Fairness and Zykophants

Let’s say, for a split second of fantasy, that we live in a fair world. How would OCReMix look during that split second? Fair has never… Okay, I’m not gonna try to make that funny. My lawyer suggested lack of humor might help my case.

 

60,574 posts, 2,124 threads. I’m talking about the Reviews forum. I’m gonna make a quick scientific experiment. I observed that McVaffe had an unhealthy amount of reviews in comparison with other recent remixes. Further observations should confirm that many OCR forum members are sycos (not to be confused with zyko).

 

I’m gonna list 10 recent remixes and estimate their value based on a formula. The remixes are: Harmony of Destruction, H2O, Nuclear Flash, Kirby’s Mystical Track, Celestial Winds Blah Blah Blah, Heatman (Just a Fuse mix), Livin’ la vida Stockholm, A Day in the Life of a Judge, and Yet Even More Final Fantasy VII. And yes, I’m using nonary for this post.

 

For the sake of fairness, I’m not gonna include the two Final Fantasy tracks just outside the range I just set my mind on using in this statistical experiment. That means that both emo-FF and FFVI tie with Mega Man 2, each with 2 remixes.

 

On average, there are 2 reviews a day on new remixes. The actual number of reviews per day is much higher, due to OA, DA and others, but the older reviews don’t count here. It should be mentioned that at least OA is often seen on the first page of recent review threads.

 

The top scoring tracks here were not FFVII tracks, surprisingly. Less surprising was the sycophancy, most reviews were of McVaffe’s Okami remix and the Sixto Sounds/zircon Mega Man 2 collab. The top scoring tracks had more than twice the average.

 

More surprises await in the low range, with judge JJT and newcomer Kidd Cabbage. Both tracks were from Final Fantasy games, and received less than half of the average number of reviews. While surprising, it doesn’t really break convention.

 

I’ll sum this up by saying that some remixers have a significant status, and I’d like to attribute the unfair review balance to subliminal messaging but there’s a simpler explanation, namely that a significant portion of remix fans are sycophants, and I’m coming after you with Occam’s Razor if you disagree.

 

The Most Productive Remixers

The OCReMix community is a interesting place. At the time of writing, the average number of songs is 3,07171314741 per remixer. 50 remixers are responsible for more than 50% of the remixes, leaving the remaining 1452 remixers sharing an average of half a remix. While collaborations make these stats somewhat unreliable, it still points towards nepotistic tendancies.

 

While we might forgive the founder and administrator for the site and “non-profit organization” that is OCR for this 68-remix bias, McVaffe and Mazedude seem to be unjustly favored. Such major contributors to the growing database of rearranged video game tracks must either be extremely talented and productive or enjoy unfair treatment in their favor.

 

Let’s examine these possibilities. After listening to a random McVaffe remix, I feel confident in my assumption that he (or she, or it) is a typical electronica “musician”. Four on the floor, loops and minimalism throughout. Repetition isn’t a very time-consuming process, so we can classify Mcvaffe as “productive”. It seems to me like McVaffe has been banned from OCR, as his latest remix is dated 2004.

 

Mazedude has a more interesting style, but the creepy style he (or she, or it) employs is offputting and bizarre, ultimately more confusing than anything else. Mazedude remains an OCR leech, most likely through bribing the judges to get the works of his Halloween fetish hosted and corrupting millions of innocent surfers.

 

Where does this leave DJPretzel? Presumably, as the owner of the site, he is collecting ridiculous amount of profit from donations, google ads, selling OCR-branded merchandise, and supplying video game music addicts with diverse “discount” items via Amazon. Hence, he only needs to maintain his image as a friendly musician and fellow fan, and he has all the time in the world to produce remixes while sitting in his mansion growing round.