|

Music trends for gaming and the possibilities for brands

Music trends for gaming and the possibilities for brands

Source: Travis Scott/YouTube

There is the opportunity to be incredibly creative in bringing the worlds of music and gaming together, writes Charles Gadsdon

From the antediluvian but eloquent tunes of 1980s video game consoles, to touring with philharmonic orchestras, video games have been creating original music that defy time and classification. Early gaming developers were true pioneers of understanding the power of music and sound as a successful recall method, and have integrated this strategy into their work ever since.

Think of the boot-up sounds of SEGA Master System (1988), Game Boy (1989), PlayStation (1994) and Xbox (2001). I know I can’t be alone in saying I have these sounds committed to memory.

Hardware manufacturers have been creating earworms and mnemonics that are some of the most effective and definitive boomerangs to our childhood.

And what about in-game music? EA SPORTS “It’s In The Game!” is a personal favourite and reminds me of setting up a custom cup competition on FIFA 2000 with my school friends over a whole summer (we all failed our exams that year but won the schools cup football finals).

Gamers that didn’t play sports games but were more into their Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear Solid were rewarded with rich and timeless soundtracks. “The Legend of Zelda Theme” was created for the first game of the franchise and as an ongoing brand theme throughout the in-game experience and series.

The crossover to mainstream came in 2002 with the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Not just because it is one of the best-selling PlayStation 2 games of all time, it is particularly important because the game featured 113 varied songs from the 80s as part of its in-house ‘Radio Stations’.

Gaming has inevitably evolved and grown considerably since. Microsoft made an educated guess that there are more than two billion gamers around the world, with the UK being the sixth largest video game market according to UKIE.

And these audiences are putting considerable money behind their hobby; UK consumer spend on games was valued at a record £5.7bn in 2018, up 10% from 2017. This is projected to continue to grow.

We’re starting to see brands get involved, most predominantly through partnerships and activations on popular online games. Barclays was announced as the headline sponsor for UKLC, the League of Legends Official UK Championship series.

Recently during lockdown, fashion designer labels Marc Jacobs, Valentino, and Sandy Liang have been creating custom clothing designs for the Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing.

And University of California, Berkley is using Minecraft to host its official replacement graduation ceremony.

There is also the opportunity to be incredibly creative in bringing the worlds of music and gaming together. Fortnite, popular for its collaborations with high-profile music artists, recently broke its own audience record for its live in-game gig with Travis Scott – more than 12 million players tuned in to watch the US rapper perform a live set inside the online game.

It was only in February 2019 that DJ Marshmello set the record with 10.7 million live watchers, and more than 51 million views of the recap on YouTube.

Fortnite has hit the nail on the head, by successfully bringing together the two cultures and harking back to the early foundational relationship between music and gaming to create a truly unique and engaging experience for audiences that feels genuine and on-brand.

The experience of gaming is quite unique in that users can create their own experience on screen using their own actions, making it more memorable than film or TV. They are more emotionally invested.

In FIFA, for example, sound is integral for making every goal feel like an epic, world-at-your-feet moment. We’ve been fortunate to have worked with the iconic football brand on campaigns that blend the power of music and real-life sport within the gaming arena.

The brand recall gaming publishers and developers have successfully crafted through the use of music and sound should not be undermined. Those pioneers understood that creating brand equity through sound and music would give them a timeless and ownable asset that could be used across all touchpoints, forever driving recall to their brand through a positive consumer experience.

With your eyes closed, if you were to hear one second from the start-up music from a favourite game or console from your youth, you’d be able to instantly recognise the brand, remember the positive experience and know what was going to happen next.

Imagine if the same could be said for your brand?

Charles Gadsdon is global director of growth, MassiveMusic

Join Mediatel on 28 May for The Future of Gaming, a free lockdown event where we speak to the brands, tech platforms and agencies investing in gaming and eSports to discover the potential of this new media channel.

Media Jobs