Game Music Digest is a wrap-up of the most interesting video game and music stories from the last month, brought to you by MusicEXP.
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Sonic Frontiers Soundtrack Hits 100m Streams
Sega Japan announced on Twitter that the original soundtrack for Sonic Frontiers has hit 100m streams. Not bad for a game released in November 2022. It’s unclear what DSPs these streams have been tallied against - likely a combination of various platforms rather than just Spotify or Apple. Regardless, numbers like this highlight the enormous popularity of video game music and the strength of the Sonic IP.
If you haven’t listened to the Sonic Frontiers OST yet, you really should. It’s over six hours long, spans 150 tracks, and showcases the unique diversity of video game music. The boss battle themes feature Kellin Quinn from the metalcore band Sleeping With Sirens on vocals (11m views on this!), interspersed between delicate piano landscapes and pulsing club bangers for the game’s Cyber Space stages. This is a combination of music that shouldn’t work but absolutely does.
As ‘transmedia’ replaces ‘metaverse’ as the gaming buzzword for 2024, game studios should ensure they’re exploiting their IP across music spaces rather than just film and TV. A tremendous amount of effort goes into creating game soundtracks (shout-out to Gordy Haab and Stephen Barton for their Grammy-winning Star War: Jedi Survivor score), but music is often left under-utilized post-release. While we’ve seen some progress in recent years, notably through video game studios utilizing annual ‘anthems’ as major marketing beats (see Tekken’s latest collab with D Double E below!), there’s certainly more room for studio-owned remixes, covers, collaborations, concerts, live events, and partnerships.
Video game music often outlives the video games it was written for – the million+ view counts on YouTube videos of obscure ‘90s games jungle mixes and jazz fusion arrangements are proof of this, as are the sell-out crowds at video game concerts. Game music will continue to thrive as it’s embraced by VGM cover artists, arranged for concert halls, remixed and sampled by producers, or thrown into the spotlight by celebrity icons like Jon Batiste. But game studios could and should be doing more to nurture these fandoms. At the very least, make sure your soundtracks are correctly uploaded, credited and distributed!
Do you need a gaming activation for your new song?
Faye Webster announced her new album, Underdressed at the Symphony, on January 11. The music video for its lead single, Lego Ring, features Webster and the track’s collaborator, Lil Yachty, playing a cutesy Guitar Hero-esque video game called ‘Singsongorama’, which was released as a video game you can play in your web browser, here.
You’re asked to input an email or phone number, along with your country and ZIP code (which are used for marketing purposes according to the T&Cs) before you can play the game. This is a clever and effective way of getting fan info - much more effective than mailing list begs.
I wanted to talk about this because 1) it’s a cool game, and 2) it got me thinking about the process of launching a video game or gaming experience to promote a new music release. Hyperdub producer, Heavee, also released a browser game in January (a text-based adventure game you can play here) after announcing his debut album, Unleash. Of course, there’s a long history of artists doing this, from Hudson Mohawke and Helado Negro to Weezer and Kanye. Then there are the countless music activations taking place on platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite – which leads me to the big question: Do you need a gaming activation to promote a new song or album?
I’ll try and keep this brief, because the topic is probably worth a seperate article on its own, but all of the examples above (Ye aside) work because there’s a natural link with gaming. Webster’s game is the video game she’s playing in her music video, Heavee’s a big gamer and has music in GTA V, and Mohawke literally learned how to make music playing MTV’s Music Generator on the PlayStation. Gaming activations should never feel forced.
“bUt WhAt AbOuT fOrTnITe?!” I hear you screaming! I love Fortnite, I think Fortnite Festival and Jam Stage will be massive, and I also think there’s loads of potential for music experiences using user-generated content in Fortnite Creative. But it’s important to remember that the millions of people on gaming platforms such as Fortnite and Roblox have their attention spread across thousands (or millions, in Roblox’s case) of other games on those platforms. Most people in Fortnite are playing the main game’s Battle Royale. Most people in Roblox are playing Blox Fruits or Brookhaven.
Avenged Sevenfold recently built a game in Fortnite that peaked at 539 concurrent players but has zero players at the time of writing [Thursday 8, 2024]. Sony’s Fortnite experience, an interactive music video for Iniko’s viral hit ‘Jericho’ launched in December, peaked at 61 players and also has zero players at the time of writing. I applaud the creative endeavors of both A7X and Sony Music, but both of these experiences could have engaged more music fans as browser games.
If you’re looking for a way to engage with gamers, there are plenty of ways to do this without spending six figures (yes) on building a ‘metaverse’ experience. Here are some suggestions:
Partner with an independent developer to create a browser/web game or smartphone app/game. Mid-tier artists probably have fans who are developers and would love to do this - find them in Discord servers.
INTEGRATE with an existing video game or gaming experience. Metallica launched a Roblox campaign and integrated with five games on the platform. Players could unlock (or purchase) Metallica Roblox UGC items by completing music-themed tasks or challenges across those five games, picking up 21 million visits in three days. It’s one of the most impressive music integrations I’ve seen on Roblox [more on music and Roblox strategies in a future newsletter!]
Remix, cover, or sample a video game song. Anything released commercially should be licensed via the appropriate channels to avoid takedowns, but this is an easy way of capturing the attention of decision-makers in the gaming industry while resonating with gaming audiences. Tee Lopes and Andrew Hulshult started our making YouTube covers of Sonic and Doom music - now they work on these IPs!
Artists shouldn’t shy away their love of gaming on social media platforms. Embrace it. Post about it. Trivium’s Matt Heafy makes no secret of his love for video games, which has led to interviews about video games and even partnerships with major studios such as Bethesda.
If you are building a Roblox or Fortnite experience, partner with a trusted developer with a track record of success - especially for Fortnite, as Creative Mode is still in its early stages. Success on these platforms is about building great games first and foremost.
And in other music and gaming news…
This is how you do a music and gaming collaboration. Bandai Namco and UK PR agency Bastion collaborated with legendary grime artist D Double E and producer Fumez to write an anthem for Tekken 8. There’s a long link between UK grime and fighting games, as reported by the BBC, so it’s cool to see Tekken embracing this. Listen to the Tekken 8 anthem here.
TikTok and Universal Music Group may have fallen out, but UMG and Tencent Music Entertainment Group have just renewed their multi-year strategic licensing agreement. Why is UMG and Tencent’s strong relationship important from a gaming perspective? Because Tencent publishes some of the biggest mobile games in the world, such as Honor of Kings, which had 11m daily active users last month, generating $158m in revenue. UMG would be very wise to push more of its artists into the mobile market, which, for the most part, is largely ignored by major labels despite mobile games generating 49% of global gaming revenue. [Source]
Games and ballet: an unlikely partnership? Here’s a cool story about how a tabletop RPG game found itself in a ballet performance [Source]
Fancy making music that sounds like a Sega Mega Drive game? Sonicware’s new synth faithfully recreates the generation-defining sound of the Sega Mega Drive’s YM2612 chip. Now you can write music just like Yuzo Koshiro! [Source]
The award-winning score for Civilization VI got a glorious live performance in Korea.
Nintendo will release a Legend of Zelda concert video on its YouTube channel on February 9 at 5am PT / 8am ET / 1pm GMT.
The NieR orchestral concerts have been getting rave reviews from fans for releasing a new story that in the NieR universe which was told via “audio diaries [that] were shared in between the songs throughout the night.” According to NintendoLife’s Zion Grassl, “the auditorium fell completely still in these moments.”
Harmonix, owned by Epic but best known for its rhythm game series Rock Band, announced there will be no more new music for Rock Band 4 after the release of its final DLC so it can focus its attention on building Fortnite Festival. [Source].
This one’s for the ludomusicologists! A University of Hartford seminar on February 21 will explore how video games ‘sonically depict the Renaissance.’ You can sign up for Hearing the Renaissance in Video Games here.
Bomberman hero composer, Jun Chikuma, hosted a special guest mix on NTS as part of its Women of Video Game Music series. Listen here (it’s sick!).
Italian power metal band, Alterium, released a music video for their latest track, Crossroads Inn, inspired by the popular medieval tavern simulator game of the same name. [Source]
A new video on the history of video game music samples highlights the popularity of sample CDs in ‘90s game soundtracks, and uncovers some rather interesting samples such as a Malcolm X Speech featuring in Jet Set Radio’s soundtrack! Watch it here.
The release of Yonaka’s latest single, Predator, coincided with the track getting a major sync in a narrative trailer for Riot Games’ first-person-shooter, Valorant. The trailer has nine million views.
DJ Mag has a great long read on the relationship between video games and dance music. [Source]
Metal label Nuclear Blast’s experience in The Sandbox is now live. I tried checking it out but gave up after 20 minutes of failed loading. Still trying to wrap my head around why they’d launch in The Sandbox rather than an established video game, especially when games such as Metal Hellsinger exist, but hey! [Source]
Napster and TerraZero technologies have teamed up to develop a new metaverse platform for artists called Intraverse. Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Napster, was formerly head of music at Roblox. One to watch. [Source]