but WHAT IS BEST OST OF 2022 I DO NOT UNDERSTAND!!!! ok good news i can tell you finally
WHAT IS BEST OST OF 2022 I DO NOT UNDERSTAND!!!!
Best OST of (year that is last year), or BOST'22 (name pending) for short, is a "fresh", "new" contest that is kind of like the Best OST Contests but with a specific theme and many twists (wow!)
HOW DOES IT WORK?
thank you for asking me so i have a reason to answer that question! ok anyway jokes aside
This unofficial spinoff of BOST has several key aims. The first is to borrow and repurpose the scope of the Best OST Contest, a video game music event that happens here sometimes that takes a lot of effort to run and isn't very popular, into a similarly high effort event that is even more niche... er, I mean, has a more specific focus. That contest aims to find the best game soundtracks of all time. Here, in the same vein as the more standard game of the year contests, we instead simply aim to determine Board 8's favorite new game soundtracks of the year (well, last year).
Given this (and in the interest of giving other projects more oxygen), it's a much smaller affair, with the tighter focus meaning we'll only have a total of 32 entrants, lasting roughly a month, at (technically) just one match per day. But more on that later!
Starting October 1st, we'll be opening up the first-ever nomination period for this ambitious new project, and there are many changes in store compared to what you might be used to from regular BOST or VGMC.
Starting off, here's some eligibility rules for you to peruse carelesslyfully...
Release dates:
A soundtrack's release date is the first date of in-game availability on a version 1.0+ shipped copy ANYWHERE.
Game qualifications:
Any game released in 2022 with at least 3 new tracks is completely eligible. Anything originally from them added/released at any point before or since 2022 is eligible, provided they meet the track requirements below.
Any game that reached version 1.0 and/or left early access in 2022 is treated the same way, and songs from before their full release can be used too.
Expansions are not counted as standalone game releases.
ANY released game that does not qualify under the above criteria is also still treated as a "new" (2022) soundtrack, provided it at least three (3) "new" tracks (including arrangements). Only tracks added/released in 2022 can be used, however.
Track qualifications:
Tracks are considered "new" if they are sufficiently transformative. Arrangements (that is, at least using new samples) are transformative; remasters may or may not be. For some fuzzy guidance, the more people you think would support one version and not the other, the more transformative the change. (uf8 note: if this section confuses you, basically the bottom line is "generally we CAN allow extremely basic soundtrack remasters/conversions but if a (game) remaster also has actual arrange songs on it i'll personally be frowning at you condescendingly for picking basically just the originals. that's about it.)
As mentioned, tracks from soundtracks released before 2022 must be from 2022, unless the game had a substantial 2022 release (reached version 1.0 and/or left early access).
Finally, a quick note on licensed songs: it's difficult to cover such a complicated topic in so few words, but the gist of it is we'll be taking it on a case-by-case basis where the intent is to ask, "Is this considered part of this soundtrack?". If something is known for its first official use in the game in question, it's probably fine. If it's a song with ten million hits that got dumped into some random shovelware on Steam, it's probably not. Simple enough? Hopefully simple enough.
Putting all of that in layman's speak, we are using ORIGINAL release dates here, please consider this as it means games only localized in 2022 may not be eligible! With that said, anything that had a full release (version 1.0/left early access) in 2022 is also treated as fully eligible with no restrictions. What you might be surprised to learn however is that anything from before 2022 that had at least 3 new songs added to it in 2022 (new arrangements count too) is eligible. I feel I should clarify that ONLY new tracks are eligible for them, however.