Games are one of the most effective ways for musicians to establish and increase their audience, writes Jason Hill.When was the first time you heard Aussie rockers Jet or Wolfmother? For millions around the globe it wasn't on radio, TV or at a pub - it was while they were playing a video game.
Games are one of the most effective ways for musicians to establish and increase their audience. Game soundtracks ignited the careers of Jet, Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters, Wolfmother, Spank Rock, Bullet for My Valentine, Hawthorne Heights, Dizzee Rascal, Bloc Party, Maximo Park, Arctic Monkeys and many more.
Recent research from interactive entertainment's biggest publisher, Electronic Arts (EA), revealed that more than half of America's dedicated gamers aged 13 to 32 had learned about a new band from a game soundtrack.
That may not be surprising given the time console and PC users spend playing the latest games but game soundtracks are also influencing music buying.
More than a third of gamers have downloaded a song after hearing it in a game and more than 20 per cent have bought an album because they liked a game's song.
EA's executive of music marketing, Steven Schnur, who started at MTV in the '80s, says there are parallels between music videos and today's games industry."
MTV first appeared in 1981 and since then an entire generation has been raised with an expectation of visuals attached to audio," Schnur says.
He recalls a 15-year-old in focustesting saying "a song only becomes real to me when I see it"."
I still think about the implications of that kid's statement," Schnur says.
"We are continuing a trend already in motion for 20-plus years, a trend already indelibly ingrained in future generations, generations raised on video games as a major entertainment source in their lives, generations raised on discovering music through these games. For this generation, the song now becomes real when they play it."
He says most artists, publishers and labels understand games are important to young people's lives and being associated with a popular game enhances an artist's image.
Game soundtracks have grown in sophistication over the past 30 years, evolving from the primitive beeps blurted by the first generation of home computers and consoles.
Today's games have symphonic scores on par with Hollywood blockbusters or CD-quality music from popular and emerging artists.
The shift from floppy disk and cartridge-based games to optical discs such as CD and DVD had the biggest impact on improving game soundtracks, allowing the quality and quantity of music to greatly increase.
A pioneer was Sony's Wipeout, released on the PlayStation in 1995, which had music from popular electronica groups such as Orbital, Chemical Brothers and Leftfield. Sony promoted it in nightclubs, which boosted the new console's street cred.
Sergio Pimentel, music licensing manager at Sony Computer Entertainment's London studio, says the relationship between games and music benefits both.
He says featuring popular music in PlayStation games has been important to develop the console's image and, with more than 200 million PlayStations machines in homes, games are returning the favour by taking music to new audiences.
At EA, Schnur's team, staffed from music publishing or marketing backgrounds, studies international charts, "see a lot of bands" and "listen to a lot of music" to identify emerging talent, he says. "We track mix tapes, college radio and independent scenes all over the world."
Nearly 95 per cent of EA games' music comes from new acts; the rest is exclusive new tracks from "superstar bands" or music from top producers created specifically for a game.
EA Sports titles such as FIFA Soccer and Madden NFL (which sell about 7 million copies a year) have licensed music, while Command & Conquer and Harry Potter have Hollywood-style scores that complement the action.
"The number-one rule for any EA soundtrack is that the music must drive the game while enhancing the gaming experience," Schnur says. "The music we choose must have the ability to make you want to drive faster, shoot higher . . . (and) hearing the music will always remind you of the great time you had playing the game."
Hitoshi Sakimoto, composer of Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics, says composing music for games is similar to writing a film score.
"I talk to the developers about which direction they'd like to take their game and what role the music should take. Then I watch the illustration and read the scenario and compose a theme based on the world's atmosphere."
He says the main theme is usually the basis for other compositions and, when complete, the score is typically performed by world-class musicians in a recording studio.
Rather than providing a linear, looping score, many modern games have "interactive music" that matches the intensity of the action.
Another pioneer of interactive music was LucasArts with the game X-Wing matching music from John Williams' Star Wars scores to on-screen space combat.
More recently, players have created custom game soundtracks, ripping their favourite songs from CDs and saving them to a console's hard drive.
Although this has the potential to put him out of a job, Pimentel says giving players choice is positive.
"At the end of the day, if someone does not like the score to a game, they'll turn the volume down and listen to something else."
While most play to the beat of pounding rock, pop, rap or metal, there is evidence games encourage the young to appreciate classical music.
Widening that audience is the goal of Australia's Eminence orchestra, which has performed music from popular games since 2003.
"My main goal is to revive the joys of listening to classical musicians," says Eminence founder, artistic director and violin virtuoso Hiroaki Yura. "I just hope that people will come and see our live music instead of always sitting at home in front of the TV."
Music from more than 20 games including Super Mario Bros, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania and World of Warcraft will be performed by the Sydney Symphony orchestra and the Cantillation Choir at Sydney's Opera House this month. The Play! concerts are conducted by award-winning musician Arnie Roth and have received rave reviews overseas.
Composer Hitoshi Sakimoto says classical music suffers from an image of being "too elitist and boring" but gamers who attend such concerts often develop an appreciation for the music.
In Japan, CD soundtracks from popular games such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Metal Gear Solid sell in the hundreds of thousands, encouraging composers such as Yasunori Mitsuda, creator of music for Japanese role-playing classics Chrono Trigger and Xenogears.
"I think it's a fantastic thing that someone likes my music and would want to listen to it," he says. "Because there are people who like my music, no matter what hardship I am in, I can always work very hard."
He says that when he started composing music for games "the industry was not respected" but there is growing recognition from the public and industry, including Grammy nominations.
EA takes the Japanese trend of releasing game soundtracks a step further, establishing a recording label called Artwerk to break new acts and develop their careers.
EA's Schnur says Artwerk signs, launches and develops artists for publishing, master recordings and distribution. "And though we're based in Los Angeles, we will be actively pursuing talent all over the world."
EA's Asia-Pacific competition, Amplify, seeks to attract the hottest unsigned bands. The prize is an EMI contract and a single in a new blockbuster game.
Game music is on Apple's iTunes and other download services and soon users can buy songs they hear from their games console.
"The traditional record business may be dead, but the music industry is on the verge of the most exciting growth period in its history," Schnur says.
"Within the next two years, our ability to expose new music will (be) beyond anything the industry has ever known before. Today, video games break new artists and bring career artists to a whole new level. Soon these games will become the new radio, the new MTV and the new record store all in one."
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