No more place for musicians in the game industry?

[Little Conqueror]

I've noticed that music has sort of dribbled out of games lately. Yes, recent blockbusters had some good music, but are they merely contracting big-name studios to supply it? I'm unaware of anybody like Lee Jackson, Bobby Prince, or other great songwriters of the video game genre. I don't see any companies advertising openings for musicians anymore.

This worries me on two levels. First, on a personal level: I want to get into the game design field, but my skills as a programmer or level designer are rudimentary; I can design textures, 2-dimensional art and sprites alright, but those are outdated in today's field; I can't do 3-D worth a damn right now; I'd rather stick to my strength - music. I've been doing it for years and have gotten quite good at it, IMO.

Second, on a gameplayer's level: are the days of memorable tunes over? I can't remember ONE SONG from Half-Life 2, Painkiller, or Doom 3. I can remember songs from indie games that use MIDI or MOD or less popular games like Dynasty Warriors, but nothing from the big, popular studios (except for EA and it's "trax" - why bother hiring a musician when you can just acquire the right to use pre-written songs for less money!)

So... are the glory days over? I'd like to hear your opinions... ESPECIALLY if you're in the know on this sort of thing.

[Nacho]

FPS don't really have music. Other Genres do.

[DudeMiester]

I think they are just under-spoken. For example Jack Wall, who did music for many of the Final Fantisy games, or the Humble Brothers, who do a lot of work for Maxis, have some really good stuff. I know SquareSoft has a large section of their site dedicated to their music. There are also a few video game music sites, most notably www.vgamp.com (http://www.vgamp.com) too. Game music is like indie music, you have to really go after it actively if you want to hear it, but when you do it's damn impressive!

[Little Conqueror]

I always liked the FF music, but not really the games, so I avoided them for the most part.

Maxis, on the other hand, has some neat tunes. But I should have specified: action games, particularly FPSes.

[DudeMiester]

I've heard some very good things about Halo's soundtrack. Maybe you should check that out.

Oh and if you like old chiptunes, C64 stuff, etc you must check out Nectarine Demoscene Radio. It's not game music per say, but it's pretty close. I also listen to this "Retro PC GAME Streaming Radio from Gyusyabu" at http://gyusyabu.ddo.jp:8000. It's a ridiculous 160kbit for Dos, NES games and such! lol.

[Needle]

I miss the time when the music was an important part of games. In fact, I still listen to old Amiga and C64 tunes from time to time. I don't think music is a selling point anymore. Today it's all about graphics.

Fortunately there are still some games with nice music around. I just played Divine Divinity, which was a medicore game, but the soundtrack is great.

Edit: Just found the homepage of the guy who did the music of Divine Divinity. http://www.kirillpokrovsky.com/

Nice. He's offering all tracks for download. This one (http://www.kirillpokrovsky.com/mp3/dd/15%20-%20Drunk%20with%20Dwarven%20Mirth.mp3) is strangely addictive. [i]Dam didi dam didi dam didi damidi....[i]

[Opus131]

Nacho said:
modern FPS don't really have music.



fixed

In other news, games like Doom, the Hexen series, Jedi Knight, Quake 2 and No One Lives Forever are among my favored shooters EXACTLY because of the sound track.

Personally, i think music plays a huge role in games, and it saddens me to think producers don't take it into consideration anymore.

This days, you are lucky if you can remember a single track from a game, and even when the music is good, it's made to be so subtle and 'unintrusive' (by all means, intrude away) that it's like it's not there at all...

[Pansa]

the problem lies in the use of music in games throughout time..

in the begining it was used more or less to not play in silence, aka a buildin radio..

since games developed a whole different way to apply "tension" via storysetup, thus music has evolved more into a movielike score, which has other dutys than the score from the past, where tension was primarily created by the games "fighting" their players .

if you play more arcadish games , they still use this kind of blarring sound , if you happen to put your fingers on "n2o" a very wicked arcadeshooter for the psone , youll notice a very powerfull cristal method soundtrack...

whereas in more storydriven games , music has morphed more or less into an "ambient" style of music which actually works best if you dont actually listen to it , but only notice the emotion it wants to perpetrate..

oh , and i think most of the "catchyness" of the sounds past lies in its high repetitionrate ... (especialy for c64tunes ... i dont want to know how many hours i have heard the "song" from "monty on the run" its literarily BURNT into my skull....

[Opus131]

Pansa said:
thus music has evolved more into a modern-movielike score



fixed once again

Sorry, but movies used to have great sound tracks as well, and once again, it was a big selling point.

The issue extends in both mediums...

[Pansa]

Opus131 said:

Pansa said:
thus music has evolved more into a modern-movielike score



fixed once again

Sorry, but movies used to have great sound tracks as well, and once again, it was a big selling point.

The issue extends in both mediums...



well i wouldnt consider
a) ambientsountracks as opposed to songbased soundtrack as "bad soundtracks". just because it wouldnt sell well on a cd doesnt mean it doesnt serve its purpose better than other kinds of score

b) in my opinion is scorebased sountrack being pushed back in favour of songbased soundtrack as far as movies go.
as far as hollywood goes , actionsequenzes used to have a more ambient score , now morphing into "standart newrocktrack" while in actionsequenzes..

so while both changes may be considered "bad" i dont think both changes go into the same direction, rather the opposite..

edit: and PLEASE dont fix what i said.. correct me as long as you want.. but this is a bit annoying...

[Orochi Avlis]

Chris Vrenna is a good example that they are not extinct.
He did the music for American Mc Gee's Alice and Doom 3.

EDIT:
Dark Side of Phobos (http://doom.ocremix.org/)
I suggest downloading this. It's pretty damn good.
My favorite song is Glass Moon.

[Little Conqueror]

The problem is not the music itself. It's the implementation. Not ONCE did I hear the songs in Doom 3 to the point where I could actually LISTEN to them - they were always too quiet to be heard and easily drowned out. Now that I hear them in isolation, they're not bad at all (have a few new songs in my playlist now).

I forgot about Halo's incredible soundtrack (and it is incredible). Thanks for that correction.

I guess what I'm saying is, companies can go for "ambient" if they want. It goes quite well. But no longer are any of these ambient musics distinctive - all the "look out for the monster over there that you can't see" ditties sound the same after a while. I don't mind walking through a sterile lab and not hearing music. But if the soundtrack is going to be ambient, they need to stop being so damn quiet and/or generic.

Some other mainstream games that have GREAT music and implementation:
-World of Warcraft (the music isn't domineering but it is memorable)
-Battlefield 1942 (Multiplayer FPSes don't really need music during gameplay... the menu music is nice though)
-Dynasty Warriors series (if you like rock guitar)
-Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 (some great orchestral songs there; I like the battle themes)
-Max Payne series (by far my favorite video game music after only ROTK10 above and DN3D/ROTT, my favorites)

See, even though I'm a musician, I also have difficulties hearing in my left ear. This "ambient" stuff doesn't quite work for me, especially if it's directional, because many games nowadays go out of their way to make the music as inconspicuous as possible.

Maybe I'm just depressed because I'm another unemployed songwriter. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif

[pec]

Opus131 said:
In other news, games like Doom, the Hexen series, Jedi Knight, Quake 2 and No One Lives Forever are among my favored shooters EXACTLY because of the sound track.



Don't forget Unreal. It had a great soundtrack too. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Dr. Kill]

Little Conqueror said:
I've noticed that music has sort of dribbled out of games lately. Yes, recent blockbusters had some good music, but are they merely contracting big-name studios to supply it? I'm unaware of anybody like Lee Jackson, Bobby Prince, or other great songwriters of the video game genre. I don't see any companies advertising openings for musicians anymore.

This worries me on two levels. First, on a personal level: I want to get into the game design field, but my skills as a programmer or level designer are rudimentary; I can design textures, 2-dimensional art and sprites alright, but those are outdated in today's field; I can't do 3-D worth a damn right now; I'd rather stick to my strength - music. I've been doing it for years and have gotten quite good at it, IMO.

Second, on a gameplayer's level: are the days of memorable tunes over? I can't remember ONE SONG from Half-Life 2, Painkiller, or Doom 3. I can remember songs from indie games that use MIDI or MOD or less popular games like Dynasty Warriors, but nothing from the big, popular studios (except for EA and it's "trax" - why bother hiring a musician when you can just acquire the right to use pre-written songs for less money!)

So... are the glory days over? I'd like to hear your opinions... ESPECIALLY if you're in the know on this sort of thing.



I miss game music. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif I love game music. It pisses me off that companies (like Activision, Rockstar, and EA) get all of these (for the most part) shitty, overplayed songs (like Welcome to the Jungle). In the course of a little over a year, I heard The Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mryuck.gif in three games: Gran Tourismo 3, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2, and Vice City (now that I think of it, all three of those games were big disappointments). I want some variety. I like real music in games. Sports games need it, but I hate how they only choose "hip" bands. If a band isn't their idea of "cool", they aren't in. One great example of this is how Tony Hawk's American Wasteland has an all poser punk soundtrack. They are having posers cover real punk songs, and wuss em up. I know why; The bands that did the originals aren't "cool". They aren't squeeky clean boy band sissies, so they use covers instead.

I hope they start getting some more variety cause I hate hearing the same 5 bands.

[Claws]

Anything by Jesper Kyd is amazing.

[Kev_Hectic]

Little Conqueror said:
The problem is not the music itself. It's the implementation. Not ONCE did I hear the songs in Doom 3 to the point where I could actually LISTEN to them - they were always too quiet to be heard and easily drowned out. Now that I hear them in isolation, they're not bad at all (have a few new songs in my playlist now).




You know, one of the guys that worked on the soundtrack for Doom 3, Ed Lima (http://www.edlima.com/weblog/), is also doing the music for Prey.

But yeah, I agree, I really do prefer a lot of the older midi styled music from the 8bit/ 16bit console and early computer game days. But as for new musicians, I think Jesper Kyd (http://www.jesperkyd.com/)'s pretty good, he did the Splinter Cell games, as well as the Hitman series. I also liked the soundtrack he did for MDK II. Tommy Tallarico studios (http://www.tallarico.com/index.php?s=credits) has been successful as well, although personally I don't think he did anything particularly great since the days he used to work with Shiny Entertainment.

[Odin]

No more game music? Bullshit. Total bullshit. Music sets the mood for many genres, and even if we delve into this realistic gaming area, there will always be the classic arcade genre, and as such, there will always be a place for game music.

[Little Conqueror]

Odin said:
No more game music? Bullshit. Total bullshit. Music sets the mood for many genres, and even if we delve into this realistic gaming area, there will always be the classic arcade genre, and as such, there will always be a place for game music.



I HOPE it's bullshit, but recent games are sounding more and more like canned ambient tracks than anything. If you'd read the whole topic, you would've seen that many great recent game musicians have been mentioned, but that it just seems like more and more companies are skimping on the music department. I'm not saying that music has no place in games - quite the opposite. Read plzkthx. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mryuck.gif

[Orochi Avlis]

SW:KOTOR had great music.
Especially Dantooine. I just loved the music on that planet.

[avatar_58]

Everyone is too obsessed with "realism" and "immersion" so they seem to think the absense of music gives a better sense of reality. Personally I think thats BS because some games have the perfect set of music and can change the feel of the whole game.

The Final Fantasy games and Chrono Trigger have amazing soundtracks. Very few games have a following just based on their music alone...but these games have it.

What I don't understand is that movies still have original music so why can't games? The Lord of the Rings had great themes....modern RPGs should learn a good lesson from them.

[Malgon]

I reckon some fantasy RPG games have some very nice scores to them, like Baldurs Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment.

For older games with midi tracks, that stuck inside your head there were so many. The first that pops into my mind is Doom and the second is Duke Nukem 3D. Both these games had these excellent tunes that you can never forget. I am sure there are many other games that had great music in them.

Some from Quake 3 and UT were pretty cool, and also from Deus Ex title theme were very nice also. But most games today don't have memorable music, that just stays in your mind for days on end. We need more of those old style games again.

[gungriffon geona]

griping about music in games... geez, I don't play half the games you people do, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that Game Music as of recent has gotten, quite frankly, boring and under-used.
I want a game that has a loveable soundtrack again. I haven't heard a good OST since... I'm thinking Gungrave. (not counting the Ratchet and Clank games and Katamari Damacy.)

[Yatta]

DudeMiester said:
I've heard some very good things about Halo's soundtrack. Maybe you should check that out.


What he said.