[NewMusic] game soundtracks

[Matt Davignon]

Currently, I don't think it's possible to include 100 hours of music
in a game. Some role playing games take about 40-50 hours to complete.
I think the average 'action/adventure' games now take about 10-15
hours to finish.

Some of the best in-game music I've heard was from the Tomb Raider
series. The music in that game was lots of very short pieces, ranging
from a few seconds to about 2 minutes, with several variations on
similar themes. When playing the game you heard mostly silence and
ambient sound. The music would pop in if you discovered something, if
something came after you, or if you walked into a new environment.

The standard game soundtrack for the last 10 years or so is to have a
number of songs for each stage of the game. Usually the tracks loop
after about 2 or 3 minutes, sometimes with a 'seamless' repeat so it
sounds like the song never ends. As you can imagine, it gets painfully
repetitive more often than not.

Matt

On Dec 28, 2007 1:43 PM, Sarah - 21 Grand <21grand at 21grand.org> was like:

> Jon Raskin was all:
> Barry, how many musicians are employed to create the 100 hours of music on a
> game?  What do they get for the effort?  Is it fee based? Are their any
> royalties available at least at the top end of the industry?