It’s not music to everyone’s ears though.
Watch Dogs Legion is teaming up with the for-profit collaborative art project site, HitRecord, to produce ten different songs for the London-based hack-em-up.
So psyched to be making collaborative music for #WatchDogsLegion on @HITRECORD — the whole world’s invited to play instruments, sing, and write lyrics for 10 songs that’ll be in the game. Come get involved here: https://t.co/mmkwHwrl4s pic.twitter.com/ZU9bbPUDKA
— Joseph Gordon-Levitt (@hitRECordJoe) July 13, 2019
If this is the first time you’re hearing of HitRecord, the site brings different people together to chip in with projects. The selection of Watch Dogs Legion projects, which ranges from grime songs to music for heist missions, will be the end product of totally un-related singers, songwriters, and anyone who’s handy with an instrument – so it’s time to crack out the banjo and come up with a toe-tappingly good riff for a grime song.
Disgusting. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a union contract yet he's peddling spec work for a billion dollar company. The game industry exploits our passion to pay unlivable wages, this is the next logical step. Soliciting unpaid labor for a product that will make millions. #NoSpec pic.twitter.com/U2hKS69Hot
— GWU Los Angeles (@GWU_LosAngeles) July 13, 2019
The collaborative project hasn’t gone down too well for some organisation though, and the Los Angeles branch of video games union Game Workers Unite has criticised both Ubisoft and HitRecord founder, Joseph Gordon-Levitt about the project. In a tweet concerning the new partnership, GWU’s LA branch said that the “game industry exploits our passion to pay unlivable wages, this is the next logical step. Soliciting unpaid labor for a product that will make millions.â€
GWU’s tweet is accompanied by a screenshot of a previous tweet made by Levitt. The tweet suggests that as long as a contributor’s piece of work ends up being used in the final version of Watch Dogs Legion, then they will be paid. According to the HitRecord website, the money made from successful projects will be split down the middle, with half going to HitRecord and the other half being shared out among the various contributors. Payments for contributors are dependant on how much of a project they’ve helped out with, though HitRecord does say that people have the opportunity to explain why they should get a larger share. Payments are then released digitally two times a year.
It’s not the first time that Ubisoft has leaned on the collaborative hub that hitRecord offers,; you might remember that during the reveal of Beyond Good & Evil 2, a similar partnership was announced for a ton of the game’s assets.
At the time of this story, only five projects are listed for Watch Dogs Legion, all of which are for in-game music, but another five will be announced at some point.