64Digits

Is video game music good enough to standalone?

Posted by death on Feb. 12, 2013, 2:08 p.m.

The past couple months i have been spending all my music time listening to game soundtracks. Now i'm a member of the Escapist and on the forums a thread was started about how video game music is generic and can't stand on it's own. (the OP went as far as saying that video games would be better with pop music being used instead, like in a lot of shitty teen movies)

Now of course i disagreed with a massive size post but it did make me curious about whether or not VGM OST's could really sell as well as mainstream music.

I listen to a lot of OST's, some of my favorites being from:

-Ys Seven

-Star Ocean: Till The End of Time

-Chrono Cross

-Vomitron (cover band)

and of course tons of chiptunes as well.

So my question is, how often do gamers listen to VGM when not playing games? And would you be willing to pay money for VGM OSTs? Or go to a kickass concert like this?

Comments

JuurianChi 11 years, 10 months ago

mr8bit 11 years, 10 months ago

I think the designation "Video Game Music" is kind of meaningless. Like, every genera of music could be considered video game music- as long as it's in a video game. I mean, there's no such thing as Movie Music. Yeah, there are soundtracks. But you can't really say that the theme to Indiana Jones is the same genera as the theme to The Matrix.

Look at this site here. There is no way you could say that Steven and Mega and Charlie and I all make the same genera of music. But it's all video game music, right?

JuurianChi 11 years, 10 months ago

Quote:

Steven and Mega and Charlie and I

I'm standing right here, y'know.

You didn't even acknowledge Rez.

Who is this fob?

JuurianChi 11 years, 10 months ago

Charlie Carlo 11 years, 10 months ago

Quote:

Look at this site here. There is no way you could say that Steven and Mega and Charlie and I all make the same genera of music. But it's all video game music, right?

It's not quite a genre, I suppose, but I think, by the blog, that death was referring to music made for video games, to be played in video games. Just because most don't usually think of it as the kind of music that could be sitting in your iTunes.

I'm pretty proud of the range of musical styles of the composers on here; they're all pretty unique, it's crazy.

mr8bit 11 years, 10 months ago

Apologies to all I have offended.

And thank you for furthering my point. I guess my philosophy is that good music is good music, regardless of how it is used. If it makes your ears happy, who cares where it came from?

Castypher 11 years, 10 months ago

You guys are making me want to compose and post shit.

LAR Games 11 years, 10 months ago

I have so much video game music on my iPod.

EDIT: Also.. TV shows. I have to many theme theme songs in there as well.

Amarin 11 years, 10 months ago

I love me some Persona 3 music, especially this:

Catchiest battle theme ever. Persona 4 has a really good one too, but still doesn't match this.

From Zone of the Enders HD Collection:

My favorite from Acceleration of Suguri 2:

And then all the Touhou stuff has been mentioned, so why bother?

I like to listen to these songs outside of their respective games, so they can, in fact, stand on their own. I also have music from Ridge Racer, Daytona USA, and Touhou in my music library, and I really enjoy listening to it.

F1ak3r 11 years, 10 months ago

Depends on the person and the game, I suppose, but that's a stupid obvious copout answer. I listen to the OSTs for Iji, Bastion, Dustforce and Portal 2 a whole bunch. And then there's all the awesome VGM remixes on sites like OverClocked Remix. Good music is absolutely worth listening to regardless of context.