[forrestthewoods]

They are a three man team working without any pay. What did you expect the money to go to? Proper salaries and benefits for the team would be a few hundred thousand dollars, not 36k.

Spending $6000 on music counts 100% as "to development" and is perfectly reasonable. For PAX if anything they should have spent more money to create a bigger presence.

[MrFoof]

I'm genuinely curious as to how much music $6000 bought. That can afford quite a decent-length soundtrack.

For not-very-well known composers, I've been quoted in the range of $150-250/minute for music. I assume that if I went a bit higher up the chain (small-time, but established) that the price would rise.

[theandym]

As someone who's worked in independent film and has been involved in projects that have spent $10k's and $100k's in music, I dont see this as lavish or irresponsible at all. Musicians are hard workers, and deserve to be paid for their efforts. Just because the developers couldn't hack their way to a great soundtrack and paid for decent/professional work doesn't mean they misappropriated funds. I'd counter that they rightfully spent the money in places that weren't their core competencies.

Edit: I know that film isn't the same as game development, but I feel that the multidisciplinary aspect of game creation incurs costs in a far wider arena than traditional software development.

[MrFoof]

I don't see it as lavish or irresponsible either -- I was just providing a data point. If I could guarantee the sales would be a non-issue, I'd certainly love to step up the production values of titles I make with more varied soundtracks.