Game Music Digest | Glocalisation, Christian Music Games & FIFA Soundtrack Masculinity
Also: New research shows 90% of Gen Alpha and Gen Z engage with video games
Game Music Digest is a weekly wrap-up of the most interesting stories at the intersection of video games and music, brought to you by music and gaming newsletter, MusicEXP. Subscribe to keep on top of the latest trends in video games and music delivered straight to your inbox every Monday!
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BINI Previews Upcoming Single ‘Cherry on Top’ in Superstar Philippines
Filipino girl group BIBI has launched a preview of their upcoming single, ‘Cherry on Top,’ in Dalcomsoft’s mobile rhythm game SuperStar Philippines. This means Superstar Philippines players get an exclusive one-minute preview of the track ahead of its full release on 11 July. Fans and players could also pick up limited-edition photocards and in-game items in real life by visiting the Superstar Philippines booth at the group’s BINIverse concert.
EXP: There are more than 25 different games in the SuperStar franchise that have generated 40 million downloads and grossed $54 million in revenue. Dalcomsoft started out making games that focussed on music from K-Pop artists & management groups (SuperStar SMTOWN, SuperStar JYPNation, SuperStar), but they’re slowly moving into other regions and genres. SuperStar Philippines is the latest release from the studio, focussing on artists from The Philippines.
A couple of noteworthy things about this collaboration:
This is the latest example of a mobile game being used to ‘preview’ music ahead of a global release. See also: Meghan Trainor’s music video for ‘Made You Look’ getting a 24-hour exclusive in Candy Crush.
SuperStar Philippines was only released in October, and I’m not aware of any other music games that focus specifically on artists from the Philippines. Southeast Asia is set to surpass $7.2bn in PC and mobile game revenue by 2027 – expect to see more regionalised music games if SuperStar Philippines is a success. I see no reason why this model couldn’t be replicated for LATAM artists who have the right fandom.
FIFA Game Soundtracks and Changing Views of Masculinity
A fantastic feature in Huck Magazine by Ali Shutler explores the changing sounds of the FIFA video game soundtracks through the lens of masculinity. Shutler speaks to Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), Andrew Dawson (Sea Girls’ bassist), Dave Bayley (Glass Animals), Jamie Osman (They Think its All Sobre podcast), and Steve Schnur (EA’s president of music) to learn how the licensed songs in the FIFA games are a reflection of football’s changing culture.
EXP: This is a great read that does a fantastic job of tackling football’s changing culture while highlighting how licensed video game soundtracks act as a time capsule for music tastes at the time. As always, there are some great quotes from Schnur in here, too, about how EA’s music supervisors prioritize finding the hottest artists for their game soundtracks to break new music: “I have one rule for my EA Music team: If it’s on the radio, it’s too late,” he says.
Newzoo Report: Over 90% of Gen Alpha and Gen Z Engage with Video Games
Newzoo’s Global Gamer Study examines “who gamers are, their playing and spending habits, and potential opportunities for increased engagement and revenue in a challenging market.” It’s vital reading and great context for anyone outside of the games industry looking to learn more about what makes gamers tick. Highlights below:
Over 90% of Gen Alpha and Gen Z engage with video games.
80% of consumers worldwide play video games.
Gen Alpha spends an average of 5.2 hours p/w playing video games
More than half of console players spend between $5–$25 or more on video games every month.
Over 80% of new game seekers are very likely to explore
media related to their favorite games.
EXP: Throw music into ‘media’ for the above stat, and there’s no excuse for big artists and/or labels not having a proper gaming strategy. The whole ‘video games are now bigger than film and TV combined’ soundbite gets thrown around a lot when people try and contextualize the size and scale of the video game market, but I think ‘90% of Gen Alpha and Gen Z engaging with video games’ is much more interesting.
Space Ape Games adds Epidemic Sound tracks to its popular music game, Beatstar
Mobile game developer Space Ape Games, best known for the incredibly popular mobile music games Beatstar and Country Star, have licensed a selection of tracks from Epidemic Sound, which are planned to be added to Beatstar “later this year.” Epidemic Sound specialises in royalty-free music and sound effects for content creators, with more than 40,000 songs and 90,000 sound effects.
EXP: While Epidemic Sound’s music is royalty-free, it does have a couple of big bangers that have blown up from being used by popular content creators. One track licensed for Beatstar, ‘Faster Car’ by Loving Caliber, has amassed over 100 million streams. This recent deal with Space Ape Games highlights the growing popularity of pre-cleared music in video games, such as last week’s Game Music Digest, which reported on NoCopyrightSounds partnering with Geometry Dash.
The Past, Present and Future of Hip-Hop in Video Games
A recent Game Informer piece by Ade Adeniji explores the history of hip-hop music in video games. Starting with eminem’s December 2023 partnership with Fortnite, Adeniji goes back to hip-hop’s gaming roots, starting with ToeJam & Earl on the Sega Mega Drive and Rap Jam: Volume One on the SNES which featured Coolio, Yo-Yo, and Warren G, before diving into the ‘00s, which were seminal for hip-hop and gaming as artists such as 50 Cent, Wu Tang, Ludacris, Method Man and DMX took centre stage as characters in video games.
EXP: A lot of people point to Fortnite as the bastion of music and gaming’s relationship, but this relationship was at its strongest in the ‘00s when video games were much cheaper to make, meaning developers and publishers could license IP from music stars and create video games around them, resulting in games like 50 Cent: Bulletproof and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. Now that PC and console games are more expensive to make, most licensed music games are reserved for the mobile market, where developers and publishers have a more effective chance of recouping on the costs of the IP licensing.
Zenless Zone Zero Gets New Track and Music Video From Tiesto
Last week’s Game Music Digest contextulised miHoYo’s TBC partnership with Tiesto for their next big game, Zenless Zone Zero. I took a guess that the partnership would be a new song/music video serving as the game’s anthem, and that’s exactly what it was. The music video for the new song, Zenless, has picked up 16.5 million views on the YouTube channel for the game (665k subscribers), and only 158k views on the YouTube channel for Tiesto (6.8m subscribers).
EXP: The comments on both videos are overwhelmingly positive, which is expected from a community as passionate as miHoYo’s. Interestingly, the vast majority of comments seem to be from players rather than Tiesto fans, and a lot of them are already demanding a live set with Zenless Zone Zero visuals in the background. You can read last week’s Game Music Digest for a full breakdown of the rationale behind this partnership (basically a Chinese game studio looking to expand its game audience outside East Asia), but I think the disparity in views between the two music videos supports my opinion that video games are an effective platform for the music industry to gather super fans.
Christbop: Dance is a Mobile Rhythm Game Developed for Christians
What if there was a rhythm game targeting an estimated population of 2.18 billion Christians that only featured music from the billion-dollar Christian music market? Well now there is, kinda. Christian content creator ‘Chris Chris’, who has amassed over 526k followers on TikTok, has launched an Indiegogo page to crowdfund the development of Chris Bop! Dance, a “revolutionary mobile rhythm/console game designed specifically for a Christian audience.” He’s only asking for $1 million (!!!).
EXP: Gonna be fairly brutal here and say the costs for this are all over the place. BUT a rhythm game focussing on the Christian music market is genuinely a fantastic idea and I’m not sure why it hasn’t been done yet, which is why I wanted to share this. According to a 2022 midyear report published by Luminate and reported on by MBW: “Christian & Gospel Music’s share of total on-demand streams (1.7%) in the US in H1 2022 was more than Jazz (0.7%) and Classical (0.9%) combined.” There’s money to be made in gaming from prayers.
EDIT: A couple of hours after publishing this I discovered Digital Praise, a video game developer focussing on Christian games. They released five Dance Praise games and even a Christian guitar game developed in response to Guitar Hero, which apparently sold well despite the studio shutting down in 2011 after merging with another Christian game developer, Left Behind Games.
MIDiA Q1 2024 Survey: Music Artists Amongst Best Positioned Brand Categories for In-Game Item Activations
This isn’t the full report, but Karol Serevrin has provided a sneak peek of MIDiA’s upcoming Q1 2024 Consumer Survey Report, which contains some interesting findings on in-game spending on cosmetic items based on IP. The report “further dives into the split between in-game items that are ‘third-party branded / licensed’ (e.g., an Ariana Grande skin) and ‘first party / core game’ in-game items (e.g., core weapons, Ultimate Team player packs, etc). This is to shine better light on the opportunity that non-gaming companies have with in-game item activations, be it through a licensing fee or a revenue share partnership.” According to MIDiA, “music artist branded in-game items remain popular among consumers aged 16-44-years-old,”
EXP: I’m a big believer that the music industry needs to think beyond sync when it comes to opportunities in video games, and branded or licensed in-game items such as skins (such as those sold in Fortnite and PUBG) are a great way for artists to generate new revenue streams while reaching new audiences.