My kids love the Toca Boca games, so when I saw that there was a new one I became very interested. Some of their games are genius, like Toca Tailor and Toca Hair Salon Me. Some other Toca releases have left a lukewarm impression with our family. But that's to be expected. You can't hit a home run every single time. The new one that came out this week is called Toca Town. I went to YouTube to try to get some impressions on it before I made the choice on wether or not to buy it. It looks good from the videos I watched. We will probably buy it later today, but there was something else that caught my attention: The music that played in the background of some of the gameplay was extremely familiar to me. I was almost positive it was a Wilco song. A few quick YouTube searches later and I'd found the song. It's called "Dawned On Me". It's one of my more favorite songs on Wilco's newest record "The Whole Love". I have to wonder if a tiny little game like Toca Store has enough money to license a song like that. Or maybe they are just hoping that they won't get caught. Or maybe the person who did the music for the game inadvertently recreated the chords and melody from the song. Maybe he heard the song a few weeks before and then accidentally put it in the game, thinking that he had come up with the music on his own. Or maybe there is some sort of legality issue that because they don't put the words of the song in the game, then they can't be sued. Or maybe they didn't put enough of the song in the game for it to be a legal issue. I know The Simpsons do this kind of thing all the time, but that falls under social commentary because it's usually a spoof of some sort. Anyway, Wilco is awesome and you should check them out. I'll try to post the YouTube link below.
Here is a link to an excellent version of the song I was talking about. It's the first song that Wilco playes in this video. http://youtu.be/UZAKTCeE70Y Mod - Moved to general as this isn't a new game release
Here is a link to the gameplay video. You can hear the song at 40 seconds into the video. The song in the game is extremely slower than the Wilco song, but the chord progression and the melody matches very closely. It may not be infringement after all. http://youtu.be/4Z0lwNYXjiA
