[HN Gopher] The Minecraft game score unexpectedly became big bus...
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The Minecraft game score unexpectedly became big business for its
composer
Author : tunapizza
Score : 85 points
Date : 2025-07-16 12:48 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.billboard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.billboard.com)
| chrisdalke wrote:
| It really is great, haunting, nostalgic music that I associate
| with a formative time in my childhood. Beyond the game it's also
| fantastic deep focus & coding soundtrack.
|
| If you haven't heard it, listen to Sweden or Aria Math.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVYjlmB81Hc
| rollcat wrote:
| The later composers for Minecraft have also crafted some
| exceptional pieces. Lena Raine's work was an instant hit. Nothing
| better than playing a Pigstep music disc at the end of a speedrun
| (because memes are more important than PBs).
| vintermann wrote:
| Pigstep is OK, because the music disks were a bit oddball
| anyway, but I really don't like the non-c418 in game music.
| They feel out of place.
|
| It also an issue that the reason c418 didn't get to keep doing
| the Minecraft music, was that he refused to do it on "work for
| hire, sign over all the rights" terms.
| rollcat wrote:
| I'm quite certain there's a mod to manage your in-game
| playlists, and unlike in e.g. Factorio, the server doesn't
| even need to know about it.
|
| As for c418, you're privileged as an artist when you get to
| keep your rights _and_ make decent money. That was a very
| smart strategic move. Microsoft could 've responded in any
| number of ways, but keeping the music + hiring new artists
| doesn't even sound like a bad compromise; these artists
| deserve the exposure, even if they can't match c418.
| hungmung wrote:
| Yeah I like Lena but nobody was going to live up to the bar
| C418 set unless it was just ripping off of him entirely.
| Maybe if they got Brian Eno. But how many tracks are you
| going to get him to do for a videogame?
|
| (Trivia: Eno did the win95 startup sound)
| smj-edison wrote:
| Lena wasn't my favorite, but I've really loved the new music
| by Aaron Cherof, in particular "Watcher" and "Featherfall".
| pityJuke wrote:
| It is incredible how Minecraft, and the soundtrack in particular,
| was created by unknown part timers.
|
| A remix of Mice on Venus [0] is one of the few things that can
| make me cry on cue. There is something so powerful about it.
|
| Doesn't help it is often used in Technoblade tributes because of
| this video. [1]
|
| [0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=v1wMBrkUEFE
|
| [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=pPmo21gkETU
| Arainach wrote:
| How often are video game soundtracks created by well known
| artists? Especially without AAA studio resources?
|
| Have there been that many big names in the space? Nobuo Uematsu
| for JRPGs, Jeremy Soule, Yasunori Mitsuda....who else has done
| enough that many people would have a chance of knowing their
| name?
| rft wrote:
| Just throwing
| https://www.frankklepacki.com/listen/soundtracks out there.
| This is the composer of the C&C, and many more, soundtracks.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The soundtrack of Quake is famously by Nine Inch Nails, a
| "band" which basically consists of Trent Reznor who these
| days is probably as famous for movie soundtracks like "The
| Social Network" or "Soul" or for TV soundtracks like the
| "Watchmen" series but at the time would have been called the
| "front man" of NiN.
| wmf wrote:
| Quake was the AAA of its time but yeah, hiring NIN was
| ahead of its time.
| efnx wrote:
| Disasterpeace! He did "It Follows", "Marcel the Shell" and
| the OST to Fez, Hyperlidht Drifter and more.
| tomwojcik wrote:
| Marcin Przybylowicz for The Witcher. Borislav Slavov for BG3.
| Jesper Kyd Assassin's Creed.
| donatj wrote:
| It really annoys me that Microsoft brought in new composers.
| You're so insistent on "owning" the music you give up on a major
| part of what made the game what it is today.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| I get why they want that. Otherwise every time they want to do
| something "out of the box" with Minecraft they have to go
| through corporate and IP lawyers first.
| vintermann wrote:
| The only thing they couldn't do with C418's music, was to
| publish "Minecraft: the official soundtrack" and take all the
| royalties themselves. Nor could they claim YouTube videos for
| having Minecraft's original music in it (they did it several
| times "accidentally" when the movie came out, and stole a
| couple of million from YouTube makers).
|
| So no, I don't buy the "they'd have to go through lawyers"
| excuse. They could still have had blanket licenses for using
| the music in all sorts of ways, they just wouldn't own it.
| encom wrote:
| I'm further annoyed that Microsoft stole Minecraft from me. I
| can't play a game a paid for. Absolute scumbags of the highest
| order.
| Novosell wrote:
| Hmm? What'd they do to it?
| sneak wrote:
| They require a Microsoft account. There was a period of
| time where you could port over your Mojang account, but I
| and many other people did not, because I didn't want a
| Microsoft account or to have to agree to the Microsoft
| Terms of Service, a new legal contract which didn't exist
| at the time I paid for Minecraft. It's a classic bait and
| switch.
|
| Then, the account migration window closed, and Mojang
| accounts stopped working. Now I and thousands of others
| can't play the game we paid good money for.
|
| Fuck Notch and Microsoft both.
| Novosell wrote:
| Oh shit. It's been more than a decade since I played
| Minecraft but sounds like I, too, have lost my account
| then.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > There was a period of time where you could port over
| your Mojang account,
|
| To be fair that was a fairly long period IIRC. And they
| really put some work into that last migration once they
| announced everything else is going away. Minecraft has
| all these legacy systems because nobody knew it would be
| huge, so during the Alpha and early Beta periods it's
| just whatever payment system they've cobbled together
| this week.
|
| I'm still not sure if the scattered piles of emails,
| account names, IDs, passwords, receipt codes or other
| detritus eventually persuaded them I'm tialaramex or
| whether the fact I'm just very obviously tialaramex (it's
| gestured at in my email address, it's my HN account
| handle, if I ever tweeted, which I do not, I would be
| @tialaramex, it's everywhere) prevailed and so that's why
| I got my tialaramex Minecraft persona connected to
| whatever nonsense Microsoft have. But either way, once we
| reached the "Now a human is needed" step they were as
| helpful as you could ask given how cheap Minecraft was
| back when I bought it.
|
| I think if you lost all contact for so long you weren't
| aware there was a migration it's not unreasonable to
| think if you suddenly regain interest you should pay for
| Minecraft. The current Minecraft is very different from
| what you last saw, albeit not in its essentials.
| sneak wrote:
| You are missing the point.
|
| I was well aware of it. I don't want a Microsoft account.
| I don't do business with Microsoft.
|
| Microsoft demanded that I agree to a new contract, the
| Microsoft Terms of Service, to which I do not and will
| not agree, to continue to use the game I already paid
| for.
|
| This is called a bait-and-switch. I paid money, got the
| product, used the product, then they altered the deal,
| Vader style. Sign this new contract or you lose your
| game.
|
| It's bullshit any which way you slice it.
|
| Arguably it's Mojang's fault for selling to such a shitty
| acquirer and betraying their customers, not that we need
| any more reasons to understand what a total piece of
| trash Notch is.
| mcv wrote:
| It's Java. Wouldn't it be possible to decompile it and
| just remove the account checking? Maybe mod it out? There
| are mods that change the game dramatically, so why not
| this?
| sneak wrote:
| Yes, it's more than possible to crack the game. All of
| the normal servers however will refuse to talk to you
| without you presenting valid login tokens from Microsoft,
| so you're limited to local singleplayer.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| It's a relief Google didn't acquire minecraft...no humans
| in the loop to help you out.
| hungmung wrote:
| Yep, and when you get your Microsoft account, you have to
| deal with their fucked up login system. Many a child's
| tear (also adult's tears) has flown over their jank.
| Mojang never locked anyone out for 30 days when they
| reset a password.
|
| Oh and they routinely give you other people's custom
| skins.
| bstsb wrote:
| > Oh and they routinely give you other people's custom
| skins.
|
| are you playing multiplayer on the Bedrock version? you
| just have to toggle a setting locally, or other player's
| skins will show up as a randomly preselected skin. it's
| called something like "Enable untrusted skins" or
| similar.
| hungmung wrote:
| No, Java. I'll go through the settings again and
| doublecheck but sometimes the skin will change and it
| won't accept you changing it back for weeks.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| There were also many stories (myself included) where
| Microsoft indifference could not port your account, even
| if you did it within the window. Sheer malfeasance that
| they could not just email a new code to everyone who had
| purchased the "lifetime" license.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| This happened to me as well. I just opted to pirate the
| game. I figure I am allowed to since I have a lifetime
| license since alpha, just m$ dropped the ball porting my
| account.
| mcv wrote:
| I think companies should be required to repay the
| original purchase price when they pull shit like that.
|
| I did migrate, though with extreme reluctance, and my
| son's Minecraft account somehow ended up in my wife's
| Microsoft account (she'd had a Hotmail account since
| forever, he had no MS account).
| ARob109 wrote:
| That and before The Minecraft Movie came out, you could
| play multiplayer LAN from Xbox to PC cross platform without
| an XBox Live subscription.
|
| Once the movie was released and they updated the game to
| add movie related content, this feature stopped working.
| Now to play multiplayer cross platform LAN, you have to pay
| for M$ servers you don't use.
|
| You couldn't even load your world locally on the XBox if it
| was marked for multiplayer unless you had an Xbox Live
| account, meaning you got locked out of your world.
|
| Fortunately you can edit the world setting to remove the
| multiplayer option to recover, but this was not documented
| at the time encountered.
| immibis wrote:
| If you bought it from Notch, I think he gave you permission
| to pirate it if that ever happens.
| darknavi wrote:
| For what it's worth the latest album (Chase the Skies) has some
| _very_ early Minecraft vibes.
| schmorptron wrote:
| I understand this, and also partially feel this way as in it's
| garbo that they won't allow the artists to own their work and
| are able to strongarm this due to the size of Minecraft. On the
| other hand, I like a lot of the new tracks they've added as
| well and Lena Raine and the others have done a great job
| capturing the vibe while not just ripping off C418.
| natebc wrote:
| Lena is an incredibly talented composer.
|
| If anybody is curious: https://lena.fyi/
|
| The Celeste soundtrack is wonderful:
| https://radicaldreamland.bandcamp.com/album/celeste-
| original...
| mcv wrote:
| It annoys me even more that they forced everybody to migrate
| their Mojang accounts to Microsoft accounts. I never wanted a
| Microsoft account. They suck enormously, but even if you buy a
| non-Microsoft thing, you can apparently still be forced into
| their ecosystem.
| Nition wrote:
| With the new launcher, if you're using a Local account on
| Windows, they also try to trick to into using the account you
| log into Minecraft with as your whole-OS account. Big "yes,
| use this everywhere!" (paraphrased) accept button and a
| little "actually I just want to log into Minecraft" text
| option trying to hide underneath.
| Cyan488 wrote:
| It's these little slights, multiplied by hundreds of other
| instances across the Microsoft and Windows 'experience'
| that added compounding, non-insignificant mental fatigue to
| my life.
|
| It wasn't until I switched to Linux (Zorin) as my daily
| driver last month that I noticed this. Despite the initial
| adjustment pains, every time I open my laptop I now feel a
| sense of calm and stillness. My computer is exactly how I
| left it. It asks for my approval before doing things. It
| has no corporate agenda.
| beeflet wrote:
| I owned a mojang account and didn't migrate it to microsoft.
| Now I just pirate the game whenever I want to play, it's
| pretty easy pollymc or pojavlauncher.
|
| You can also play in multiplayer by going to
| server.properties of your server and setting online-
| mode=false
| Deeksha676 wrote:
| I really dont like people sharing paywalled articles, here's the
| non paywalled version for those who are curious to read it:
| https://archive.ph/Erzmg
| eps wrote:
| https://archive.is/k91o9
| n20benn wrote:
| Aside: if you enjoy the Minecraft music albums, you should
| _definitely_ check out C418 's new album for Wanderstop that was
| released earlier this year. It has a lot of the same feeling to
| it, and I personally like it even more than the Minecraft albums
| now.
|
| Tracks like Wanderstop Part 2, Earl Grey Part 2, Cinnamon Part 3,
| and The Forest are good places to start--it's three and a half
| hours long, so there's a lot to comb through.
| mkaic wrote:
| I second this recommendation, I've been listening to the
| Wanderstop OST on shuffle for over a month now and find it
| delightful. The sister album "Wanderstop FM", which contains
| tracks that play diagetically on the in-game radio, is also
| excellent.
| neko_ranger wrote:
| Sweden is my favorite track
| bearjaws wrote:
| Quick check shows he made about ~$2M in royalties on Spotify,
| maybe a bit more with YouTube monetization.
|
| Maybe the movie made a good chunk for him too.
|
| Curious what the offer was, it likely was higher since Microsoft
| just wanted to have clear ownership over the entire IP.
| neonate wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250720113004/https://www.billb...
| tunapizza wrote:
| https://archive.ph/MORIQ
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