Game music most influential

By Robert Purchese Published 7 September, 2007

On youngsters, reckons EA.

EA bigwig Steve Schnur reckons music in games influences youngsters more than other media, like radio, GamesIndustry.biz reports. That's probably because they spend all their time talking and cut records off before they're finished.

Schnur addressed the topic in his keynote speech at the Games Convention Conference in Asia, where he pulled Franz Ferdinand and Avril Lavigne out of his hat as examples of musicians first discovered in videogames.

He believes titles like Need for Speed can boast track repetition nearly twice every hour, which racks up to about one billion earfuls worldwide in the game's lifetime. Shiny.

"A recent poll of core gamers between the ages of 13 to 32 revealed that 55 per cent, and that's growing, learned about their new favourite artist, or new favourite band, or new favourite song – they learned about it from a videogame. That's Europe, Asia, US."

"Even more impressive for a record industry that's having its own problems – over one third of those that discover a song in a game download that song, and over 20 per cent purchase that artist's CD."

The speech soon moved onto EA's new music company Artwerk, which has signed four artists in the nine months since launch. These include Junkie XL, whose work will feature heavily in Need for Speed ProStreet, and Jupiter One, based in New York.

But it isn't only in EA games these artists will be exposed. Australian band Airbourne will blaring out in Grand Theft Auto IV and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground.

Schnur went on to muse about the future, and the infusion of all types of media on future consoles.

"But what will the PS4, Xbox 5000 and iPhone 2 bring? All these future devices will be complete home and mobile entertainment supercomputers that represent technology beyond anything we've ever experienced."

Supercomputers. Yes, of course they will be.

"Imagine a world where 80 per cent of the global population is instantaneously exposed to music via videogames, with the power to purchase literally at their fingertips."

EA Music Store announcement? No, wait. We'll be quiet.

"Perhaps for the first time ever, global culture can finally be truly global. Perhaps for the first time ever, music can change the world."

Didn't it do that in the 60s or something?

For all the news from around the world, tune into GamesIndustry.biz.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • homerramone #1 5 years ago

    Wish they would stop assuming that all game players want to hear the rhythmic shit that passes off as music these days.

    Still at least with the 360 I can listen to music I like instead :-)

  • Killerbee #2 5 years ago

    Schnur addressed the topic in his keynote speech at the Games Convention Conference in Asia, where he pulled Franz Ferdinand and Avril Lavigne out of his hat as examples of musicians first discovered in videogames.

    Suddenly I don't feel like celebrating gaming's influence any more...

  • Der_tolle_Emil #3 5 years ago

    For me music in games was always more important than graphics. (Still comes after gameplay of course). But that doesn't mean that I want that shit that comes in games nowadays. It feels all so damn generic - can't stand Burnout's music, can't stand Forza's and I certainly can't stand the music in Flatout.

  • TwistidChimp #4 5 years ago

    Dear me. EA's musical output in most of its games has been shocking. It saddens me that they think sticking in a random sellection of current nu-metal acts counts as decent ingame music. It saddens me even more that that many people only discover new music through the over produced, corporate ass that makes it into EA games.

  • InfiniteFury #5 5 years ago

    "...where he pulled Franz Ferdinand and Avril Lavigne out of his hat"

    Arse surely?

  • M83J01P97 #6 5 years ago

    WipeOut and WipeOut 2097 pretty much got me into electronic music like Orbital, Future Sound of London Underworld, Aphex Twin etc...

    So I do think he has a point. Having said that, a lot of the licensed music in video games today (with the exception of the GTA series) is pretty terrible.

  • souljacker2000 #7 5 years ago

    please say that the boss music for Blue Dragon isnt licenced and is completely made up and off the cuff!?

  • sharky_ob #8 5 years ago

    Good grief, Junkie XL????

    Have EA heard the soundtrack to the first Forza? Some of the worst music in a videogame ever.

  • jonsaan #9 5 years ago

    Not the shit that you put on your crappy games doesn't duuuude.

  • L42yB #10 5 years ago

    I have two words for this guy: Custom Soundtracks

    One of the main reasons I love my 360 is because I only ever listen to my music. I cudn't tell u what EA's soundtracks have been like lately cos I never hear them :)

  • BastoJ #11 5 years ago

    In a game like burnout I normally listen to my own music, on the other hand Oblivion, Halo (SP not MP) I normally listen to the stuff that comes with the game,

  • Bumhug360 #12 5 years ago

    Next they will claim they are bigger than Jesus

  • bunglebonce #13 5 years ago

    I heart Trax.

    Actually, even though I knew about them, I didn't think much of CSS before playing Forza 2. The rest of the soundtrack is shite, mind.

  • Dr.Gash #14 5 years ago

    I was going to bitch about the music for Tiger Woods so I looked up the lyrics to the title song. Now the fucking song is stuck in my head and I want to punch DMX in the face.

  • hp_on_toast #15 5 years ago

    "Next they will claim they are bigger than Jesus"

    You mean they aren't? I thought the States re-entered Iraq after playing through the Desert Strike re-release on the PSP.

  • Spydez #16 5 years ago

    The later games in the GTA series have contained superb soundtracks that compliment the period and setting of the game world.

  • JackyB #17 5 years ago

    The only games with "real" music that had songs i liked have been Tony Hawk, and even then it was still hit and miss, plus i knew most of the artists anyway. Oh, and if i ever heard Avril Lavigne whilst playing a game, that game would become a frisbee

  • TwistidChimp #18 5 years ago

    I feel I must post a link to the latest EA Medal of Honour trailer..

    [link url=http:// www.gametrailers.com/player/24612.html
    ]http://ww w.gametrailers.com/player/24612...[/link]

    Now lets talk appropriate use of music shall we EA ;)

    They even have the track name at the beginning. Its WWII, not a skate video ffs.

    Unbelievable.

  • ArtOfLife #19 5 years ago

    souljacker2000, although I've only played a demo of Blue Dragon and haven't encountered any bosses, if the music you're referring to has cheesy metal vocals and some guitar soloing two thirds of the way through, then it's a song the composer Nobuo Uematsu made especially for the game and simply requested that Ian Gillan (ex Deep Purple singer) do the vocals. They didn't reuse an old song; it's new. Admittedly it sounds very 80s though!

    As far as I know, the only songs ever used in any Square Enix games full stop which aren't composed by the games' composers are new singles by J-rock and pop artists like Gackt and Utada Hikaru. Also a few have been written by the composer and then offered to a popular artist to sing especially for a key scene in the game. But I don't think they've ever gotten the license for an old song and used that. Unless you count CALLING from the end credits in Advent Children.
    Edited by 1 at 07/09/07 @ 16:31

  • ArcMonkey #20 5 years ago

    "Imagine a world where 80 per cent of the global population is instantaneously exposed to music via videogames, with the power to purchase literally at their fingertips."

    Apparently 16% of the "global population" is suffering of hunger, I guess thats who he left out...


    Sorry for being a goddamn hippy...

  • Rodriguez #21 5 years ago

    Personally, whilst I think some mainstream music in games has been good, I also always enjoyed videogame specific music, created solely for a game by a composer. For example, Rockstar use mainstream music for their GTA games which is great given that it adds some authenticity to a 'semi-real world' or specific timeline like Vice City, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the music in their other title Bully [aka Canis Canem Edit] - music which really enriched this titles sense of mischief and fun of being a teenage tearaway and overall felt like a really intricate part of the makeup of Bully, rather than just tacked on mainstream tat.

  • Agent_Llama #22 4 years ago

    "Good grief, Junkie XL????

    Have EA heard the soundtrack to the first Forza? Some of the worst music in a videogame ever."

    Too bloody right.

  • MuTaunt #23 4 years ago

    I've always thought the music in most of EA's games was awful. Though I suppose it suits their target audience of chavs :p

    Rockstar on the other hand know how use real music properly in their games.

  • AgentBalti #24 4 years ago

    I can't even think of any game which I've left the music ON. A few maybe, but the majority just seem to be some producers power-trip, a mish-mash of the same sounding tunes with frantic head-nodding and "rawk" written all over it. Just trash really.

    Sure, it's pandering to the US market where this kind of music seems to be prevalent, but what's cool for skool doesn't make it good for games. A soundtrack that sounds all the same multiplied by the repetative nature of the playlist makes the experience ever so tedious and messy.

    Repitition and 7 second memory for the kids, playlists or the Music = 0 option for the adults.

  • Nithron #25 4 years ago

    You know what would be really useful?
    A way to see what damn song is currently playing in the game, on the pause screen. I mean, in games like Burnout 3, it tells you what's playing once the song *starts*, but you don't know if it's good or not at that point, so you don't read it... and then you realise it is good, and you don't know what it's called.

    Goddamn, is that irritating.

    Oh, and while we're at it, let's have the track/artist name displayed on adverts as well.
    Edited by 1 at 08/09/07 @ 19:36

  • YourMessageHere #26 4 years ago

    Once a game is loaded for the first time, I configure controls while the title music plays. Then, 90% of the time, I go to sound options and turn off the music. About 1% of the time I leave it on. The other 9% is when I can't bear the music after 5 seconds and turn it off before doing anything else. This 9% usually includes things with EA Traxxxxx in them.

  • Nikanoru #27 4 years ago

    God, if there's one thing that bores me more than a lifeless, random cacophony of instruments that people call an "orchestral soundtrack", it would be that horrible licensed crap in racing games and skate games and stuff.

  • JavaJawaUK #28 4 years ago

    EA doesn't really have a right to comment on game music - most of the stuff they produce for their games is generic shite.

    They should look at games like LOTRO, BioShock [yeah yeah - whatever you think it's got awesome music] and Guild Wars before being so cocky as to comment on game music.

  • NegativeZero #29 4 years ago

    @sharky_ob:
    Yeah, but his soundtrack for Quantum Redshift is reasonably good.

  • Aria #30 4 years ago

    @MuTaunt

    True!