The rise and fall of game audio

A lame attempt to link / ripoff / "use" other works as the "meat and potatoes" of my own site? I think not. This article has heart and I'd be an utter fool not to link it here. My only correction to its title would be "the rise and fall of game music". It doesn't address VO and sfx.

On The Fatman's site, his explanation is even shorter than mine: "just read it". 'Nuff said.

http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/content.php?article.48

Comments

[suneel]

nice one, good to know i wasint the only one who felt (game, trance, electronic) music sucks and it is really depressing. i go thru the top 100 list from audiojelly and end up buying only one or zero tracks. take for example jasper kyde, the composer for hitman. how they praised him for using orchestral music. i really dont understand this orchestral madness. his earlier electronic tracks for the game where much better.

ATTENTION ALEX.B
-----------------
you had a while back posted that on your next album you will go for live instruments instead of your electronic mod scene roots. i know you said there will be some synth stuff, but come on i know how such things turn out when you mix em up. anyways the article you posted clearly states that using sampled live instruments is not at all creative or innovative. my thoughts exactly! i think you need to think about that sir Brandon, otherwise there will be nothing unique abt your music. i think you have become lazy, dont just be happy with unreal and deus ex. sure they are in the hall of fame, but your still alive and your ears can still hear sounds, so push yourself and create something electronically melodic!!! let everyone be moved and let tears run down our cheeks when we play games music composed by you. back then you and the strayight team got it right in the beginning with unreal where the music and the sound fx in the game where hand in hand (just like how it was mentioned in the article). the same can be said for deus ex. and although i didnt like deux ex2, i was very excited when in some of the scenes, where you played the old deux ex music tunes as a reminiscing effect. i think it was in some apt or something. so let me conclude my endless rambling, dont be a boring adult in heart and compose music, be the old alex and create away!!!!

p.s=> i listened to nwn2 tracks and they failed to light any interest in me.

sorry for being a bit harsh, but some1 had to say something!!

[jeremiah]

Not to sound overtly contrarian, but this article reads like a load of insecurity masquerading as profundity. The author bathes himself in the aura of eccentricity then derides "mass appeal" music, while implying that MOST video game music should have the same mass appeal as his.

"Most people dress like that. Me, I dress like *this!*"

Secondly, you do NOT get to invoke an Andy Brick quote about how best to spend $14k of someone else's money (i my world right now, my fees are "all in." I'd love to have 14k to spend on an orchestra. But I don't. I get "sweat equity.") and one paragraph later reference some "couple of years at" tenured person at EA bemoaning the LACK OF MUSICAL INNOVATION AT MAJOR PUBLISHERS. I mean... WTF?
http://simcity.ea.com/coolstuff/sc3k_music/index.php

Lastly, the implication that game music "sounds like film music" or it's all "imitations" of Elfman or Williams (if we could somehow harness the energy from Wagner spinning in his grave we could abandon coal-based electricity, i'm sure of it...) is a bit like saying all martial artists look like they're imitating Bruce Lee: it's an intellectually lazy writeoff of one's own (willful?) ignorance.

I wouldn't ever claim to know the game music/audio world enough to assess any serious claims about how the business works, but I know bad writing when I see it.

I'm calmer now.

(PS - Williams and Elfman....I mean, REALLY!?? Not Macini and Morricone?!

[suneel]

p.s jeremiah => the dude knows exactly what he is talking about. The audience is for music composers and specifically electronic music composers or some1 with a creative talent. so if your not one of those, its probably out of your grasp. It requires a certain technical know how on electronic music production and current trends followed in electronic scene today. Some of it is personal, but on the whole what he says does make a lot of sense!