Music Video Games Essay

Since 1972, video game industry has shown drastic changes concerning music in video games. And its progression has led to the stream of revenue not only to the game developer but also has publicized the music composers of the video games. With the passage of time, explicit improvements can be seen in the quality likewise, increment in the output channels, a great improvement in the quality of timbres, and also shifted to programmatic music in a game to make it more interesting. The increase in portrayal of human emotions was one of the first steps towards the programmatic music in video games which attracts more people towards video gaming. One would examine by the contribution of the former technological advancements that the technology is the main cause of great improvements for music in the video game industry. One of the top music composers John Wall tells host Andrea Seabrook in an interview that he never bother to listen the sounds of arcade games as it never attract his mind. But music video games invade one’s brain and force player to concentrate on the music as well. The purpose of the music video games is to make one feel and deeply connect them to the world of video games. Tallarico see video game music as proactive experience. And for that reason he used to say that if Beethoven were with us today, he would love to compose music for video games. In current times, similar to movies, games also have complex soundtracks. And these video games soundtracks has been publicized so much commercially that more and more revenue is being generated by selling tickets of concerts that focus on video game music. It has not just increase the purchasing of video game but also gave popularity to artists and composers. Previously released or recorded music streams and new music streams that are specifically made for video games, both of them are usually use to develop sound tracks in today’s world. X-games sports-based video games like, SSX, Tony Hawk, Initial D come with popular artists’ releases whereas, videogames like, Grand Theft Auto and Need For Speed: Underground has come with heavy cultural demographic themes. Sometimes the combinations of both are used in video games, as used in Dance Dance Revolution. A famous composer, Nobuo Uematsu got fame for his outstanding performance for the popular video game Final Fantasy. All the tickets were sold out with three days and even fans fought at the box office when they couldn’t get tickets. As mentioned above, video game music is also one of the most marketable products even if separate from the game in the form of concerts by popular artists or by distributing game music CDs. Businesses starts flourishing with the entrance of music in video games that it had little before. Employment rate prosperous as many of the music composers and pop artist have been hired for composing music for upcoming videogames as they would like to produce for theatrical movies. Japan was the first country in the world, who sold video game music separately from games and later on many other countries adopted this practice. Sub-genres of music like, remixes, live performances and interpretive albums were also distributed. Koichi Sugiyama was one of the former music composers in the practice of releasing sub-genres like the Dragon Quest game that he produced in 1986. Later, a live performance CDs were published that was gigged by the London Philharmonic Orchestra In the early 2000s, music industry has seen declining sales but on the other hand, the video game industry starts to grow. PwC’s Global managing partner, media practice and entertainment, Marcel Fenez perceive video gaming as the most electrifying stories which grows and grows. He further elaborates the generated revenue in U. S. by online and wireless games. The estimated amount should be $1. 1 billion to $2.7 billion till 2011 in online games whereas, the estimation should be double till 2011, from $499 million to $1 billion. According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers project, the game industry will get success and its market will go beyond the expectations whereas, music sector will not at the best next year in 2008. It shows that games markets are flourishing far better than the music industry which is down because game industries are providing music of their favorite composer with games as well. Advertising industry is also generating stream of revenue from video games in U. S. The expected estimated amount will grow much higher till 2011 from $80 million last year to $950 million. But still can’t say because many youngsters would be attracted if more and more new games will be advertise. In recent times, Rock Band is one of the newest hit for published music in video games, owned by Harmonix Music Systems and published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. In this game, at elementary level the player has to complete playing a song. New and difficult songs unlocked as well as the instruments to play and an avatar of a rocker also unlocked with the difficulty of level. The use of their favorite rocker’s avatar and the popular songs in the game stick the player to the gaming experience and make them feel themselves as Rock Star. Many songs in Rock Band are major radio and sales successes. Furthermore, the release date of rock band music announced much before which highly motivate music lovers to get a song they have heard before. In 2007, Rock Band video game has received the sale of 4 million copies and generated $600 million in revenue. 30 million downloadable songs were purchased by the players since Rock Band Releases. (Bhaskaran, Blankenship, Cohen, Koparkar and Rashid, 2010, pg 2) The video game industry has changed so thoroughly that it has come out from the sounds of bleep blips to the programmatic music and human emotions. As far as music is concerned, over the last decade it has progress beyond the limitation of human expectations. Music has not given new dimension to video game industry only but also expands gaming audiences which were not attracted before. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bhaskaran, Blankenship, Cohen, Koparkar, Rashid. â€Å"Collaboration and Learning in the Video Game Rock Band† Proceedings of the Emerging Technologies Conference (ETC) (2009): Web. 31th July. 2010. â€Å"The Evolution of Video Game Music,† Interview. Npr Music: Music Interviews. April 12, 2008. Web. 31 July 2010. â€Å"Video-Game Sales Overtaking Music. † Msn. com. June 26, 2007. Web. 31 July 2010.