Oof then he really should have nailed down permissions to use that music I suppose.
Probably a better idea is to design a game so that your visuals don't rely so heavily on the music that one feels the need to go back to the drawing board if the music is not available. There are plenty of scenarios where one would read an AVN and not be able to do so with sound.
His AVN's are pretty good and I play them without sound.
Oh bro, no offense, but everyone is a project manager until it's time to make their own decisions and face the consequences.
It's good to know something in advance and act accordingly.
Even better, knowing that shit can happen, to have the resources to deal with the problem.
Ocean explained why this happened. He bought annual tracks' licenses because... Because he said he was a poor guy and couldn't afford permanent licenses.
Well, it worked until the management of the label which songs he used changed. They prohibited their performers from renewing their licenses with Ocean. He tried to negotiate but failed.
Luckily, he was able to permanently secure some of the songs from the old SG playlist, but their use with adult content is prohibited. This is one of the main reasons why he removed even the few barely adult scenes from the first season that were still there.
You might say: if he couldn't afford those songs, why didn't he just use free music. I dunno, bro, probably because he is the author and this is his creation. Perhaps he thinks that without this music the game will lose part of its soul and its existence will be useless.
But I wouldn't blame Ocean for being stubborn and short-sighted when it comes to licensing music. I've heard of at least two other developers who were also brutally abused by record labels. One is Drifty, the other is DPC. They both had to remove the best songs from their games, the songs which had become the audio posters of their games.
