The truth about Nintendo

[Zod95]

forest-spirit said:

I'm opposed to the idea that "more evolved" music requires more effort and is more complex by default. Therefore I'm opposed to the idea that you can rank different types of music and thus I won't do that. Rock evolved from Blues, Jazz and a few other genres, and rock eventually evolved into metal music. Does that mean that Metal is more complex and requires more effort than Rock? Does Rock require more effort and is it more complex than Blues? Are all of them more complex and do they all require more effort than classical music? No, it doesn't work that way. Now, they could require more effort but it could also be the other way around. It all depends on the composition. You can make very complex music using only a piano. You can also make very basic music on a piano. Likewise you can make complex or basic music using a singer, a drummer and a guitarist. But there's no rule saying that one is more complex than the other by nature, and if such a rule exists I'd like someone to present it to me.

I think you are going too far. I had never presented such a logic. I only acknowledge that vocal music (with instruments, of course) demands a higher minimum effort than instrumental-only.

 

forest-spirit said:

With this in mind I fail to see how one could claim that the music in Mario would be less evolved than the music used Sonic due to the use of vocals in Sonic's soundtrack. You could provide evidence showing that instrumental music is older (something you have failed to do) but even if you did it wouldn't have much meaning when you take the history of music in consideration. Likewise I also fail to see how one could claim that one or the other required more effort merely because of the inclusion of vocal music in Sonic's soundtrack. For that you'd have to find out how much money and time was spent on creating the music, and even then you'd have to ignore than some musicians can create more with less effort, and you'd also have to ignore the possibility that the use of instrumental-only or a mix between instrumental and vocal music simply was a design choice. In fact, that possibility makes the whole argument rather pointless in my honest opinion.

Music is Mario 64 is simpler, it has definitely less instruments than in Sonic Adventure, less music tracks and no vocals. Is it enough for you? It's not merely because of vocal music (this is only an indicator).

If some musicians create more with less effort, then they are most probably more expensive so it all comes down to the same thing (I have been saying for quite some time): effort / time / money.

Design choices are not valid arguments. If, by design choice, I decide to create a very simple game that is extremely easy and quick to develop, I'm not as commited as other dev that puts millions of euros and man-hours work on another game.