Game Music Digest | Roblox's Shopify Partnership, Eurovision & Authentic Music Placement in Video Games
Plus: Deadmau5 launches a video game studio
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 the music and gaming newsletter, MusicEXP.
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Want more music and gaming news? Listen to the GXM Podcast I co-host with Thomas Quillfeldt. In our latest episode, Tom chats with artist and solo dev Claire Morwood (aka shimmerglitch) about how to keep 12 tracks’ worth of gameplay fresh, inspirations for the project (Outer Wilds, MTV music videos), and getting in the flow of physically making the game.
Roblox Partners With Shopify – New Opportunities for Physical Music and Merch Sales?
In Brief: Roblox players can now buy physical products directly within Roblox experiences as part of its partnership with Shopify. According to Roblox, “Eligible creators (including brands) can bundle physical purchases with digital items via Roblox’s new Commerce APIs, with Shopify as our first integration partner.” This announcement follows earlier beta tests with Walmart (which sold private-label brands) and Fandango (which sold movie tickets).
EXP: This partnership is part of Roblox’s mission to bridge the gap between virtual and real-world shopping, aka ‘the metaverse’. Everything is done via Shopify’s APIs, making it similar to the e-commerce platform’s existing partnerships with YouTube and Spotify. But the biggest difference here – and perhaps the most exciting thing about this partnership from my perspective – is Roblox’s existing roots in fashion, the strong purchase intent of its users, and the potential for creators to incentivise physical sales by bundling physical products with free digital items and in-game rewards via Roblox’s Approved Merchandiser Program.
But what does this mean for the music industry?
Roblox has always seen music as an important part of its platform. This announcement was coupled with the news that a new Roblox experience for The Weeknd – The Weeknd Hub – would include a Shopify integration via an “exclusive shoppable ticket bundle for his film ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow" paired with a limited-edition digital item on Roblox.”
There’s no way of telling how these ticket bundles have sold, but the experience has had more than 570k visits since launch, according to RoMonitor.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think this experience is the best showcase for how the music industry can make the most of these new tools, especially with a growing number of case studies showing persistent music experiences such as this are eventually doomed to fail as players churn and move on to viral games on the platform.
Therefore, this news shouldn’t be interpreted as a reason for artist managers and labels to replicate what The Weeknd just did and create their own bespoke Roblox experiences.
Instead, I’d recommend paying attention to this line at the bottom of the Shopify and Roblox announcement.
"Soon, brands will be able to sell physical products within popular community-created experiences, creating new avenues for discovery where large audiences are playing every day.”
The biggest opportunities from a physical merchandising perspective – whether that’s tickets, albums or clothing – are future Shopify integrations with the most popular games on Roblox.
This is supported by growing evidence that the most successful music activations on Roblox, such as Charli XCX in Dress to Impress and Glass Animals in Pls Donate, have been integrations rather than bespoke-built experiences. Both of the examples above took place in two of the most popular games on Roblox, with Charli XCX’s Dress to Impress activation seeing 30 million visits at launch while Glass Animals benefited from more than 640,000 full-track plays from in-game music streams.
Until now, the monetisation opportunities for artists in Roblox have been fairly limited outside of the associated fee they get for participating in an activation and the revenue share from branded digital item purchases.
Once these Shopify APIs are opened up across wider Roblox experiences, artist teams will be able to make more calculated decisions on music partnership opportunities by looking at data for Roblox experiences such as daily visits and CCUs, and work out how they might convert into physical sales via limited-time Shopify integrations.
And perhaps more importantly for Roblox Corporation, this new Shopify partnership gives them an important value add to entice the music industry into doing more activations on the platform.
If you work in the music industry and you’ve got thoughts on this, leave them in the comments or get in touch direct. I’d love to read them.
Eurovision Song Contest’s First-Ever Roblox Experience and the Potential for Twinned Virtual Spaces
In brief: The Eurovision Song Contest launched My Eurovision Party 2025 – the first official Eurovision Song Contest Experience on Roblox. Fans could customise their own Eurovision watch parties within the experience and play rhythm minigames featuring a piece of a Eurovision song from specific countries. The experience had more than 1 million visits, according to Romonitor.
EXP: I wanted to use this activation as an opportunity to talk about twinned digital event experiences in Roblox and other video games.
The way we consume media is changing. Whether it’s sports events, music awards or video game showcases, younger audiences are just as likely to watch media through live-streaming platforms rather than the direct channels.
One of the biggest reasons for this is the community engagement features built into platforms like Twitch, Discord, YouTube, and in this case, Roblox. Younger audiences want to get involved, share their thoughts and feel like they’re participating in something rather than passively watching stuff in front of a TV screen – especially if doing the latter would mean doing it by themselves.
I love the idea of Eurovision fans being able to engage with the content in a bespoke virtual world while they’re interacting with other Eurovision fans.
I also think there’s huge potential here for broadcasters to grow their figures by exploring twinned opportunities in virtual spaces. Imagine if you could watch The World Cup or The Euros in EA Sports FC or The Super Bowl in Call of Duty? Fortnite’s partnership with Coachella saw live AR versions of performances placed into a bespoke experience.
One of my favourite examples of a twinned virtual experience is the VMA Experience in Roblox, which featured an in-game voting mechanic for the best music performance in the metaverse. “One of the most exciting things about it is that it brings the VMA experience to people wherever they are in the world,” Amy Campbell, chief marketing officer of Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios, told the Wall Street Journal.
I’d love to see more music festivals taking Coachella’s approach by embracing advancements in AR, VR, and live-streaming to pursue opportunities in the gaming space (more on that here). Not only is this a great way to bring more gamers into music spaces, but it’s a big win for festival organisers from an accessibility perspective.
Deadmau5 Launches Video Game Studio – Debuts Dancing Cat Game
In brief: Joel Zimmerman, better known as EDM star Deadmau5, has released ‘Meowingtons Simulator,’ a video game where players can make the DJ’s late cat Meowingtons dance in synch to music. The game is available on Steam and marks the debut release from Zimmerman’s newly launched game studio Oberha5li Studios, which he co-founded with Cameron Rockey.
EXP: The video game announcement took me by surprise, but I feel like the bigger story here is the fact that Zimmerman has his own game studio, inspired by his lessons experimenting with Epic’s Unreal Engine, which powers the game.
Zimmerman, of course, is no stranger to the world of video games. He was one of the first artists to perform in Fortnite, while the Oberha5li banner has spearheaded a number of the DJ’s experiments in virtual spaces, most notably as a virtual world on the Core platform. Other gaming creds include numerous collaborations with games such as World of Tanks and DOTA 2, as well as countless syncs in video game soundtracks.
Zimmerman’s formation of Oberha5li Studios comes at a time when a growing number of major artists are either stepping into video game development or immersing themselves in development tools such as Unreal Engine. Lady GaGa and Beyonce producer Bloodpop launched GenPop Interactive back in 2023, while TesseracT vocalist Dan Tompkins spent years teaching himself how to code so he could build a VR companion to their 2023 album War of Being.
Long may these experiments continue!
Authenticity is Key to Music and Gaming Collaborations
In brief: Maria Egan, Global Head of Music at Riot Games (League of Legends, Valorant), was recently interviewed by Downtown Music to talk about how Riot Games is redefining the role of music in gaming. Egan says Riot can work with “any artist of any size, on any label, of any background,” but artists with “some sort of genuine connection” to their games are always prioritized.
EXP: I wanted to use this video as an opportunity to talk about the importance of authenticity in music and gaming collaborations, which I believe is at the heart of what makes Riot Games’ music activations so successful. Many of the artists they’ve collaborated with over the years for the League of Legends anthems are League players themselves or live and breathe video game culture.
“People look at Lil Nas X or Imagine Dragons or Linkin Park and might think we’re just chasing superstars, but in every one of those cases… [Imagine Dragons vocalist] Dan Reynolds plays League of Legends and is an extremely hardcore gamer who approached us about working on [League of Legends 2014 WORLDS anthem] Warriors back in the early days. Lil Nas X is invested in esports and is very connected to gaming… [Linkin Park co-founder] Mike Shinoda’s a massive Valorant player, loves Arcane, loves the League IP, and has been friends with a couple of founders of Riot for a long time.”
Egan goes on to say that she gets a lot of calls from managers about how they can get their artists involved with Riot Games, but highlights that Riot’s IPs and fandom aren’t suited to everyone.
“Maybe League’s not the right game for your artist. Find out what games they play. Find out what games their fans play. If they don’t play games, canvas their fans. Find out what communities they’re a part of and then go to those games, and make those kinds of overlaps.”
I couldn’t agree more with this advice, and it highlights the importance of artist management teams and labels hiring genuine video game experts to co-ordinate these partnerships.
Players aren’t afraid to call out collaborations that don’t seem authentic. SNK made dance producer Salvatore Ganacci a playable character in their latest fighting game, Fatal Fury: City of Wolves, but fans were quick to criticise that this came at the expense of other fighters from the fighting franchise’s rich 30-year history being excluded.
Similarly, Final Fantasy has had plenty of amazing music collaborations over the years, but its collaborations with Ariana Grande and Katy Perry in the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius saw backlash from fans after they were dismissed as marketing cash grabs, amplified by the fact that neither artist knew enough about Final Fantasy to talk about the series properly. Both collaborations had no notable impact on downloads or revenue for the game, despite both pop artists being added to the game as characters.
Compare that to Post Malone’s collaboration with Hunt: Showdown, where the rapper spent 15 minutes talking about his favourite game in a supporting Q&A promoting the collaboration. “This is one of the best interviews I’ve ever seen, you can tell he really plays and cares about the game,” reads one of the top comments.
My advice to artist managers and labels is follow the advice of Egan! If you’re interested in exploring opportunities in the video game space, ask your artists what games they’re playing. Find out what video games their fans are playing. Once you’ve got that information, use it to approach game studios and contextualise why a partnership needs to happen.
Speaking from experience working with our clients at Laced – they, like Egan, always prioritise opportunities with artists who are genuine fans of their IP.
In other news…
BMI has launched a composer lab to foster the next generation of media composers, including game composers. [Link]
In a recent MBW op-ed, George Rose (Head of Broadcast and Digital at PRS for Music) and Graham Best (Senior Manager – New Digital Markets at PRS for Music) explain why we need a “change in approach to ensure songwriters are fairly remunerated for music that hugely enhances the gaming experience.” [Link]
Extreme metal publication Decibel is back with another edition of my favourite feature, Killscreen, where they interview prominent metal artists about their love of gaming. The latest feature is with Eric Brown from Nekrogoblin, who also happens to be a game composer! [Link]
Streets of Rage composer Yuzo Koshiro is stepping back in time to write the soundtrack for a new Sega Mega Drive game due out this year. [Link]
Mastodon, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and Drain are just some of the latest artists announced for the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 Remake. [Link]
Really enjoyed reading this – Seattle Times spoke to Fall of Troy about how their iconic song F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. ended up in Guitar Hero and the impact that placement had on the band. [Link]
NME spoke to God of War composers Gerard Marino and Bear McCreary about the evolution of music in the mainstay PlayStation franchise. [Link]
Pearl Jam have released a collection of songs that feature in HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us video game. [Link]
Award-winning singer Aurora is returning to Sky: Children of the Light for a special re-run of her virtual concert experience. Don’t miss this – the game is free to download on mobile and PlayStation, and the last concert is one of the most fun and emotional experiences I’ve ever had in a video game. [Link]
VR rhythm game Synth Riders has added a new '90s-themed music pack. [Link]
Billboard charts the rise of virtual band PLAVE and their journey to dominate the charts. [Link]
GQ spoke to composer Harry Gregson-Williams about his music for Metal Gear Solid 2 and what it was like working with Hideo Kojima. [Link]
Listen to…
‘Live from Pallet Town’ is a new Pokémon jazz album with some delicious jazz licks! [Link]
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the YouTuber ‘Alpha’ but they upload very deep cuts of video game music and there have been some absolute bangers recently. [Link]
And if you’re looking for some soothing video game music to have in the background, may I recommend Tim Follin’s excellent score for Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future?