The first thought that probably arose for most people upon seeing Mixtape for the first time was probably something along the lines of, “that’s a lot of licensed music, wonder how long it takes before it’s delisted.” Music licensing is notoriously a pain in the ass, and considering how embedded into the story every song that’s in the game is, it certainly seemed like Mixtape was doomed. But according to its devs, there’s nothing to worry about.
In an interview with Kotaku, creative director Johnny Galvatron explained that developer Beethoven and Dinosaur spent that little bit extra moolah to license all of the songs in perpetuity. That means, presuming the heat death of the universe doesn’t happen first, Mixtape will be available to purchase indefinitely. Publisher Annapurna also made it clear on Bwitter that those saying the game would be delisted because of licensing issues “was a lie,” so that puts a pretty firm cap on that one.
Galvatron did also talk a bit about the process of getting the licenses for the game’s soundtrack, noting that there weren’t really any “horror stories.” The team’s music supervisor essentially made it pretty clear as to what felt realistic for them, which meant no Pink Floyd, something the studio pitched as a “boundary test.” But in general, producer Woody Woodward says they got “pretty much everything [they] asked for.”
Explaining further, Galvatron said, “There’s just so many points in the game where Stacy turns the screen and says ‘This is the Smashing Pumpkins, and it’s fucking sick.’ You send that to [Smashing Pumpkins frontman] Billy Corgan and he goes, ‘This is the Smashing Pumpkins and it’s fucking sick, yeah, they can do that. That’s fine.'”
Mixtape is available to pick up on Steam now.