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Ubisoft has once again partnered with HitRecord, the production company of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, to produce game materials, all created by members of the HitRecord community, this time for Watch Dogs: Legion. The renewed partnership has once again angered game developers and other social media players who criticize the process as potentially exploitative "speculative work".
Specifically, Ubisoft and HitRecord have organized the order of 10 new songs for Watch Dogs: Legion. In a video posted on HitRecord's YouTube channel, Watch Dogs' creative director Clint Hocking: Legion, audio director Richie Nieto and HitRecord founder and director Gordon-Levitt describe the partnership as an opportunity to reflect the importance of the game for collaboration between characters across the open world. the music.
"The main innovation in Watch Dogs: Legion is that you can recruit and play as anyone, and bring them into your resistance, and thus become the heroes of your game," says Hocking. "When we started to think of it as a theme, then we had the idea that maybe we should work with the fans, the community, and other actors to add value and reflect that. theme in the musical landscape of our world. That's why we went to HitRecord. "
HitRecord basically works by creating a project page (in this case, a page has been created for Watch Dogs: Legion), then members of the HitRecord community (actually, anyone on the Internet who knows HitRecord) can register. to contribute to the project. Contributors cover a wide range. Some can record large parts of a song, while others can add an extra layer of music, remix it or sing voices. HitRecord then selects the work that it wants to use in this group of contributors and remunerates them according to the extent of their work.
Each of the songs HitRecord has ordered and sent to Ubisoft will receive a payment of $ 2,000, split between each participating artist. As with every HitRecord project, the distribution of this compensation will be posted online, and contributors will have two weeks to express their concerns about the amount of their compensation, although the final decision lies with HitRecord. More details on the payment operation on Watch Dogs Legion are available in a video published by HitRecord.
Anyone whose work has not been chosen to be used receives no payment.
HitRecord and Ubisoft had previously partnered with Beyond Good & Evil 2, with members of the community ostensibly creating works of art, posters, and music that would end up in the game world. HitRecord as a whole collaborated to books, shows, movies, commercials, etc.
This partnership, along with previous work by Ubisoft and HitRecord on Beyond Good & Evil 2, has raised concerns among the gaming community, with some calling this process an operator. Some Twitter users used the #nospec hashtag, which means "no speculative work".
The American Institute of Graphic Arts describes "specific work" as "free work in the hope of getting paid for it" or "work done in the hope of winning a prize, in any form whatsoever" but concedes that unpaid work is paid. Work can take many forms and ultimately is a decision between the employer and a worker who must be aware of the risks.
"It sucks. Pay people for their work, "said Mike Bithell, developer of John Wick Hex, Circular Subsurface, Thomas Was Alone and others. "Stop exploiting fans and hobbyists, while devaluing the work of those who have the gall to wait until the work done is paid consistently. Do better Ubi, we are counting on you. #nospec. Best suggested approach: Launch an open call for proposals for the works of budding musicians. Invest in an appropriate review process. Ask those whose work is suitable and pay them to produce work, as you would with any other worker. "
Bithell then clarified that, legally, he could not ask a unionized professional actor like Gordon-Levitt to work on the assumption that he would only be paid if he liked his job compared to 100 others. actors.
Scott Benson, co-creator of Night in the Woods, tweeted that he was not surprised that Ubisoft was coming back to HitRecord's content creation method.
"I'm still not a fan of what would read as a model" spec work under an exclusive open exclusive license model ", and I'd rather" pay someone to browse SoundCloud to find cool music. " for which you then talk to the creator and pay it too., "I said Rami Ismail, co-creator of the independent studio Vlambeer.
IGN had previously expressed concerns about the speculative work of social network users and the developer community after the announcement of the partnership between HitRecord and Ubisoft for BG & E2 during the E3 2018. At the time, Gordon-Levitt had expressed regret over the communication of HitRecord's structure.
"Honestly, this worry was pretty painful to hear," Gordon-Levitt wrote in an article on Medium shortly after Ubisoft's E3 2018 presentation. "It's not at all what I think about the creative process of our community. I think part of this disconnect is a mere misinformation. "
According to Rock Paper Shotgun, $ 50,000 has been set aside to pay Beyond Good & Evil 2 contributors, but the HitRecord website indicates that these payments are pending.
IGN contacted Ubisoft and HitRecord for a comment, but did not immediately receive a response. We will update this story with more information as it becomes available.
Joseph Knoop is a screenwriter / producer for IGN.
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