I'm curios and feel free to ignore my question if you don't want to answer, but how much do you have to spend on licenses and are there any "decent" providers for music that you can use? By that I mean providers that have fair conditions from an indie dev's point of view. From the outside, I always have the impression that music licenses are a rip-off.
20 to 50 dollars per track so far.
The vast majority of artists I contacted didn't even reply. From the few who did, a couple of them asked for astronomic prices, in the 500 to 600 dollar price tag per track. A couple of others were more reasonable, and I struck a deal with them.
To my knowledge, there is no licensing platform that allows porn, erotica, mature or even "inappropriate" content. So there are no "fair conditions" as there are no conditions at all.
Direct deals with the artists are the only way. So I'm using these platforms (mainly Pixabay and Jamendo) to find tracks and then try to contact the artists directly. Which is not always possible.
Is music overpriced?
I guess that depends on the context.
Making music is hard work and takes time. And work deserves to be rewarded.
But for an indie dev like me, 500 dollars for a single track that won't even be crafted on purpose for the game is way overpriced.
But it's not if you are working on a million-dollar project.