Bionic Commando Rearmed: the Soundtrack
May 29th, 2008 Seth Killian
Why release this soundtrack? Simple:
1) Because it’s awesome.
Simon Viklund has created a soundtrack that perfectly mixes the infectious melodies you had burned into your brain by the original game with new instrumentation and beats. The effect is a fresh sound that feels brand new and immediately familiar at the same time–really outstanding and a perfect modernized encapsulation of some deep love for the NES.
2) Because Ben Judd loves his fellow Bionic Commando nerds. That’s YOU.
Over at BC HQ, he explains that this will probably be losing us some money, but he believes in the music so strongly he wanted it to be out there as a proper album.
Consider the album the Bionic Commando team’s attempt to hug the internet. Become a believer and check it out at Sumthing Digital, or at iTunes.
Also check it out because if this attempt to hug the internet doesn’t pan out, Ben Judd may attempt to hug you each individually. This is to be avoided at all costs, so buying the soundtrack is a double-bargain. Do it now!
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Oh, so it IS remixed tracks from the original game… I was wondering that for some time now (too bad I didn’t play the NES version much… shame on me.
).
I love the LEGO picture, by the way… I was actually thinking about building Blodia out of what is now a loose collection of pieces from about two decades worth of LEGOs.
I appreciate the availability of the soundtrack, and I was happy to buy it… but you’re “losing money” on it? As opposed to what, pressing OST CDs? Adding a Sound Test to the Options menu? Doing nothing at all? I mean, come on.
A $9.99 digital-download-only soundtrack to a game that itself will likely cost $10 is just printing money, plain and simple. There’s no need for the sob story.
I was kinda wondering the same thing, but there’s a quote from Ben Judd on the official site on the matter:
“We are charging 99 cents per song of which we usually make about 60% or so. That’s 60 cents. Additionally there are server management fees, the internal staff hours it took to get the contract up and running, and of course a license fee to create the initial contract. All in all, it probably costs us around 10K just to get the product up and running. We would need to sell 15,000 songs to break even and when it comes to game soundtracks that just isn’t a number that you can easily hit.
Odds are we will take a loss.”
I’d imagine just the licensing and server fees alone are astounding.