Using Videogame Music in Projects

What's everyone's opinion on the music played in a game? Would you prefer originally composed music over tunes from videogames?

My personal opinion is that as long as it fits the scene then it's fine. However what I don't want to see is someone using a bundle of tunes from various games over different gens of consoles, for example -

1. World map music from Chrono Trigger OST.

2. Battle music from FFXIII.

3. Victory music from FF1.

What's everyone's thoughts?

Like you said... as long as it fits, and doesn't jump between 8-bit chiptunes and high end orchestral VSTs.

I don't personally care if people do, but you have to be careful. You can break the feel of your game if something really known starts to play. Like the players may remember the original game it came from instead of thinking of your game.

Agreed with Ronove, I would particularly avoid final fantasy music

Legal issues aside, if you do opt to use commerical game music in your game, you should avoid anything Square/Enix related. A number of those get way over-used.

I use Final Fantasy music when it is necessary, such as a guest, cameo reference, or a secret character. But it's best to use more unfamiliar music or hard to guess songs.

For a hobby project (non-commercial) use whatever you want, just make sure it fits.

I prefer original music over music from other games. As has already been said, sometimes you remember the original game instead. I just think original music is better, and will usually turn out much better for a project to have music especially made for it rather than using someone else's song that just happens to fit.

Nya :3

It would depend on the project for me. Once I finally have the time to get around to making games, my "masterpiece" so to speak will not involve any copyrighted music, partly in case I ever decide that the game is good enough to be commercialized, and partly, as others have said, to avoid people mixing up memories of other games with it. However, another project I've thought about is a Digimon-based game. If I wind up doing it, I plan on using BGM from the anime and various video games, which seems only natural. But since I'm already using copyrighted material, I may as well go whole hog, adding music from game series like Castlevania and Kingdom Hearts as fits whatever effect I want to achieve.

Completely original music, scored from the ground up for an individual game, is, in theory, ALWAYS best. But of course, it's not always possible.

Using music from actual video games would obviously be a big no-no in any commercial project, but I'm fine with it in non-commercial stuff. One of my two main project ideas will likely have an OST composed mostly, perhaps even entirely, of existing game music, so it'd be hypocritical as hell of me to condemn the practice in non-commercial projects. :lol: In my case, it's a sci-fi game/world, and the setting & story have a VERY specific feel, which the RTP just... doesn't fit. Not even a little bit. Nor does any of the "free to use in your game" music I've found online. Note, I'm not talking about the quality of the music, just the fact that it doesn't fit for this story. On the other hand, several tracks I've compiled from a handful of specific video games are just... perfect. Like, "If I had any composing skill and made music for this game myself, it would totally sound like this" perfect. As Reynard and many others have said, the most important thing with any music in any project is that it's used well, and fits the game/scene/area/etc.

That said, I really do think it's best to avoid, as I refer to them, "the usual suspects." No Final Fantasy, Metroid, Halo, Elder Scrolls, etc... basically games whose themes have become iconic. The music begins to play, and upwards of 75% of gamers know exactly what it is within a moment. When picking music to use, I stick to lesser known games/OSTs.

Even being a musician myself, I find myself having a few pieces of exisiting game music in my project (from Radiant Historia, /Legend/Heroes of Mana which aren't all that popular). Even still, at this point those are placeholders, and while I do love the pieces for the sections of the game their used, I just composed an original alternative that has the same sound/feel as the existing game piece I had before.

But as many people have said, I would avoid bait songs from bait games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and the like.

I usually choose lesser known games, typically things I haven't played. I try to stick to certain styles of music so it doesn't break up the feel.

Music is such a finicky thing for me in games. While I can let poor graphics slide, for some reason I cannot stand poor music. I always have a hard time finding almost anything I like when digging through free music (although it doesn't help that 90% of is hard rock or trance, which is unsuitable for my game), not to mention the clash of different artists can really break things up. Maybe my standards for music is just too high.

I use video game music in my RPG Maker projects more often than not! Then again, I tend to make fangames and crossovers more often than not, so...yeah.

Out of all of my projects, only 2 "original" games use music from video games, and that was in XP and I used the RTP music in too many projects already so I got bored of it, and couldn't stand using it in ANOTHER project. Even then, they only used MIDIs, so it's not the original songs which changes things very slightly. Speaking of which, I plan to make some kind of "parody" game that uses weirder remixes people have made of video game songs, I think it would be interesting.

It's somewhat irritating when you feel that someone else's song would be PERFECT for a situation in your game, but obviously, you don't have the rights to use it. That happens to me too with character designs and stuff as well. At least I can design characters on my own...music...not so much...