Design by Collin Oguro
Video game music has come a long way, baby.
Once an afterthought in terms of game design and overall pop-culture consciousness, video game music is now a legitimate industry of its own. Today, internationally renowned orchestras perform entire concerts of music composed specifically for video games, and game soundtracks regularly feature top-drawer techno, hip-hop, rock, and punk bands. Video game soundtracks have their own real estate now in retail outlets both online and off. There's even a small but growing movement of video game music cover bands, which incorporate 1980s console hardware into live performances of classic arcade ditties. Wild.
Music is, of course, only one element of the overall sound design of video games, and in this larger arena too, exponential leaps have been made in a relatively short period of time. With the advent of directional and simulated surround sound, game audio became integral to the action itself. (Hear that crunching, gnawing sound to the left? That's why we're taking this here passage to the right...) First-person "sneakers," like the popular Thief series, turned the art of listening and eavesdropping into a survival skill in itself.
And for some games, sound and music are the point in and of themselves. Consider the genre of rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution and Frequency. With these titles, interacting with the soundtrack is the very focus of the gameplay. DDR and similar games have made an even broader impact on the video game form by introducing full-body tracking and dance pads (or drum kits or guitars) as the central control interface.
In fact, historians will likely look back on these last few and current years as the golden age of video game music. As a media form, video games are emerging from the "ghetto" of teenage fanatics and hardcore techies into the sunlight of respectability and mainstream acceptance. This is a cyclical process in mass media, as new technology creates new forms--from hip-hop to animation to graphic novels to even cinema itself.
The Forgotten Element...
As with film, television, and other primarily visual mediums, sound and music in the beginning were often the forgotten elements in video game design. That's because sound elements have a more subtle effect than do splashy visuals or hyperspeedy gameplay. In fact, oftentimes the mark of superior sound design is that you don't consciously notice it at all. Instead, it goes to work on you subconsciously--heightening tension, manipulating the mood, and drawing you into the gameworld faintly but inexorably.
Consider the ominous ambient sounds of survival horror titles like Resident Evil, which compound the tension as you happen upon those relentless zombies chewing up your Alpha Team comrades. This is a technique descended directly from cinema--try watching a horror film (or playing a horror game) with the sound muted. The absence is startling and indicates how critical sound can be.
Even early games like Space Invaders earned much of their addictive appeal by getting into your head with thumping, repetitive sound schemes. As the aliens got faster and closer, the music got faster and louder. Properly designed, sound and visual cues work together to produce an experience greater than the sum of their parts.
Dedicated gamers have come to appreciate just how integral good sound and music can be to the overall gameplay experience. Arcade classics such as Pac-Man and Defender relied on superb digital sound schemes to provide us with ditties, melodies, beeps, and buzzes we'd never heard before. With the introduction of the 16-bit and 32-bit eras and with the expanded storage capabilities of CD-ROM, video game music moved into the realm of true composition. Video game soundtracks now constitute their own category in the retail music market. Mainstream cross-pollination continues as well, from "Pac-Man Fever" to the recent phenomenon of techno and rock artists who contribute to game soundtracks.
In 2000, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) decided to let interactive games compete in the annual Grammy awards. Individual proponents within the game music industry are lobbying for a video-game-specific category in the future. So far, however, not much progress has been made. As it stands now, individual composers or record labels can submit video game soundtrack music independently in one of three general categories: Best Soundtrack Album; Best Song; or Best Instrumental Composition for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media.
As technology has progressed and overall game design has evolved, video game music is now a fertile area of development and growth. Accelerating crossover between video games and Hollywood has resulted in licensed commercial music leaping between various new media forms. Consider that House of the Dead is now a movie, James Bond is a game franchise, and TV's Alias is a marquee title for industry heavyweight Acclaim. Many new games now ship with an entirely separate audio CD for the stand-alone soundtrack, and video game music is finally getting the popular and critical attention it deserves.
What a long, strange trip it's been. So join us now for a leisurely "scroll" down the History of Video Game Music
Thanks to BasementArcade.com, Paul's Atari 2600 page, and the Video Game Music Archive for the music files used in this feature.
Next: The Early Days
