Game music used to be an afterthought, devised by crafty in-house composers harnessing what little power their bleeping game consoles offered. Playback channels were limited, memory was scarce, and 'sound quality' was a question of whether or not sound would play.

The past 20 years have seen extraordinary developments in game music. In February, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra played an arrangement from Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy game score to over 5,000 people. Recordings from the series hit number one on the Japanese charts.

American commercial audio houses want a piece of the action. Industry compliance with music standards such as MIDI and redbook audio mean composers can work with CD quality music far from the tinkerings of programmers.

Craig DeLeon, director of marketing with New York's Smack Music + Sound, compares the game music biz to "the last days of the old Hollywood studio system when a wave of independent, out-of-house composers were able to break into the once-closed world of film scoring."

Today, about 50% of game music originates out-of-house. DeLeon anticipates that number will grow.

Last year the American video game industry grew from $6.6 billion in 2000 to $9.4 billion in 2001, giving some pundits grounds to consider gaming a serious rival to the movie business.

It's popular. But is it lucrative?

"The potential for composers and music houses to make a lot of money is greater in the future than it is now. Now it's about being a pioneer and creating an identity for yourself," DeLeon says.

Game budgets are comparable to spot budgets, but video games require a lot more than :30 of music, meaning more work for the same amount of money. On the other hand, production schedules are longer, much like feature film. Games could offer a company a steady source of income when advertising is slow or the market is saturated.

DeLeon sees scoring games as a valuable creative outlet for composers keen to work in a field uninhibited by consumer expectations.

A further incentive is that nobody really knows where the industry is going. The future might well bring with it a system whereby composers earn royalties based on sales. The volume exists: the average game sells 500,000 units; a hit game sells one million; Activision's Tony Hawk Pro Skateboarder sold seven million.

The catch is that Tony Hawk featured licensed pre-recorded music, which presently makes up most of the out-of-house music used in games.

Murray Allen, VP post-production, testing & tech support at Electronic Arts, North America's largest game manufacturer, gets at least five calls a week from outside houses. He comments, "There is not too much promise for outside music houses unless they own hit material already recorded. The competition is extremely heavy." All of EA's original music last year was composed in house. Allen maintains that the future is in licensing tracks.

Smack EP Lisa Sanders isn't phased. "Radio is already our biggest competitor."

Webfiles:
Smack Music + Sound> http://www.smackmusic.net