Need your feedback

I'm long time user of Blitz3d, then Blitzmax.

I'm about to launch a website where we sell video game music. I got the exclusive license to release music made by some serious game music professionals. I'm also working with them to release news 'paks' every months. I've the first year ready and we are working on 2009 productions.
We are open to suggestion on how to improve the website, what kind of music you guys would like... we have some techno trance, world, and orchestral music online. Some were used in the following games : Lost Eden, Atlantis 1,2,4, Obscura, The Black Moon Chronicles, Riverworld, Aliens, Tintin, etc... some are original. All our content is exclusive.

The website is still in beta. Feel free to contact us thru our forums.

Visit http://www.gamemusicshop.com

Thanks

You should go to stockmusic or shockwave-sounds for some ideas.

You should also spell 'pack' correctly.

One more thing - sell individual tracks as well. Nobody is going to pay $89 or whatever for three tracks when they only want one of them.

Thanks for your comment GFK, let me clarify some points :

What you get is what you pay.

On Stockmusic.com they say that : "Original scores for a program may cost between $10,000 and $20,000 with small orchestrations; a Stock Music Library-scored program would cost on average only 10% of that price in a Laser Drop licensing option."

It is true, but this assume that what they sell is as good as what you can buy to a talented musician for that price. And that is wrong.
Also their licensing options are quite expensive, you pay +$1000 a 1 min loop if you want an unlimited license. It is a lot of money for loops that are made in 10 min.

Quality VS Quantity : think about it.

Our concept is not to duplicate what is already done. But to propose what has not been proposed so far. Your customers will appreciate the difference.

If you want quality, contact us. Subscribe to our newsletter, because we will have soon specific music for the 'arcade & casino games'.

Btw this music is great in background when you play a reflection game : http://www.gamemusicshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&cPath=22&products_id=65


About Paks... We are selling a lot of Paks in my job in Florida... is it another typical Florida slang?
Anyone else could confirm that spelling of Paks should be changed? Or it doesn't matter?

Nikko

I don't like 'Paks'.
My guess would be more people dislike the use of 'pak' than dislike the use of 'pack'.
Usual suggestion is to go for the option of least 'offense'.
I don't understand .
The site looks OK but I wouldn't pay 90 for 3 songs when I might only want one of them especially as they are sold per product (if I understand correctly).

Good point...
If more people think the same, I would have to change that pak thing.

"What you get is what you pay" means that stock music website do not offer the same quality. So if you pay less, you get less.

But the idea behind paks was to propose several music with multiples arrangements (like Caves, or Space Travels http://www.gamemusicshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_music_info&cPath=17&products_id=48 ) they are made to be used together in a level depending on what happens to you or what place you are.
Maybe I should do packs (!) only for these kind of multiplearrangement music and keep the other one as individual song.

Pak is just poor English, or a homage to the compressed file format extension. If you're supplying in the form of PAK files then keep the work Pak, if you're not then you're simply missing out the letter C.

That said I hate Thru, Nite and Color too... Actually color isn't too bad... The other two are dreadful though.

I listened to a bunch of tracks and to be honest, I found them to be of decent quality, but derivative and generic. There are already many similar sites offering music of a similar or higher quality, and the main difference is that I can get an unlimited commercial license from them for between $30 and $100, depending on the site and the track. With your prices ranging from about $300-$500 per track ( and I have to buy packs of 2-3 songs, which makes it even less attractive ) I just can't see the appeal.

The prices just aren't realistic when you look at your competitors. I could have (and have in the past) hired a musician to write exclusive tracks for me, and to order, for the price you're charging for non-exclusive ( and don't even get me started on the exclusive prices. )

+1 @ Gabriel.
Better music can be provided for less. (imho/2ct/etc.)

$630 per song for an unlimited license is too much.

I can hire any number of great musicians to do custom, exclusive, music for me with an unlimited license for $200-$250 per minute, and I can get it for roughly half that if I buy in bulk and pay them to do like ten songs.

Why should I pay 33% more for music which is not custom, and non-exclusive? Why should I even pay as much?

Also, if I'm going to royalty free music sites to license music rather than having music written custom for my game, I probably am doing that because I'm looking to save some money. Because I sure ain't doing it to save time... I spent a week going to various royalty free music sites looking for music for my space beetles game, and I only found maybe one or two songs that might maybe kinda sorta work, but not really. And they were totalyl different styles, so I can't mix and match them. And I need like 5-10 songs which go together for the game.

So if I did end up licensing pre-made music I'd be compromising on quality for the sake of saving 65-75% on the music. But I wouldn't even get that benefit if I licensed music at those prices.

And another thing... Ditch the Celtic web theme. And I don't need to know my own IP address which you list on the bottom of the page. This site smacks of amateur web design.

Harsh words, I know, but if you're serious about starting a business you need to research what your competitors are charging, and design a site which looks professional and is easy to use.

One thing you did get right was the music loads fast and is easy to play. I'm not too fond of it looking like WinAmp, but it works a lot better than some of the flash players on those big budget music sites you're competing with, so you get some points for that at least.

Swift :
About the IP, well the website is in beta, you are right I need to remove it.

"This site smacks of amateur web design."
do you mean that these kind of website need to be on white background with no fancy look as most of the stockmusic webs are? I don't see your point here, this website is a lot of work (online delivery, music preview, tagging, multiples licenses attributes etc...)
Could you tell me, except for the IP at the bottom, what gives you this 'amateur' impression?

Rob
"That said I hate Thru, Nite and Color too... Actually color isn't too bad... The other two are dreadful though. "

I see your point, so yo man I think I'll have to change the pak thing, thanks all pointing that...

Nikko:
Mainly, the graphic design of the page. I don't think the page needs to have a white background, but:

A) It just doesn't make sense to pick a fantasy theme for a website which caters to all genres of music, and

B) The celtic design isn't even done in a very clean way. You can barely read the text below your logo. And the art with it's monochromatic elements looks like it's from an RPG from the bygone 256 color era.

Here's a celtic design which is done more cleanly, though I still woudln't use this on a game music site:

http://www.murphystaproom.net/

I'm not trying to pick on ya, but I really think the web design looks like it was done by a high school student from 1994. Sorry if that sounds mean... but it does.

If you really want to stick with the celtic theme, at least type "irish pub" into google and visit some of those sites to find ones with clean webs design and mimic that. There's plenty of good color schemes other than white too.

Oh and another clue the website was done by an amateur is that they used the texturize filter in photoshop to make the background. No profesisional artist would use that filter in web design.

I think the overall layout looks really nice. My only gripe is with the pack descriptions, where some of them end in the middle of a word until you click detail to read the rest of it. I think the descriptions should end on a whole word, then maybe a "..." to let you know there's more. Good luck with your site.

Where it shows the IP Address, it doesn't even give my correct IP Address.

Lol I'll remove this i promess, what about if I give a choice between 3 designs : the Celtic one, a Sci-fi one and a neutral one, a little bit like on this website btw?

I think you should just pick one. It'll save you effort in the long run and I don't think people will bother picking a different style, it's not a forum they will hang out on a lot like this site.