The Blending of Music and Games

Gamasutra has an opinion piece by the 'father of music games,' Masaya Matsuura, who questions the evolution of video game music (or the lack thereof) as the industry's technological advancements give rise to the capability for greater complexity. "Most games these days seem to use gorgeous orchestral soundtracks. While these large-scale soundtracks may generally be lovely to listen to, if we really think about it, isn't it all a bit lacking in imagination? Thinking about it from a simplistic visual perspective, while films are basically just watched, games are interactive." He also discusses the predilection for games to encourage "competitive fun," as opposed to "cooperative fun." GameSetWatch has a related article which talks about how excellent musical scores can help to create an emotionally charged experience, rather than simply occupying one's mind for a time.

Comments

Game music

[Ethanol-fueled]

Having the sprawling orchestral arrangements is nice, but as a video game music fetishist since the NES days I know that the songs big and small rely on catchy motifs to motivate the gamer and stick inside their head. You think the Minibosses gathered crowds by playing orchestra?

Many classic NES games have captivating, moody music - Wizards and Warriors' soundtrack is +1 underrated. Long-running series such as Final Fantasy and Castlevania have used some of the same titles and motifs throughout their entire series.

Re:Game music

[BorgAssimilator]

Zelda definitely takes the cake. Being a big music enthusiast, I loved Ocarina of Time, and how the game was pretty much centered on the music played from this instrument. That Zelda game alone had wonderful music, in addition to the earlier releases. Final Fantasy also had a very good score.

However, that being said, even the newer releases of these games haven't lived up to the role that their predecessors have. We've (and by "we" I mean the game companies) obviously shifted importance away from this component. Apparently the grand majority of people don't care (or at least the game companies don't think they care) about the music in a game as much as the other content. I must be in the minority when I say music incorporation is just as important as, say, the graphical implementation.

Simple reason

[Korbeau]

Chicks always get bored when I score high on expert at Guitar Heroes III and leave before I finish a song.

But whenever I clumsily play what looks like a love ballad dedicated to them while being drunk on my cheap guitar with rusty chords, they always stay for the end :)

The old stuff was better

[Daetrin]

Perhaps i'm just showing my age, but i think the older and simpler music had a much bigger impact than the music from newer games, even leaving aside the cases where they're not using licensed music.

The music needs to fit the scene for which it is being played, and outside of games specifically designed as "music games" i think that's all the interaction that's necessary. The music needs to be relatively simple and somewhat repetitive. Once you've gone beyond a certain level of complexity either you're not noticing the added complexity anymore, or you're paying more attention to the music than you are to the game.

Of course a certain level of complexity is good. I don't really look back on the "music" from the Atari 2600 with great fondness. However as the ability to play more complex music in games has increased there was a point where my interest peaked and then began a general decline. I think the peak for me was around the days of Final Fantasy 6. After that the music of games in general made less and less of an impression on me. I very much enjoyed Final Fantasy 10, and the music for it was well done and pleasant to listen to, but very rarely do i get a desire to go back and listen to it again, and in fact unlike a lot of previous games i have difficulty "replaying" most of the music in my head. On the other hand more recent music from the Advance Wars music has stuck with me much more because it was constrained by the format to be simpler and more repetitive.

Of course one could argue that being complex and varied enough that the songs don't etch themselves into your brain is a good thing, but from my perspective i'm going to get more enjoyment out of the music if i remember it fondly later, especially if it's paired with memories of a particularly fun game.

Re:Dynamic Audio

[cbreaker]

Well then you should read the article because it's more about "music games" like Guitar Hero instead of music IN games.

Music in games has always been good or bad, and I think the same is true now. Not all Nintendo or c64 games had great music, just as not all new games do.

I think this is an example of "nostalgia" more than actual truth.

Sorry but he's wrong.

[syousef]

I've gone from watching games evolve from now recognised as awful but revolutionary at the time synthesized junk on tiny laughable speakers to incredibly epic wonderful scene setting thematic music that adds to the atmosphere of the game. I like to imagine what Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear or Karateka would sound like if the score was created with today's equipment.

I remember marvelling at my first sound blaster (plus 1 speed CD-ROM which I got criticized for buying by a friend because it was extravagant). I remember trying it out against an AWE32 years later and thinking "How could I have liked that". I remember trying my SBLive with surround sound speakers for the first time and loving it because it left the AWE32 in the dust. I remember my first taste of my latest sound card and Logitech X-530 speakers for $68 and thinking "sure I could do better than this, but why would I spend thousands for such a small game when this is so awesome". If one thing has gotten better in computing, it's music. Whining about it is about the silliest thing I can think of.

I'm not sure I understand the complaint.

[argent]

Is the problem that the music sounds like a film score? I don't see the point of complaining about this, if you prefer beeps and boops instead of violins and pianos, that's legitimate, but it seems to have little to do with the fact that it's a game... those beeps and boops weren't about it being a game, they were about the limitations in the hardware. Different games have different music, just as different films have different music.

Is the problem that the music doesn't react to the actions in the game? But it does! Characters have themes, and the background music tends to reflect the most important character, it changes as you progress in the game, it changes as you enter different modes and areas.

Is the problem that the music isn't controlled somehow by the player? OK, I can see things that could be done. you select a theme for your character, and have the game generate some kind of algorithmic background music depending on the characters themes. You could have the player use musical cues to make actions happen (I had hoped that Ocarina of Time would do this, rather than have the music simply be a gimmick that you didn't actually have to learn). But you can do all these things without losing the lush orchestral scores.

So what exactly is the complaint?

Re:I'm not sure I understand the complaint.

[Anonymous Coward]

you could develop the music along the same lines of - for lack of a better word - genetics. As the fight progresses, have the music change from charged and exciting, through a major key and stacatto instrumentation with a well defined purcussion to a:

1) if the battle is going poorly, a more tense and minor key
2) if it's going well, a more triumphant mood.

Like AI, these would need specific triggers and imaginative branches in what happens.. If done well, you would recognize the primary themes from the soundtrack as seen through the context of the mise en scene. The music would give you auditory cues as to what's happening. For example:

As the battle hinges on the heroic actions of a specific character, the riffs and passages included would reflect that: playing that character's theme (or in the case of a nonspecific character, his/her race/faction theme).

In the same way that storytelling for games has changed (as a simplistic example, see the dialog system in neverwinter nights) where a composer must not compose a series of pieces of music, but work within a framework for building the final score - creating themes, purcussive passages, and bridges between the different possibilities.

This mode of thought in reference to soundtrack creation on the part of the composer (and to an extent, the performers whom are recorded) is fundamentally different to how film soundtracks are produced. It requires a certain amount of creativity and foresight that couples the composer and developer more tightly than they ever been in the past.

On another note entirely, I think the music in HL2 was fantastic. It wasn't as memorable as music in classic games, but it did its job brilliantly: it conveyed the situation and mood expertly. Few games can claim the same.

Incoherent

[dcollins]

When I read this interview last month, I put it down and said to myself, "Wow, I think I just experienced a cultural/translation divide with the Japanese. That was really incoherent."

The whole critique of "competitive fun as opposed to cooperative fun", etc., seemed really unproductive. There's a bunch of new made-up words in the article -- that's always a red flag for me.