Freedom and Stagnation in Gaming Music

Nick Weidner writes "Indie music website Pitchforkmedia.com asks, 'What if John Cage had owned an XBox?'. The article compares today's game soundtrack composers to ambient artists such as Brian Eno, and discusses experimental soundtrack techniques with Jesper Kyd (the Hitman series), Peter McConnell (Psychonauts) and Russell Shaw (Black & White, Fable)." Meanwhile over at Wired News they are reporting on the suppression of musical creativity the designers had to build into Star Wars Galaxies, for fear that copyrighted works would be played in the galaxy far, far away. From the article: "If we allowed someone to play anything they want, they could play a song by Madonna and then we'd have licensing issues...We don't want to give them the option to try, because the bottom line is, if we open that gate, they will go through it". The latter situation is a real problem for the substantial population of players who enjoy the non-combat activities that SWG offers. Because all the music that entertainers can play has to be designed by SOE staffers, and 'okayed', there are long periods of time where no new music is introduced to the game. Given that every player has to interact with musicians at some point in their career to heal combat stress, it makes for a grating and uncomfortable experience to constantly be exposed to the same music (for players in both the band and the audience).