MusicEXP is a weekly newsletter exploring the intersection of video games and music, edited by Mat Ombler. Subscribe to receive weekly round-ups of the latest music and gaming stories, and monthly deep dives into trending topics. For more music and gaming news, make sure you listen to the GXM Podcast, which I co-host with Thomas Quillfeldt.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks on holiday or attending video game conferences, becoming increasingly wary of the growing number of Google Alerts for video game and music stories flooding my inbox and how large the next edition of MusicEXP might be as a result.
But as I moved over two weeks’ worth of stories into my all-mighty spreadsheet, I realised there was a lot of crossover between the stories: video game concerts, virtual concerts in Roblox, K-pop collaborations, music industry legends meeting their video game idols, and much, much more.
Put simply: video games and music are having a bit of a moment right now.
So, rather than choose a couple of stories to focus on, I thought it would be interesting to connect the dots and give you a mid-year update on why video games and music are thriving, what the biggest trends are right now, and where everything goes from here.
Arguably one of the biggest growth areas in video game music right now. In the UK, it used to be the case that a couple of video concerts would take place every year in London for major franchises like Final Fantasy. Now we’re seeing global tours for indie games like Stardew Valley and Undertale, major festival appearances for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s A Painted Symphony production, which is stopping off at the 8k capacity Open Air Theatre for Nancy Open Air in June, and entire festivals dedicated to video game music such as this Summer’s Game Music Festival.
Here’s a round-up of the game concerts that have taken place or announced tours this year:
Music from Diablo (The Infernal Symphony), Hitoshi Sakimoto (The Colors of Harmony), Persona (Persona Grooves), and Hades (Ballads of the Underworld) at Game Music Festival
Pretty big list, right? And that’s without mentioning the dedicated video game music orchestras such as the London VGO, Manchester VGO and Ireland VGO who do an incredible job of filling venues with video game music performances all-year-round.
I think there are two big reasons behind the rise in video game concerts:
The high attendance rates for video game music concerts, coupled with the global popularity of video game IPs means they’re no longer a tough sell to booking agents and producers, especially with local concert venue promoters seeing them as a great way of getting younger audiences through the door.
For game studios, they’re a great way of boosting awareness IP awareness and generating new revenue streams through ticket sales and merchandise. They also provide fans with a gathering space to come together and celebrate the games and music they love.
It’s worth noting that while some of these game concerts are guaranteed sell-outs (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wrapped its A Painted Symphony Euro tour with THREE back-to-back sell-out performances at the 5K Seine Musicale in Paris) IP relevance, location and positioning are incredibly important.
Here are some other things I’ve learned researching game concerts and interviewing industry leaders involved with them:
Video game concert productions spanning multiple game franchises are always a tougher sell than those just focusing on one. In fact, all of the video game concert cancellations that I’m aware of have come from productions with music from multiple franchises.
Huge IPs with millions of sales behind them don’t always equate to ticket sales, especially in the case of blockbuster AAA games. Music needs to be an integral part of the game and should be backed with data showing solid engagement rates for digital soundtracks where possible.
Video game concerts require years of forward planning if promoters and producers want the most profitable and travel-friendly schedules. Larger venues have long waiting lists!
With research showing one in six gamers discover orchestral music through video games, game concerts are still an important part of the Classical sector’s road to recovery post-COVID.
I’m slightly worried that we’re reaching a point of saturation with game concerts as the cost of living crisis, coupled with the growing costs of attendance (tickets, travel, and attendance) means even the most die-hard game music fans can only attend a handful of events every year.
Something that I think both concert producers and game studios should do next is explore live performances of game soundtracks in genres outside of orchestral/classical music. The recently announced Sonic Live in Concert shows are ditching the live orchestra to focus on a rock band performance. Band performances open up new venue opportunities. I’d also love to see some video game music club nights, similar to what Red Bull and Nick Dwyer did with the Streets of Rage DJ sets.
If you want to learn more about the specifics of game music concerts and live events, you can take a listen to my podcast interview with Gaetano Fazio from SOHO Live or read my interview with Arnie Roth of AWR Music.
This has largely been the case since we moved out of the 00s era when games were cheaper to make and easier to recoup on. That, and the departure from open-world games with radio stations means sync opportunities in video games (not trailers) at the moment are limited to the following:
Major franchises with established music roots (EA Sports FC, Forza, NBA 2K, Madden, Life is Strange, Fortnite)
Music/rhythm games (Beat Saber, Just Dance, Synth Riders, DJMAX, Fortnite Festival)
Independent games (Mixtape, Dead as Disco, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Dispatch)
In the last edition of MusicEXP, I noted how Forza Horizon 6 has over 200 licensed tracks, making it one of the largest licensed video game soundtracks at launch since GTA V was released over 10 years ago.
Outside of the big AAA franchises, we also have games such as Mixtape and Dispatch showing how important music is to establish the identity of a game and lift key narrative moments. Dispatch is also a fantastic case study showing how the right video game sync can catapult an artist’s career and change their life, as it did for Bershy by generating over 34 million streams in six months.
Sync opportunities in video games are hard to find outside of the well-known big hitters. Labels and catalog holders to have boots on the ground at video game events and conferences to build relationships with independent developers and find ways of working music into their games.
This is especially important as one of the things I’m hearing a lot from smaller game studios at the moment is that licensing costs are too prohibitive.
Jon Batiste, The Weeknd, and Thundercat recently returned from separate visits in Japan, where they spent time visiting various game studios and rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in video games.
Jon Batiste met Nobuo Uematsu, the original composer of the Final Fantasy games and widely regarded as the Beethoven of video game music.
The Weeknd, who has spent the last couple of months cryptically posting images of himself playing Square Enix’s NieR Automata, finally met series creator Yoko Taro after joining him for dinner with Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Bloodborne.
Thundercat, who has always embraced his love of video games and anime, visited Sega’s headquarters in Japan as he dressed himself up as Shadow the Hedgehog and posed for various pictures with key staff members.
These artists have never shied away from their love of video games, whether it’s Jon Batiste playing music from Street Fighter and The Legend of Zelda during his tenure as band leader on The Late Show or Thundercat writing and releasing a tribute song following the passing of Nintendo boss, Hiroshi Yamauchi.
Nothing’s ever really happened off the back of this, though. Thundercat’s made a couple of visits to game studios in the past, but I’m genuinely surprised it’s taken game studios this long to bring these people together.
What we’re seeing now is a new generation of artists who have grown up with video games and are leaning into those influences to reap the benefits. I have no doubt we’ll hear at least one of these artists contributing to a video game in the future or appearing on stage at a major industry event like The Game Awards.
I’ve had a lot of conversations in the last few months with established artists who would love to write music for a video game but don’t know where to turn. To those artists, I always say make sure you’re letting people know how much of a gamer you are.
A good example of this is a recent project from Erased Tapes artist, Peter Broderick, who has released a Final Fantasy album under the name, The White Mages. It’s a brilliant album, true to Broderick’s style while also in keeping with the Final Fantasy music that people know and love. You’ll be able to hear more about this project next week.
Music games are coming back in a big way. Mixtape, the game where you play as a music supervisor, is one of this year’s highest-rated games; Dead as Disco, a stylish fighting game where music is synched to gameplay, surpassed 200k sales after launching in Early Access; Stage Tour and Sound System are two upcoming rhythm games from ex Guitar Hero and Rock Band veterans; and there are plenty of other exciting music games in development, such as a festival management simulator from the bass player in Sabaton and a new fighting game featuring Wu Tang.
I’ll have an exciting interview launching later this month explaining why all of this is happening, but music-focused games such as those mentioned above are only good news for the games and music industries. If any of these games take off, expect to competitors to replicate them. I’m expecting big things from Dead as Disco and Stage Tour in particular - Dead as Disco because of its rhythm-based mechanics and custom music support, and Stage Tour to push fret-based rhythm games back into the mainstream (something that Fortnite Festival hasn’t really managed yet).
There have been some cool music and gaming collaborations in the last month, notably Korn writing a new song for Diablo, Lana Del Ray dropping an anthem for the new James Bond game, EsDeeKid getting a Fortnite skin and plenty of collaborations over on Roblox.
Collaborations and integrations such as these are mutually beneficial: game studios get to market their games to the artist’s audience, and the artist’s benefit from reaching a global audience of (usually younger) gamers that they can convert into listeners.
You don’t need to do something in-game either. Music and gaming partnerships can also be treated as wider marketing beats. Capcom recently teamed up with BABYMETAL for a Resident Evil merch collab, and Blizzard created a custom Jackson guitar with musician Cole Rolland for Diablo.
While collaborations such as those mentioned above are great, I still believe there’s an opportunity to create an online social platform/game where people can engage with music in exciting new ways. Fortnite’s Daft Punk Experience is a great example of this (more on that here) but experiences such as these are expensive and time-intensive.
I hear a lot of people in the music industry talk about Roblox as the next big opportunity for music but the audience isn’t sticky enough. Yes, Roblox has over 150 million daily active users, but Roblox is a platform with over seven million games, and many of those users jump around multiple games in a single session.
Music on Roblox is also in a bit of a mess right now. I saw an interesting statistic the other day from Sean Varah who says 66% of the Top 100 tracks on Roblox are AI generated. This is largely down to the fact that anyone who uploads music via Distrokid can also have their music featured on Roblox if they tick a box saying they aren’t registered with a PRO and don’t want to be paid.
Virtual concerts and events are here to stay. A growing number of K-pop concerts and tours are being shown at cinemas and you can easily do the same with digital screen drops on platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox.
If Dead as Disco and Stage Tour sell well (which I expect they will) expect to see more games leaning into music elements or expanding in-game soundtracks with licensed music.
If licensing costs are too prohibitive for some game studios, they’ll just license music from other games or work with smaller artists. Bomb Rush Cyberpunk is a great example of a game with a banging soundtrack comprising (mostly) independent artists.
GTA VI will change the music and gaming landscape forever - we just don’t know how yet.
K-pop is one of the most popular genres amongst gamers. Game studios will lean into this with future LiveOps events, but I also suspect we’ll see more mobile games based on K-pop artists.
Hololive Dreams launches in August and already has over one million pre-registrations. It’s a rhythm RPG based on artists from the Hololive VTuber agency and it will probably end up being one of the most profitable games on mobile.
A lot of game studios still view artist collaborations as a marketing bolt-on rather than a creative expansion of their music/audio. This will change as relationships grow and artists pursue more writing opportunities in games under the supervision of in-house music/audio teams (this is how the magic happens).
Similarly, there’s a lot of money to be made for whoever fixes Roblox’s music discovery problem.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned how modders made a rhythm game mod for Need for Speed. I finally found some footage of it here.
Fender and Bandai have teamed up for a special Pac-Man collab.
It’s easy to forget how popular rhythm games are in Japan. Here are some very weird and very popular games you’ve probably never heard of.
Any fans of the UK band Blossoms? Here’s a cool story about how Rockstar’s video game Bully inspired their latest album.
Deconstructor of Fun posted an excellent deconstruction of Airbuds, a social music app with 1.5 million daily active users. Some brilliant lessons here on fan engagement that the music industry should pay close attention to.
I was surprised to see a completely new Roblox game pop up promoting the launch of Zara Larsson’s latest album, Midnight Sun. Most labels/studios moved away from bespoke experiences in favour of integrations as they’re costly to build from scratch and require a lot of resources to maintain. Over one million visits since launch.
SEGA’s Japanese sound team speak to Billboard about the company’s distribution strategy and general approach to music.
The digital soundtrack release for the video game Spirit of the North 2 was promoted with a special in-game event where players collect new tracks as in-game collectibles.
Great interview here with Sam Slater on how he composed the droney soundtrack for Saros.
The soundtrack for the original DOOM game recently entered the Library of Congress National Recording Registry so here’s a cool retrospective on why DOOM and its music is such an important part of (heavy metal) history.
Square Enix is one of the best publishers out there when it comes to pushing their catalog in new music directions, so it’s no surprise to hear they’re making a second deep house Final Fantasy album, this time for FFX.
If you’re in London at SXSW this Friday, I’m moderating a panel with some of the best game composers in the biz. Make sure you check it out at 12:40 in Shoreditch Hall.
The Flight speak to IGN about the exciting challenges of scoring a new Bond game and IGN speaks to Yang Wutao about the electronic soundtrack in Zenless Zone Zero.
I loved reading this interview with Hitoshi Sakimoto in RPG Site, which covers his career as a video game composer and upcoming appearance in London for The Colours of Harmony concert.
I’m a sucker for Icelandic minimalism so it’s been a pleasure to spend so much time with Pav Gekko’s music for Spirit of the North 2 recently, inspired by artists such as Olafur Arnalds and Sigur Ross.
Lots of new games out. Lots of new soundtracks out! Make sure you listen to the Saros OST.
I haven’t got round to playing it yet but I have been absolutely rinsing the soundtrack for Danshattack! which is basically a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio but with trains. Miyachi and 2mello have now joined an already-incredible line-up of musicians.
The chiptune soundtrack for Mina the Hollower is bloody brilliant and also features legendary Streets of Rage composer, Yuzo Koshiro.
I’ve been working to the Final Fantasy IX deep house album. Some of the tracks aren’t really what I’d call deep house, but this Terra remix is a banger.
Fancy drifting off to some soothing jazz arrangements of music from The Legend of Zelda? Make sure you give the latest Prescription for Sleep album a listen.
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