The Evolution of Video Game Music

The article The Evolution of Video Games from NPR gave an interesting but brief history of the music in video games. Reflecting on the musical background of video games today, I realized how extensive this evolution actually is. The sound of the first video games, Pong, Pacman, etc. was relatively low level and simple. Today we have entire orchestras doing the sound on games at conferences like Video Games Live. The most intriguing line of this article was stated by Tommy Tallarico (a video game composer) “It’s for this reason that I’ve always said that if Beethoven were alive today, he’d be a video game composer.” The concert violinist interviewed said that because video game composers are restricted, Beethoven would not have appreciated being tied to the outcome of the game when writing his music. Personally, I think that Beethoven might sell some of his compositions for video games if he was in a tight spot for cash but I cannot see Beethoven taking a job as a video game composer. What do you guys think?

This entry was posted in Links. Bookmark the permalink.