Watch Dogs: Legion is trying to include the community by featuring 10 songs created by talented artists. The selection process is being overseen by Ubisoft and HitRecord. Ubisoft has mentioned that it will pay $2000 per song.
Ubisoft announced this on the official site and Clint Hocking, the creative director for Watch Dogs: Legion mentioned the following regarding the matter:
From the very beginning, we have always wanted to include our fans and the community in the making of our game. Thanks to our partnership with HitRecord, our talented Watch Dogs fans and the HitRecord community have the opportunity to participate together in the creation of the musical landscape for our open-world version of London.
This is not the first time that Ubisoft has asked the community for help. Ubisoft also asked the community for help for the music of Beyond Good And Evil 2. This collaboration has been getting some criticism. We are not sure how the $2000 will be split so you can imagine why people are upset about all this.
Developers commented that Ubisoft should pay people for services and should not rely on the community for free work. Some people also called this fan labor. Indie developer Rami Ismail commented on the matter. You can check out his comments below:
I am still not a fan of what read as "spec work under a proprietary open non-exclusive license" model, & prefer the "pay someone to browse SoundCloud to find cool music for which you then talk to the creator & pay them too". https://t.co/kMY3OEqtpV
— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) July 13, 2019
Game director and writer Mike Bithell also commented on the matter. You can check out his statement below:
https://twitter.com/mikeBithell/status/1150014344081629186
Watch Dogs: Legion is not the first time that Ubisoft has brought the community in, to work on their titles. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and how the fans react to such involvement in the community. It is safe to say that games have been boycott for much less and if things are not kept under control then Watch Dogs: Legion might fail before it even launches.
Let us know what you think about Watch Dogs: Legion and whether or not you are interested in playing the game when it comes out.
