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Music Media Entertainment Games

Where Are The Videogame Soundtracks? 64

Posted by simoniker from the but-i-get-the-music-with-the-game dept.
Thanks to GamerDad for their editorial lamenting the lack of standalone videogame soundtracks available in the U.S. The author suggests: "Given that gaming is currently enjoying a lot of popularity, it's surprising that more game soundtracks aren't starting to fill the racks at Best Buy and music specialty stores across the country", and points out that "In Japan, where many big games are created and sold, game soundtracks are as popular as those for movies." Would you, like the writer, "personally love to go pick up the soundtrack to F-Zero GX at a music store, or maybe the OST to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance", without resorting to pricy imports, or is the market still too much of a niche Stateside?
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Where Are The Videogame Soundtracks? More

Where Are The Videogame Soundtracks?

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  • but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of people who want it. I say start a couple petitions. I think I might startt one myself. Nintendo if you want to save me the trouble of collection millions of signatures, release a boxset of the music from every single Mario game ever.

    Gentlemen, I thank you for your time.
    • Nintendo did sell soundtracks for awhile, it was through their merchandise department at Nintendo Power. It was a great place to get soundtracks, official players guides, and other random Nintendo schwag.
  • Half-Life and OpFor have the soundtracks as ordinary audio tracks on the CD. If you've got a non-spazzed CD player, it should pick them up. Same, I recall, with 7th Guest, which was the game I got a CD-ROM drive for...
    • That's becoming less and less common nowadays, though, because:

      a) CD audio is bloated and takes up a lot of space that could otherwise be used for game content

      b) CD audio is easily pirated/copied, unlike audio buried within a compressed, encrypted file (as with the Blizzard games).

      Still, I remember finding it pretty cool that I could stick my Worms 2 disk in my CD player and listen to the music from it...

    • IIRC the tony hawk games did this too.
  • You can find most good soundtracks on the Internet anyway. If they don't want to get paid for it, then they won't.
  • Too much of a niche stateside.

    Next question.
  • Well, I'll say this about the soundtrack for FFTA. The music was really, really good, but it was also very short and very repetitive. Come to think of it, most original GBA games don't seem to have 50+ song soundtracks. IIRC, Tactics Ogre's soundtrack was just over 25 or so. I don't see myself getting that one were it offered here.

    The vast majority of games do have good music, but for the most part it's the songs that we don't get to hear very often that we tend to like. For games that only have maybe
  • The soundtrack to TES:Morrowind (available on CD with the collector's edition, and easily burnable to CD since it's in .mp3 format with the game) finds its way into my car CD player on a regular basis.

    Various other game soundtracks would enjoy similar listening, except they're not available on CD or mp3 and are usually in some format better suited for dynamic scoring (transition into combat music as appropriate, then back into exploration music when combat is done).
  • The last one I remember that actually had a seperate CD for the soundtrack (that was labeled "soundtrack" and worked accordingly) was Command & Conquer, the collectors edition one.
  • Still to this day I regret not getting the Final Fantasy II (IV) soundtrack back when it was available for sale. I tried to get it on ebay, but that deal went sour and I lost $20. That game had some great music. But I don't think that many games anymore have music as great as some of the older games. There are a few exceptions, but they seem to be few and far between. Most of the video game music actually worth listening to is at least a decade old, if not more. It's just quite possible that the powers that
    • Well, FF2/4j is my favourite Final Fantasy by far (as if one couldn't tell from my username) but even I have to admit the music doesn't rank among my favourites except for a select few songs (Within the Giant comes to mind). They're otherwise a little bit too short and repetitive, IMHO.

      For a good, solid, all-around excellent soundtrack, I'd have to turn more towards FF7. I can only think of one song on that entire OST I don't like listening to on a regular basis, and that's only because the part of the gam
    • You can download the FF4 complete soundtrack (among others) here [snesmusic.org]

      You can download the Winamp plugin to play spc files here [alpha-ii.com]

      You can download the XMMS plugin to play spc files here [sourceforge.net]

      Happy FF4 listening.

  • Hmm, not looked to hard have we? I'll admit they are not common but:

    And there are more game soundtrack (Amiga & C64) cd's on: Bjorn Lynne's Lynne Music [lynnemusic.com] shop http://www.lynnemusic.com/cdshop.html [lynnemusic.com]

  • 1) The game music often comes with the game. Sometimes it's in some obscure file format, but these days many games (especially the moddable ones) have music in some standard format (many use MP3 - well, Operation Flashpoint used Ogg Vorbis...) Back in the day, many CD-ROM games also had soundtrack on the CD as redbook tracks. There's no point in selling soundtrack - you can get it from the game itself.

    2) Even if games don't have rippable files, they often have "music test" mode. (Goes especially well for

  • Import not that expensive (Score:3, Informative)

    by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @07:08AM (#7247649)
    I buy all my CD's over the web, and it is usually cheaper than buying them from a store (then again, where I live CD's are outrageously overpriced anyway). Some URL's:

    Game music [gamemusic.com]

    Anime castle [animecastle.com]

    Anime jungle [jungle-scs.co.jp]

    Anime outpost [animeoutpost.com]

    Right stuff [rightstuf.com]

    Anime nation [animenation.com]

  • ...sell well in Japan because the music is oftentimes written by popular/famous musicians and performed specifically in relation to that game (much like move soundtracks in the US). When titles are localized to the US (I'm thinking specifically of the Gran Turismo series for Playstation 1&2), they have generic rock/rap/whatever pumped into them. Generally these are songs that have proven popular in the market segment they think they are selling to (i.e. the songs have already been overplayed for years
    • Hmm, a couple weeks ago I saw Homeworld "Game of the Year" at Best Buy for $10, and I remembered playing the demo and liking it, so I bought it. I didn't get any sound track CD? Pity, too, 'cause even if I use the utility on the Relic web site to extract the in game audio, it's so horribly encoded it's not worth it. "Agnus Dei" is just RUINED by the scourge of a billion audio artifacts.

      As for the Yes song, I didn't like it. I wince at the guy's high pitched singing, and the song itself sounds like 5 diff
  • Tokyopop [tokyopop.com] publishes a number of Japanese game soundtracks (and compilations of game music). Sometimes I'll see one or two of these in a game store.
  • I bought the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack -- it seemed to be easily available, no special order, I just found it in a shop. I can't think of any other game where I'd want to listen to the music in the same way I'd listen to a "normal" audio CD.
  • Some time ago I found the mp3s of Diablo II at Blizzard [battle.net]. I really like the ones of the expansion set and some of the outtakes.
  • In the last couple of weeks, the Virgin Megastore in Chicago has created a section featuring soundtracks from Anime and Video games.

    It's not a huge section, but it is big enough to be useful and features quite a bit of variety with soundtracks from Final Fantasy X to Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Even imports are cheaper than I've typically seen ($25 instead of $40). They certainly aren't in the charity business, so we could be seeing the beginning of a trend.
  • Metal of honor Frontline and I believe Underground had a soundtrack released for the game. These were orchestral soundtracks (very much like movie scores).
  • Look for one in your area. You can usually get game sound tracks for $10 a piece (if it's not something EXTREMELY popular)
  • The problem with game soundtarcks is that they aren't usually very good on their own. Notable exceptions include: THPS3, CNC:G and RA2

  • Import soundtracks vs. domestic (Score:3, Informative)

    by extrarice ( 212683 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @11:13AM (#7248514) Homepage Journal
    I would rather spend the money and get an import. The US distributors just screw up the release, for whatever reason.

    Example: When Final Fantasy 9 was the hot thing, TokyoPop (that evil bastard of hell) got a hold of the rights to publish the soundtrack in the US. They released a single disc with 33 tracks on it. The original Japanese soundtrack is 4 disc-long, each disc containing over 20 tracks. Yeah, lemme think about that one - 1 disc versus 4 discs. I'll get the import version, thanks.

    If a US distributor would keep the discs and packaging the same, and just translate the booklet, then I'll buy the domestic release.
  • Always seems to release the soundtracks to their games. I have Myth, Myth2 and the Halo soundtrack over in my cd stack somewhere.

    store.bungie.com
  • I've picked up a number of game soundtracks in my time (I've got a number of FF soundtracks and other FF albums, two of the three Metal Gear Solid 2 soundtracks, and a few others.) While the music in them is pretty great, there is a certain nostalgic factor too. I'm not sure Aerith's Theme (FF7), The Oath (FF8), or others would elicit quite the same response from me if I just heard them without having in the back of my head the circumstances at which you hear them in the game. Although, the opening to Chron
  • Grandia 2 for the Dreamcast came with a soundtrack CD (don't know if the PS2 also had it). That was pretty cool.
  • I agree, it would be nicer to see additional channels to purchase this music through. Though at least my local comic shop carries a small selection (though mostly it's DDR).

    One place I just discovered online is gamingfm.com [gamingfm.com], which streams videogame BGM 24/7. (though please, if you get addicted like I did, donate. I would hate to see them shutdown after getting /.'ed).

    Also, I've noticed that sometimes it's cheaper to purchase the BGM from Ebay sellers overseas. However, I do support gamemusic.com [gamemusic.com] and if yo
  • What happened to the good ole' days, where the game CD actually had audio tracks on it and you could just pop it into an audio CD player and listen to the music from the game? I remember doing that a lot with my Quake II and Descent II CD's - both had great soundtracks, Quake had NIN and Skinny Puppy did the soundtrack for Descent if my memory serves correctly. All you had to do was skip the first "track", which was the game data.
  • eBay.

    I got my Gunvalkyrie soundtrack for a penny plus $3.00 shipping. Woo!

    But I do agree, it would be awesome to see them in domestic music stores.
  • Not having read the article yet (silly 56k connection), there are a few tips I can offer for anyone into this sort of stuff:

    1) PC Games - Try running a CD Player app on older games that use Red Book. You can get some good stuff through this (Total Annihilation, Half-Life, Carmageddon) however you don't have any track titles to go with, which is a pain.

    2) PC Games - A lot of newer games are using files on the hard drive for music. Look for .ogg, .mp3, .wav in the game directories. Also, if the game uses
    • 3) Playstation Games - Some of these used Red Book as well, so pop them in a CD Player and check it out.

      Please be careful doing this and turn your volume all the way down and gradually turn it up, otherwise you can do serious damage to both your speakers, your hearing and your sanity.

  • I think a large part is also played out by how games and anime in general are perceived by the American public.

    Without getting into a whole sociological lecture, games and anime have been with the Japanese for a long time now, at least since the 80s. A lot, and I mean a LOT of the games and anime sold there are marketed towards adults, or at least the adult market.
    The same stuff in the states is still pretty much kiddy-entertainment. Anime has only become widespread in recent years, and then only quite l
  • I was able to pick up the original Gran Turismo soundtrack simply by walking into a store here in New Zealand and looking in the soundtrack section - however, this is a rarity and seems (here at least) tied to the popularity of the game

    Games like the Tony Hawk series would be sitters for soundtrack CD's, and they'd make a small fortune off the soundtrack alone, but publishers don't care beyond securing the rights to use it for the game?

    Of course, these are games that use "commerical" music so there c
  • While more OST's would be cool, until then, if you've got a good internet connection and can stream music I reccomend www.gamingfm.com. These guys are made up of ex-editors from EGM and others from the gaming community. They bring you streaming music from all your favorite systems and you can even request what you'd like to hear!
  • I didn't see anyone else mention it, but when EA releases SSX3 this week, you can also buy the companion CD soundtrack. Best Buy even had it advertised in this week's flyer. Also, the soundtrack to XBox's OUTLAW VOLLEYBALL is available (with lots of label and music-video support for the band Diffuser who appears on the disc). Going forward, as long as the game publishers license/create music that is accessible to the "average joe" (that is, radio-friendly with artists that are touring or artists that fol

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