Composer affiliations?

[Jormungand]

I was just wondering how CocoeBiz comes into affiliation with the composers it currently sponsors, and if Ms. Ezaki plans to enlist any more.

[Carl]

Well I know enough of the details to give a pretty good explanation on this topic...

So far it's mostly been a combination of nearby locations, meeting at current events (like concerts), and openness of the companies & composers to try and expand their reach to foreign customers.

The first composer signed up was Noriyuki Iwadare, who's parents live in the same town as Kahori, and they had some things in common. He was doing some live shows with his new band Ingmar so they were able to meet up locally and discuss things.

The timing of other current events play a part as well, since other live vgm concerts were beginning to resurface during that time, and it's a good way to meet people in the business...

At the "Game Music LEGEND" event, which was sponsored in part by Scitron Discs, she met some of the Scitron staff members in the lobby of the event where they sold CDs at their booth, and she won some limited item prizes and made introductions and chatted with their staff.

Yasunori Mitsuda was the next artist, having started releasing his own cds on his private label Sleigh Bells, and since those were only handled as promotionals for his fan club previously, Kahori approached with the idea of carrying stock of his cds for sale online through her shop.

Other live events sprung up as well, Guity Gear XX Live and Motoi Sakuraba's Star Ocean concert, so that was the time to approach Team Entertainment about carrying their label's items at the webstore, and with Motoi's widespread appeal of prog-rock sound in areas outside of Japan, it was easy to form an alliance there to try and reach more foreign fans.

Momentum carries things forward as well, and since the vgm community isn't really that large to begin with, other composers and labels take notice of things, and become easier to approach.

Hopefully this gives a little insight to how things got started, and yes it's nice to give as many of these talented artists as possible the opportunity to reach out and interact with international game music fans.