The developers behind the Annapurna indie hit, Mixtape, have dismissed claims that the game could be delisted from stores in the future, due to its focus on licensed music.
Set in the 1990s and developed by the same team behind the BAFTA-winning The Artful Escape, Mixtape tells the story of three high school friends making their way to their final party, reminiscing about their teenage years.
Mixtape prominently features music from artists such as The Smashing Pumpkins and Devo in its design, to the point that the game doesn’t include a streamer mode, allowing creators to safely stream the game.
Because many similar games are often delisted when their music licenses expire, some fans had expected that Mixtape’s shelf life could be short. However, speaking to Kotaku, Mixtape director Johnny Galvatron moved to alleviate such concerns.
According to the developer, Mixtape won’t suffer the same issues as other games that feature licensed music, as Beethoven and Dinosaur negotiated their licenses in perpetuity.
Galvatron’s claim was later echoed by Annapurna itself, which wrote on X: “We heard some people say MIXTAPE would be delisted due to music licenses expiring. That was a lie.”
Mixtape’s director further discussed the process of securing music for the game in the Kotaku interview, revealing that they used Pink Floyd as a “boundary test” for what could be possible for the game, but stopped when they were told they were unlikely to get approval from the band.
Other than that, producer Woody Woodward said the developer got “pretty much everything [they] asked for.”
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.’”
In VGC’s Mixtape review, we wrote: “The game’s use of music is pitch perfect, and heavily contributes to Mixtape being one of the best coming-of-age games of the modern era.”
