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It will, but there will be more than that, too.
Do you have anywhere else where you write about games from your perspective? I'd really like to know a lot more about the licensing process, and what you saw with Rocksmith.
I haven't gone into a lot of detail on this since it often only comes up on active projects and I would never want to put them at risk.
It's a bit like a neighbor who wants to borrow your car. I mean, that's valuable to you, right. You trust your neighbor, but you don't want you messing it up, and what if you need it while they're gone? Your neighbor can ask politely, explain why they want your car and how they intend to use it, but you do not have to say yes, and that could be for any number of personal reasons. And you don't even have to tell them what they are -- you can just say "No."
For RS, it was simple: approach the artist with a desire and a fee, and see if they accept it. Sometimes they did, sometimes they needed convincing, sometimes the fee was too low, and sometimes they just didn't want their music used in that context. Several top-tier artists simply said "no thank you" because they wanted people to experience their music via their albums and concerts and nothing else. They are the artist; we have to respect that. We invited many people to participate who simply declined.
But fans of those artists took it as a value judgment, as if we didn't like the artists they liked or didn't understand the importance of their music, so therefore we were idiots and we were insulting their musical tastes. Uh, no, bro -- your favorite artist just doesn't want you to learn their music in Rocksmith.
But you can't say that, right? You can't say "this band that inspired you to pick up a guitar in the first place doesn't care whether you learn their songs or not" or worse "they want more money than we can reasonably offer." Fans won't hear that because they don't want to hear that. And some artists changed their minds over time, sometimes saying yes on a repeat ask when they originally said no. So even if it's as simple as the artist declining (in one famous band's case, declining FIVE TIMES), you can never really put it on them.
Also, it's interesting because the rights are not always with just one party. Songs are written by multiple people all the time, so if they don't all agree, the permission is not granted. One foundational musician, a top-tier name in rock and roll history, gave percentages of some of his biggest songs to family members as gifts for college graduations and whatnot, so they'd be taken care of with a little extra income for years and years. That's very sweet -- but then it means you have to get permission from literally 17 different people to use that groundbreaking song.
So that's all music, not games, but it's sometimes just as murky. Sometimes the rights are disputed and multiple parties make a claim to it; some want to license and some don't, or there's risk if it's not clear exactly who owns what. And sometimes the rights are simply not available -- the IP holder knows what they have and they are not interested in letting other people use it. Maybe they have their own plans for that game and don't want someone else's project to get in the way of it.
Every situation is different and all you can do is ask with detailed information on how you intend to use it -- but you cannot force someone to let you use something they own, no matter how intensely fans feel that it "should be easy" or that a dev or pub should "just put it in there." It simply does not work that way.
Otherwise, you'd have given your neighbor the keys several paragraphs ago.
But Steam is not a museum. It's a commercial place. You could give us some more nintendo exclusives in the future at least. Really at least the gameboy Tetris.
I'm glad it was not my decision to left some old school titles out here.
Also, imo If you go the museum way, make it free or even open source.
I'll still buy this pack though at some point if on sale I guess. Because it's Tetris...
(Just pay the music licenses and give the players in the world joy)
My comments above still apply, though.
I would have loved to see the JP megadrive version too.
As am I. It was the first game I asked about when this project ramped up internally. Unfortunately, the rights to that version were not available.
Hopefully the game is successful enough, but I'm guessing that sales + game updates through patches will help entice more gamers to play if the reviews are dipping into lower scores post-launch. I know the devs are hardworking and passionate over there and they deserve the best. I think there's definitely some factors outside your control here
Since both THQ and Atari folded and were purchased by third parties I would assume the rights for some of these games are in limbo at this point.
But it feels so strange for a collection celebrating the history of Tetris not having the arcade version. This game was so big in the early 90s you couldn't walk into a bar or an arcade without finding the cabinet.