

Its great to see that you've smashed the target. Surely the excess will only help with the site bandwidth/maintence costs which can't be meager considering the amount of music downloaded along with everyone posting to say ZOMG WTF!?!?! (in a good way that is :smile: )

It's not really legal to take donations for one thing and then use it for something else.

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IHis statement was simply an opinion, as was mine.

Do you realize how hypocritical this kind of statement is?

He calls someone's hard work "techno filth" and then he expects not to be insulted back? What kind of world are you living in where it's acceptable to say someone's personal creation is filth but not to call him an idiot?

You don't have to target a person directly to insult him. The guy was a douchebag and he insulted the people who worked to put that album together.

Insulting one guy versus insulting tens. Decide which is worse.

The internet doesn't work in a way where you can pay $50 to get out of being called out on your douchebaggery.

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Do you realize how hypocritical this kind of statement is?

He calls someone's hard work "techno filth" and then he expects not to be insulted back?

You don't have to target a person directly to insult him. The guy was a douchebag and he insulted the people who worked to put that album together.

Insulting one guy versus insulting tens. Decide which is worse.

It was broadcasted on twitter instead of responded to on NeoGAF itself. Honestly, a lot of these compilations are a sea of shit you have to wade through to find a few gems. That's my OPINION, of course. Many others share the same opinion as I, and people who make things for public consumption should get used to criticism. It's not hard to ignore comments like that.

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Hyperbolic example of some insult vs. insult + indignation (finally a reason to look the word and and start using it): "You are a filthy, horrible turd of subhuman scum, and you should be put down and your house burned down. No offense. :)"

On a slightly less confrontational note: We're at twice past the goal already? How'd this happen? It's like ppl actually like what we do. :D

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