Music as a Key Element of the Gaming Industry
Gaming is an industry with a relatively short history, but one that has had a massive impact on the last few generations of humans around the world. While there are many elements that make video games so fun to play, they would certainly not be nearly as entertaining without the music that’s used to make them more engaging to the players.
Looking back to the earliest days of gaming, we can see how music played a critical role in their development, even in the oldest of titles such as Tetris or Super Mario, which the older generations still remember with fondness.
Today, music in video games has evolved to a whole new level, and high-end musical producers and performers are often involved in its development.
What Makes Music So Important in Gaming?
Perhaps you didn’t pay attention the last time when you watched a movie, but music is one of the key elements of movies, to such a degree that separate Oscar awards are given to movies with the best music and sound effects. The same goes for games, that would simply not be what they are without the musical part.
Music can set the tone for the story that you are trying to tell on the screen in a way that nothing else can. Adding suspenseful, upbeat, or sad music during various scenes in both movies and games can make the scenes more engaging and make the player or viewer connect to it on an emotional level.
Video games without music would be dead and not nearly as appealing to the players, who would not be able to form the same kind of emotional connections to the characters in the game, or the various scenes happening on the screen.
How Is Music Used?
For the most part, music within the gaming industry is used as ambiance sound, which means it plays in the background while you are playing the game, setting the tone for the scenes you are experiencing. However, music itself can often be the actual theme of the game, as you can see in the numerous music themed online slots, or social games that are heavily connected to the musical industry.
In either case, the biggest musical hits of our time often make it into the games, with sports games like FIFA and Madden, or shooter games like GTA often having some of the most extensive and entertaining playlists within them.
If you are a fan of the horror genre or the RPG games, you are surely appreciative of the musical elements these games have to offer. A horror game would be nearly impossible without a good playlist of suspenseful and mournful music playing in the background as all sorts of atrocities happen on your screen, while RPG greatly benefit from the epic numbers which make every move you make appear more grand and essential to the salvation of the virtual world you find yourself in.
Even the modern day arcade games which tend to be simple and basic in terms of gameplay are powered by powerful musical elements which make them more entertaining and allow players to spend many hours repeating similar actions without getting too bored with it.
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