‘Beat Saber’ Gets New ‘Rocket League’ Monstercat Music Pack DLC

Yeah, it’s definitely a conspiracy and not the more popular game getting advice from lawyers while smaller games sail beneath the radar.

No, they wouldn’t, because Windows is an open platform and there’s more layers to obfuscate responsibility on an open platform like that. On Quest, it’s directly on them. I’m pretty sure for Synth Riders the modding is still done through sideloading correct? Oculus doesn’t moderate what happens through that, and the responsibility is on the game developer. Synth Riders isn’t a big title so they’re flying under the radar a bit, but what they’re doing is still risky on the Quest and could lead to lawsuits. Beat Games, corporations in general, aren’t always trying to pull one over on you.

I suspect it could have as much to do with maintaining positive relationships with publishers as it does with legal issues. Overall I think the biggest issue in any case isn’t a lack of custom songs but a dearth of official ones. They are trickling out at far too slow a pace. I know I’d be more than happy to pony up at the going rate of a dollar a song or a monthly membership fee if there was a more respectable amount of content available. Paying for content only makes sense.

Yes, too slow a pace to keep up with potential engagement. A new song pack per week in the vein of Guitar Hero or Rock Band would be great. As is, the song pack per month gets old in a few days. Playing the same few songs over again only holds interest so long, especially for a game with the potential to otherwise become part of people’s daily routine. A random metric like “more songs have come out since Quest release than existed in the game in the first place” means nothing given the dearth that existed already and still does relative to the existing market.

They’re not only leaving stacks of money on the table, but losing audience engagement as is. I’m not saying they’re completely bungling the project they’ve obviously seen great success, just that the point at which supply meets demand is somewhere on the horizon. The CEO of the company recently stepped down from that role in order to fully pursue getting more music on the platform more quickly, so I think it’s fair to assume this is something they seem to realize as well. A streaming service with monthly membership would be ideal, but the intricacies of negotiating with publishers/artists for rights are likely the biggest hurdles so streamlining their processes in that regard I’m sure is their immediate focus. If I had to bet, I feel they’ll get there eventually the question is when.

I think I have a fair understanding of what it would take to accomplish this, with an enthusiast’s interest in both the music industry and game development (there’s a link to my music in my profile!). I’m not accusing them of gross negligence. At worst they may have lost a few months of productive time spent towards fully pursuing getting the most music they could onto their platform in the quickest time, but I certainly wouldn’t claim to know that they’s mismanaged their resources. What I’m arguing is that the pace at which they are currently releasing music is far below demand, that’s all.

A streaming service is pie-in-the-sky at this point, but doable eventually and a great long term goal. If I were advising them for some reason, I’d first focus on independent artists and labels that are easier to deal with for licensing, and then pursue the larger artists like Imagine Dragons and Panic at the Disco. This would give them a larger library as a base to keep engagement up, and to fill gaps between those bigger releases. If I was really reaching I’d like to see them become a publisher for new music, circumventing a lot of those problems (although undoubtedly creating some new ones), and giving a lot of exposure to emerging artists. Mostly I see a ton of exciting potential to ponder.