Gaming Music Goes Mainstream

Steve writes "CNN has posted an article about the emergence of a big business in video game music. According to the author, budgets for one game recently surpassed $300,000, with composers being paid between $700 and $1500 per minute of composition, even more 'if it's produced for an orchestra.' The article points out that the production quality of game music has surpassed that of television, where money is rarely budgeted for high-quality soundscapes."

Comments

Most interesting music == Games

[Cerberus7]

Good! I've found that in the last few years, the music I find most interesting is composed for games. Hollywood soundtracks still provide some good stuff, but the more imaginative things are coming from games. The downfall has been the instrumentations, being mostly relegated to various qualities of synth. That's fine for the songs that use synth the way it was meant to be used, not when it's used because they didn't have the budget to use the instruments they really wanted. It's annoying to hear what should clearly be a great piece, but have it sound so bad. Now, with them getting more money, maybe we'll get more and more real instruments where they're needed.