fault
patreon
Third Milestone Goal
🕑 Added 2015-10-14 16:16:47 +0000 UTC Okay guys... this is a big one. Some of you sharp-eyed folks might have noticed already but not all of milestone 2 side:above's music made it to the OST. This is because our former in-house musician, AARAS, had to leave towards the end of production. There was no falling out or ill feelings though. It was simply due to the fact that he needed more money to survive. When we first met, AARAS came to us with 残響, the title theme with a live cello, as a pro-bono way of showing his passion and dedication for the fault series. We didn't even ask him he just did it because he's that freaking awesome. Personally, 残響 has become one of my favorite tracks in the series. Ode, Sol, The Divide... all of these tracks are masterpieces. We had extremely good chemistry and his tenacious understanding of the level of emotions fault needs to nail made him the best candidate for the job.Until recently, I was under the impression that he felt as though he needed to move on with his life, away from music, and concentrate on what some may call a "real job" but some talking revealed that this wasn't really the case. He just simply needed a reliable way to make money monthly. At the time of his departure this wasn't really possible. We didn't really have a strong Patreon following like we do now (I don't even know if we had a Patreon actually..) and our fault sales is a bit too unstable and unpredictable to promise him a monthly salary. Things get even more complicated when you consider the fact that there was no way for us to put him to work full time since during our planning phase (which is one of, if not the longest phase of our production cycle) there isn't much music work to do. We found a way to work around this though, by having him re-score the entirety of milestone one during our planning phase of Silence the Pedant and ms2:below. This will be a year ~ 18 month thing. Mind you... we will be in charge of his livelihood during this time. This is a huge responsibility and we can't just make it on a whim. I'm hoping this is where this Patreon can come in.
As stated in the description, $3500 a month will allow us to (relatively) safely hire AARAS full time and we will have enough money to call in his musician buddies for live recordings of real instruments. (AARAS is versed in orchestral composition and if he had the money he can make full orchestra pieces!!). His music is a huge huge part of the story and I'm pretty sure you will all agree that he is very talented.
We're not going to just completely depend on Patreon though since that kinda seems like we're avoiding responsibility that we should be taking within our own production. Once we get a grasp on milestone one's sales life cycle (probably the end of the year will be a good point of measure), we will be able to see a pattern for milestone two and the subsequent releases. This will give us insight on how how much money we can actually work with without going in the red. Once we get this grasp... we will go ahead with his contract and bring him on board Project Written once again, even if we don't hit the $3500 mark.
I hope this all makes sense. This is virgin territory for us and it's pretty nerve wrecking and exciting at the same time. There have been teams that have disbanded because they decided to pay team members a monthly salary. We don't want to make the same mistake. Anyways... I'm rambling now. Please feel to throw any questions at us. As always, your support is immensely appreciated.
-ALICE IN DISSONANCE
Comments
ParityDesu
This will be amazing if it happens. I loved the music in fault ms1 and ms2a, and of course the OST! The music just gets better and better, and AARAS's music just fits so well with fault. Wish I had more money to help out, but I'll try to spread the word about fault to the best of my abilities.
Sacae
This is a very nice milestone, I look forward to reaching it. Have you guys thought more on the videos of sketches for another tier? I remember someone bringing up that suggestion on twitter.
Bytes487
This is a fantastic milestone goal! Lets do this everyone~ :3 the music is one of the best features of the game and if that is ruined then it makes the whole game feel dull :( Im pretty sure every patreon will help us reach this goal :D *drinks all around* all the songs you listed are my favorite ones. The Divide is such a strong and powerful song <3 it! Lets reach this goal and hopefully reach even higher for this game!
Sorabi
You could also make your quip last month about $300 two-character Vibaelia artwork a thing. That would also be quite unstable support, though...
ALICE IN DISSONANCE
We can do this but it's... not gonna be cheap. Hare-san has built up kind of an aversion to doing shikishis after doing a pretty hefty amount during the Kickstarter. We felt as though we did way too many and sold them at too low of a price. What can we say... we were stuck with Kickstarter fever and we didn't know any better at the time. If we are to do more physical color shikishi's it would probably be around $1k and we can probably only do 1 every 2 months. It might be a fun to hunt for this rare thing though, since people seem to be waiting for the $150 tier too. It will be quite unstable in terms of monthly support but it's an interesting proposition indeed... We'll give it a very serious thought. We were also thinking about lowering the "credits in game" perk and show 1 of the 2 black and white/tri color monthly sketches to the $5 tier to get more casual patrons interested. We'll most definitely ask our existing patrons if they are cool with that or not.
Shpinxis
That's what I meant. If you must resort to stock music in order to maintain yourself, that is very acceptable. I am glad that you guys seem to be responsible and are conscious about your decisions with finances. This seems to be a big issue with a lot of start-up groups/companies, so it is reassuring as a fan. Thanks.
ALICE IN DISSONANCE
I would much rather swallow my pride and convince our team and fans to be okay with stock music with no OST than take a risk and go bankrupt and not be able to finish the story. We're aware of our presence and size and we don't plan to bite off more than we can chew. On a side note and to clear a misconception we're not a company. We're just a group of people that was fortunate enough get along well and to make something great. This might change in the near future though because of tax reasons but as of right now we're not officially a company yet.
Amanda
Have you thought of creating a higher tier, perhaps something including a physical Hare Konatsu sketch, to help support this? I would be willing to support a higher tier of a shikishi were included.
Shpinxis
I would be the first to say that the music so far in your games has been amazing and I trust it will continue to be. I am all for continuing your relationship with AARAS, but only if you understand the risks. It is really reassuring that you mentioned your understanding of the business side of your work and your attention to detail with your finances. From this information you guys seem like you have a good grasp of your company and how to run it, which gives me confidence. If you guys believe that it is feasible, I am all for continuing the creation of the amazing Fault series music with our help.
Yoshi #ForeverVirgin
Sounds lovely. I'll take that as a chance to double my pledge. I really loved his music, so I hope this will work out. fault is a high quality and beautiful visual novel. I am sure that this game/patreon could have so much more supporter if more people would know about both, how beautiful this game is as well as the existence of it's patreon page. But I am fairly sure that given enough time there will be enough patreon pledges to hit the 3,5k mark. It's just a matter of time.
