By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I don't know why.
Since August 19 2021, No More Heroes series publisher Marvelous Inc. has been copyright claiming swathes of No More Heroes III (alternatively No More Heroes 3) soundtrack uploads on YouTube. Save for their own upload, which I'll hyperlink to but won't embed for reasons that should become clear. The game itself has been released since August 27, 2021.
There are two problems. Number one, the 56:07 video only has “twenty handpicked tracks”... not all of them. (They trend towards the first half of the game, presumably to avoid spoilers?) Number two, the video will only be available until 11:59 PM Japan time on Sunday, December 19 2021... which is Sunday morning in the United States. After that... it will apparently disappear. You might ask why. I don't know. Will Marvelous upload the soundtrack elsewhere, like on a paid streaming service? Don't know. Will they stop copyright claiming other people? Uncertain. Would I like to listen to the No More Heroes 3 soundtrack? Yes.
I understand the logic of copyright claiming everything and saying you should buy the game to listen to the music. (Which is more of an understandable position if your game has an in-game listenable soundtrack... especially when that in-game soundtrack is actually complete, as opposed to an incomplete in-game soundtrack. By the way, No More Heroes 3 doesn't have an in-game soundtrack.) Or maybe you're also selling the songs separately, be it in streaming services, as CDs or individually, or in concerts. I also understand the logic of being totally permissive—you can see it as free advertisement and a lure to buy the game the music is from.
But I don't understand only having the soundtrack (but only part of it) available for a limited time close to the game's release, and then remove it after altogether. If anything, you might want to do the other way around to try to stoke continued interest in the game in the long-tail of its relevant life.
Ludwig will be keeping an eye on this game's music and where it's posted... and for how long. There's a certain song he really wants to hear by itself, but it hasn't been uploaded by anyone anywhere. ...It's FU's throne room discussions cutscene theme. This kind of behaviour from the game's publisher could jeopardise No More Heroes 3's ability to win the KoopaTV Best Original Soundtrack of 2021 award coming up in early January.
No More Heroes 3 did not win the KoopaTV Best OST of 2021 award.
By comparison, The Pokémon Company is putting up the OST of their 15-year old game indefinitely.
Nevermind, that was also only up for about four months.
The Kirby 30th anniversary music fest was only up for about three weeks.
Marvelous has brought two additional No More Heroes 3 soundtracks, both of those are also very incomplete. But they're not time-limited.
AND IT'S GONE
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