[SotW] Song of the Week - Definition of "Professional VGM Composer"

PLEASE ONLY VOTE IF YOU PARTICIPATE IN SONG OF THE WEEK

This is a poll on official policy, so I'd appreciate it if only people who vote and/or nominate vote on this matter. If I don't recognize your name, I won't count your vote with the final tally. Thanks in advance.

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orion_mk3 brought up some concerns about the professional VGM composer status of Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was a few VGM credits, but many, many more original works. According to current SotW rules, a "professional VGM composer" is anyone "who has composed at least one musical score specifically for, and featured in, a published video/computer game." So, the question is,

Is the current definition of "professional VGM composer" acceptable, and if not, what should it change to?

Options:

• Yes
  Everything is peachy keen, so don't change a thing.
• No; use some other fixed number
  The definition should change to some other number explicitly specified. This could be two, three, or a formula like "a person isn't a VGM composer if he has twice as many non-VGM works as VGM works, but if he has more than five VGM works, then he's definitely eligible." If you choose this, please post your preference.
• No; use discretion
  Choose this if you think that both the number of VGM credits and original works should be weighed in deciding whether or not someone is a "professional VGM composer," but think we should just decide on a case-by-case basis when necessary instead of having things set in stone.
• Other
  Come up with something I didn't? Please share!
• Abstain/Don't care
  ¯\(º_o)/¯

Important to note are the ramifications of this: this only affects the definition of "professional VGM composer,", and so only the following parts of the rules:

Originally Posted by Nomination rule 3

Only songs from the following are allowed:

• . . .
• Unpublished VGM arrangements by professional VGM composers
• Original/concept pieces composed by professional VGM composers

That's all. Any tracks written for a game are always okay. This definition change would only affect which unpublished arrangements and original pieces are eligible.

Feel free to justify your decisions (especially with an Other vote) and talk amongst yourselves in this thread. I'm going to give this a week for now, but I might end up having a mod extend it by another week if the BSC distracts too many people.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I like the discretion method most.

Every time we install a rule that's meant to be hard and fast, something always comes along to stretch it. Because "obscurity" is so subjective, "legitimacy" becomes equally hazy.

You really need to look at the career. There's always nebulous issues. Perhaps a composer did some early PC-88 work, then produced a decade's worth of original music before announcing a commitment to return to proper VGM, but was met with an untimely death. (Just a hypothetical; I'm not thinking of anyone specific.)
Would the fact that this person never got the chance to return to VGM negate his works from the PC-98 because they were significantly fewer than his original material? Perhaps the composer had a very impressive repertoire and is known to have inspired others? Legacies count for something too.

Or maybe a composer worked on official albums for a short while but became disenchanted with the industry and chose to work on the doujin scene for the remainder of his career. Though the doujin tracks aren't eligible, the album work should be considered no matter how scant. The industry connections between accredited composition and doujin are too significant to fully ignore.

I think the sequence of their composing career is a far more significant factor and that issue will be addressed in the other poll.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I've been thinking about this one a while, far more than the other issue, which I'm on the fence on. Initially, I was very much in the "one game and you're good camp." After all, once you've composed one video game, you're a video game composer, right?

However, there's another word in the rules, "professional," and this made me pause and figure out why exactly we have this rule in the first place. I thought about two (somewhat) recent original tracks we've had in SotW, Cool Voice from Carnaval by Takayuki Aihara and Blind Kiss from Be Filled With Feeling by Shinji Hosoe. By any reasonable definition, both of these men are professional VGM composers. And before the weeks in which these tracks appeared, I had never heard of either album.

I think these are exactly the kinds of tracks that the original pieces rule was meant to allow. Original works by composers are generally shadowed by their game compositions, so this rule allows them to get exposure too. The purpose isn't to simply expand the eligible SotW field to any track that can be tenuously linked to VGM, but to show off tracks that people may have passed by in the search for the repertoires of established VGM composers.

I vote for discretion. Let's figure out together whether or not people are entrenched in VGM enough to have their original works exposed as being the overlooked and out-of-the-norm.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Again, I think only VGM/arrangements should show up, regardless of composer, so I vote "other".

In any case, this one's a headache to sort out, since its' on a one-by-one basis. You're stepping into shaky grounds if you allow one composer and not another (the Sakamoto vs the Super Sweep comparison above is a good example). But thems the breaks with discretion. I can't think of too many composers that can be abused like this though, but that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure they're out there...

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I also agree with GoldfishX on this matter, even though I only started voting last week, so I am still a newbie... hehe.

I was speaking idiomatically.

We already do this to some degree, aviness.

Refer to this list.

All albums on that list are off-limits for nomination for whatever length is listed alongside each. This is how we prevent a rapid onslaught of, say, Disgaea tracks, whenever a new OST is released. Whenever a track places, its respective album, gamerip or source is disqualified for X weeks, dependent upon which place the track earned.

What you're proposing is a temporary moratorium on all non-VGM works by that composer, though, correct? I can see why you'd say this, and from a newcomer's perspective, you're thinking well. But that problem often takes care of itself because we, as a group, seem to dislike repetitiveness.

If we see that one particular series or composer is being given a lot of nominations within a small span, you'll be able to observe the dissatisfaction in the voting. Where once a Sakuraba track may have done well, it will get overlooked if there's been too much Sakuraba recently. The same goes for just about any musical genre. I've seen people literally express their dissatisfaction: "Another Hulsbeck track?? The guy can compose. We know this, okay? There's other composers too." (Paraphrased to the best of my recollection, but essentially what was said.)


I've always liked the "independent work by established VGM artists" clause. SotW is like panning for gold and sometimes those indie tracks are akin to tapping into an entire vein. For those of us who have interests in particular artists, or are simply curious as to what composers do in their spare time, these independent works are a great discovery. I'd hate for them to go uncelebrated because there really isn't any other forum around here in which they can be critiqued or praised to any worthwhile effect.

The only true issue is deciding what "established" means. A case-by-case method still seems best suited for this.

But perhaps a short-term moratorium on any composer's non-VGM material isn't the worst idea. I wouldn't go any longer than a month, but that should be enough time to force others to nominate with more variety.

(Though I don't think it's that great of a problem in the first place. In the grand scheme of things, we don't get that many indie nominations. I think the most tend to come from me and DH.)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I wouldn't object to all non-vgm being disallowed. If someone really likes a composer, he can always check out that composer's discography somewhere else to find out if he/she has done any non-vgm works.

On the other hand, I can sympathize with Crash wanting a forum for exposure for composers' solo works here at GFF. And sometimes, it's neat to find out about a good non-vgm piece through SotW. But still...I don't know, I wish there was some other place for that, so SotW could be about vgm and vgm only.

Anyway, I say we handle things on a discretionary basis. I know I don't want to see non-vgm from someone who's only composed for one game, though. I still wouldn't consider him or her a professional vgm composer.

How ya doing, buddy?

It's not like I'm a regular, but yeah, definitely agree that allowing only VGM or VGM arrangements would sound way more logical, and easy to settle on.

How ya doing, buddy?

I like the current definition, assuming that "at least one musical score" means an actual whole soundtrack (or at least the majority of one). So if for example a composer did one track for one game, it wouldn't count.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think that, all things considered, the discretionary route has the least hangups because it's the most flexible. Even though I might personally prefer a harsher definition, I think that it'd probably be tough to hammer out.

If I decide to nominate a Tangerine Dream song because Paul Haslinger and Christopher Franke each wrote one video game score, I'd probably be called on it. The discussions also reinforce the community aspect of the whole shebang.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm going with discretion because I feel the amount of games a person composed on is not sufficient criteria to base the decision on. There other things to consider, such as amount of tracks per game, overall time/quality put into the pieces, and importance of the soundtrack(s) to the VGM community.

For example, if Hiroki Kikuta had stopped composing for games after Secret of Mana, I would feel that he still be more worthy of the VGM composer moniker than someone who had only composed a few tracks for a few different games.

The only thing about discretion is that it requires discussion, and possibly polls, which could delay the weekly procedures. However, this sort of thing has not caused any problems before (such as for a song being too popular).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Discretion. It's in line with my feelings from the other thread.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

YES

The current description is just fine for the purposes of the competition. Discretion is perfectly fine, but it drags things out and the current system isn't being abused. I'm of course cool with any decision.

I was speaking idiomatically.

A vast majority are in favor of the discretionary method, so I will change the rules footnote

Quote:

A "professional VGM composer" is defined as a person who has composed at least one musical score specifically for, and featured in, a published video/computer game. This definition can still be put up for debate on a per-artist basis, such as if the quantity of scores composed seems lacking.

to

Quote:

Whether or not someone is a "professional VGM composer" will be decided on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of SotW participants, taking into account both the VGM and original works of the composer.

unless someone has serious objections.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?