By Kieron Gillen on June 20th, 2008 at 2:56 pm.
While the actual creators of the much discussed adventure game remain incommunicado – there’s been what appear to be some faked forum posts – one person connected to the game has surfaced. It’s composer Marko Hautamäki who’s released a press release claiming that there’s no element in any of the music he was contracted to supply which was taken from any other game. To prove it, he’s uploaded some of his compositions to his demo site. He does admit that he didn’t make all the music, so can’t speak with 100% conviction that there are no purloined audio assets. Full press release beneath the cut…
Composers announcement about Limbo of the Lost
June 20th 2008, in Berlin, Germany
Following the controversy currently revolving around Limbo of the Lost pc game, released by Majestic Studios, UK, I feel a comment from my part is necessary as this situation has all the potential to make irreversible damage to my name as composer and thus hinder my future career opportunities. Furthermore, I have seen my name mentioned in several internet discussion forums and there has been speculation about if the game contains stolen music but so far that has not been proven one way or another. Majestic Studios project leader Steve Bovis has assured me that there isn’t any stolen music in the game.
I composed all the game level background music you hear in the game itself, as well as most of the animated features included on the bonus DVD. My music was also used in many of the game trailers and features, easily found online. In addition to my music, there are also pieces not made by myself. On those I can not comment but I can 100% guarantee everything I was involved in and I have the original project files to prove that.
As a further proof, I uploaded some of the pieces on my demo site, accessible at http://chaosresearch.googlepages.com
I worked on the music for Limbo of the Lost game from May 2006 to December 2006 as an outsourcer, so I was never a part of Majestic Studios core team. I also don’t have any information regarding the specifics of the creation process of the game. The stolen graphical assets were as much a shock to me than to anyone else and I hope there will be some explanation to that from Majestic Studios. At the moment they are the only ones who know how or why this happened.
I am only credited for my music in the .pdf manual of the game.
Sincerely,
Marko Hautamäki, composer
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20/06/2008 at 15:00 Lambo says:
At least theres one person associated with majestic studios who does not need to be despised.
20/06/2008 at 15:21 Ian Dorsch says:
Poor guy, what a nightmare.
20/06/2008 at 15:26 Arsewisely says:
Well, his candour indicates his obvious innocence. He should be applauded – at least there is a speck of honesty amid all of this ghastly business.
Incidentally, if anyone would like to hire me as a composer for your video game, I have just finished some demo material which I would be happy to send you.
20/06/2008 at 15:40 PaulMorel says:
I feel so bad for this guy.
Now he either has to keep this game off his resume, in which case employers will ask him “Hey what’s this blank spot for 8 months in 2006?”, or he has to have a good prepared answer to the inevitable questions about copyright infringement.
20/06/2008 at 15:40 ascagnel says:
Yay honesty! Can we have some more of this, all-around?
20/06/2008 at 15:48 phuzz says:
Must be quite odd to go online one morning and find that the project you worked on last year is being roundly hated by most of the internets, also quite scary.
20/06/2008 at 15:49 Richard says:
I hope it’s true. The main theme was about the only nicely done part of the game, and I never could hear the Hexen similarities some people were throwing around.
20/06/2008 at 15:50 Butler` says:
D-D-D-DAMAGECONTROL
20/06/2008 at 15:58 cyrenic says:
I’m guessing the scheme (of the core Majestic Studios team) was to get paid for development for as long as possible, “launch” the game, and be nice and dissapeared by the time someone caught them? I’m assuming they were getting paid by investors while “developing” the game.
This composer just sounds like one of the many speed bumps for the project. It would be more upsetting if the end product wasn’t so damn funny.
20/06/2008 at 16:26 Alex says:
.. there was a bonus DVD!?
20/06/2008 at 16:33 wb says:
@Alex — Relax. They just took the “making of” disc from LOTR1 and ripped it onto a CD.
20/06/2008 at 16:37 cyrenic says:
And superimposed their faces over Peter Jackson’s head.
20/06/2008 at 16:47 Dan says:
Apparently the bonus DVD had the lengthy game intro on it, as well as the “making of…” feature. My guess is that’s where you’ll find the clips from Spawn and Pirates of the Carribean that they nicked.
I just hope the “making of…” was honest enough to say “To make a background, first load up Oblivion… now walk to here… then press Print Screen. There, that’s one. Now onto the next…”
20/06/2008 at 16:52 Richard says:
The Making Of has almost no content. It’s just floaty concept art – hem hem – and stuff like a Poser figure stepping up from wireframe mode to textured mode. Its been ripped to YouTube.
The actual game has an intro too, but it tells you nothing. The official intro on the disc is a bizarre mix – it’s about the story, but looks more like an extended trailer.
20/06/2008 at 18:00 Majorb says:
I want limbo…now
I really hope they release it. Should be hilarious
20/06/2008 at 18:39 Vollgassen says:
Bonus DVD!
I want this!
20/06/2008 at 19:23 Mark says:
It continues to boggle my mind just how Majestic thought they’d ever get away with their copy & paste style of game development.
I’m guessing that Majestic found themselves being pushed to meet a deadline. Rather than admit defeat and violate the terms of their contract, they undoubtedly decided to purloin content from other games by way of a quick fix. Either that or this “borrowed” content was already in the game, functioning as placeholders in lieu of original content from the artists (a la WW2 dogfighting footage in place of X-Wings and TIE-Fighters while Star Wars was being edited).
Tri Synergy must also accept some of the blame. I’m assuming they have some sort of QA department, or at the very least a producer with some responsibility for viewing the game’s content before allowing the game to go to press.
In the end, it all boiled down to desperation, laziness and greed. Unfortunate for all those involved, but it makes for one heck of a riveting read for the rest of us.
20/06/2008 at 20:02 sana says:
Maybe the person who “designed” the backgrounds simply fooled the rest of the company and they just didn’t realize?
It could explain why they were searching for another background designer.
20/06/2008 at 22:17 sherwinpg says:
maybe all the high profile game companies stole from this guy?
21/06/2008 at 02:18 KBKarma says:
Poor guy. I can sympathise.
I was wondering about the whole QA thing myself, Mark. I mean, seriously. I’m pretty sure Tri Synergy knew what was up, but are only admitting it now.
You can actually HEAR Tri Synergy’s desperate pleas of “We didn’t know! We didn’t know!”, while they quickly burn proof that they DID know.
21/06/2008 at 15:29 Ghiest says:
Not something you really want on your CV is it :P, I kinda feel sorry for him having to prove he didn’t do anything wrong.
21/06/2008 at 21:59 Nahual says:
You have to feel sorry for the guy; I mean, he gets hired to compose some music for 8 months, does his job, collects his payment and goes his way. 2 years later he finds himself credited in the biggest rip off work to ever hit the games industry. A nightmare indeed.
21/06/2008 at 22:51 Juste says:
Actually, TriSynergy does not QA anything to my knowledge. They do not function as a normal publisher, more like an extended distribution center for developers without a US office.
23/06/2008 at 19:57 Mr. Brand says:
He’s just a freelance composer. I don’t look down on them when it turns out one of many companies to buy a few tracks off them consists of utter bastards.
28/12/2009 at 02:28 Turd says:
I farted.