The most underrated music and gaming collaborations of 2022

By: Mat Ombler

Published: 2022-12-16

The Score is a collaborative editorial vertical exploring the intersection of music and video games. Every two weeks, Water & Music member Mat Ombler breaks down an underrated music/gaming case study — outlining specific insights around monetization models, marketing strategies, and creative tooling, while contextualizing the case study against higher-level business and technology trends. Our aim is for each issue to leave readers not only more informed, but also inspired to experiment and push the boundaries of what’s possible with music and gaming partnerships.

As a community benefit, we have also set up a brand-new, dedicated forum channel in our members-only Discord server for The Score, where members can discuss our findings and share music and gaming resources in between issues. We encourage you to pop into the forum, say hi, and even make a new post of your own!

2022 was a mammoth year for music and gaming collaborations. Labels and management are using video game integrations to reach new audiences, while game studios leverage the mainstream appeal of artists to drive more sales and create new monetization channels.

From Elton John performing in a Roblox concert and Dillon Francis appearing in Decentraland’s Metaverse Music festival, to Lil Nas X’s League of Legends WORLDS Championship takeover, and Ed Sheeran’s new single for Pokemon, collaboration stories of virtual partnerships dominated the headlines.

Still, various music and gaming collaborations have flown under the radar for several reasons, from insufficient PR presence to a lack of commercial appeal beyond gaming publications.

In response, we’re highlighting the most impressive music and gaming collaborations you might have missed in 2022. We’ll explore the key features that made these collaborations so remarkable, how they were activated and monetized, and what you can learn from them.

PUBG: Mobile x Blackpink

Roblox and Fortnite are the big names that most people associate with in-game concerts — but we’re now starting to see these experiences replicated across games in the mobile market.

One of the main reasons for this is the monetization and user acquisition challenges facing mobile studios in the aftermath of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policies. These policies require games on iOS to ask for user permission to track the data they typically use for user acquisition. 68% of mobile game devs have found marketing their games more complicated, and have leveraged the popularity of well-known brands, IPs, and music to attract new users.

In July this year, the South Korean girl group Blackpink collaborated with PUBG: Mobile for an in-game concert experience. If you’re unfamiliar with PUBG: Mobile, it’s a free-to-play battle royale shooter with over one billion downloads. Like Fortnite, PUBG: Mobile has hosted its fair share of branded collaborations with IP, including Godzilla, Spider-Man, and Neon Genesis Evangelion over the last year; the Blackpink collaboration was its biggest yet.

In a previous issue of The Score, we extensively covered the ins and outs of this collaboration — which involved the band writing a new song for the game “Ready for Love,” accompanied by an in-game concert experience called The Virtual and a music video featuring the band members performing in locations from PUBG Mobile. The collaboration also coincided with Blackpink’s highly anticipated return after a 604-day hiatus, so there was a massive demand for new music from the band. It just happened to be debuted in a video game.

PUBG: Mobile capitalized on the release. The game, developed by LightSpeed and Quantum Studio, a subsidiary of Tencent Games, is itself a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings. (Notably, Tencent Holdings commands a 9.2% stake in Spotify and a 20% stake in Universal Music Group, which represents Blackpink outside of Asia.)

If PUBG: Mobile players discover Blackpink through the collaboration and check out their music afterwards, that’s excellent news for Tencent. And that’s what happened as many players in PUBG: Mobile’s core markets ended up boosting Blackpink’s Spotify plays, particularly in India, Indonesia, and the USA. To monetize the experience, Blackpink-themed cosmetic items (such as emotes and weapons) were introduced for players to purchase in-game.

“Ready for Love” amassed 15.7 million views between four virtual performances and over 111 million music video views on YouTube. Considering the staggering amount of Blackpink content permeating the PUBG: Mobile player base, both parties can celebrate a widely successful event.

Another collaboration worth shouting about is the Korean boy band BTS’ appearance in Cookie Run: Kingdom, a mobile game developed by South Korea’s Devsisters. The collaboration lasted 100 days, and transformed the BTS members into playable characters as part of a significant update for its 200 million players. The update also introduced new gameplay mechanics, leaderboard competitions, and a chance to win tickets to watch the band perform in concert.

Cookie Run: Kingdom’s players received advance notice about the collaboration through heavy promotion over a month in advance. As an action RPG gacha game, Cookie Run: Kingdom’s main gameplay focuses on building an army of cookie characters to fight in battles, typically purchased via a randomized gacha system. Consequently, adding BTS as new characters in the game incentivized players to engage with the event, even for players that might not be BTS fans.

The collaboration was a dream come true for BTS fans, given the group’s heavy involvement in promo and marketing campaigns. A video series featuring the group reached 850,000 subscribers on the Cookie Run: Kingdom YouTube channel. Members discussed their dream kingdoms in the game and shared clues for in-game riddles that unlocked premium currency (to be purchased to exchange for BTS-themed items).

After collecting all of the BTS items in Cookie Run: Kingdom, players received unique buffs (or upgrades), incentivizing purchases — and there were plenty available. Alongside seven BTS members to collect as new characters, there were nearly 100 individual BTS-themed cosmetic items to purchase via a randomized gacha system that players could use to decorate their kingdoms.

The highlight of the collaboration was a new narrative and side missions based around rhythm game mechanics and a three-lane endless runner where players have to avoid oncoming items. Both modes were new to Cookie Run: Kingdom. Six BTS songs (“Dynamite,” “Butter,” “MIC Drop,” “Permission to Dance,” “Mikrokosmos,” and “Yet To Come”) were part of these modes and had their own set of achievements to clear.

According to GameRefinery mobile analytics platform data, the collaboration resulted in a 327% increase in revenue and a 244% increase in downloads (comparing the 7/14/30 days after the update to the same period before the update). This collaboration is one of our favorite examples of an organic music and gaming partnership where the featured artists are genuinely into the game they’re promoting.

Neon White x Machine Girl

Remember when video game music used to be cool? Like, really cool? Unlike the golden era of PS2 and Dreamcast games, it’s rare that you’ll hear club or rave music in a video game soundtrack. Ben Esposito, a video game developer, has a lot of nostalgia for this era of video game music and wanted to bring it back in the latest game he was working on — Neon White.

So, Esposito reached out to one of his favorite musicians, Matt Stephenson (AKA Machine Girl), to ask if they wanted to write the soundtrack for the game.

Machine Girl’s unique blend of punk and electronic breakcore, especially the 2020 RePorpoised Phantasies EP, is a match made in heaven for Neon White’s sleek aesthetic. The upbeat tempo and sporadic tendencies of Machine Girl’s music are particularly well suited for a game combining first-person-shooter mechanics with puzzle elements and speed running.

The music that Machine Girl wrote for the game draws influence from the music in games such as Dreamcast’s Jet Set Radio series and PlayStation’s Ape Escape games (composed by house DJ Soichi Terada). You can listen to the complete soundtrack for Neon White here on Spotify, which is so expansive that it’s split into two parts. That speaks volumes for the amount of passion that Machine Girl put into scoring this game.

The collaboration highlights the breadth of opportunities for musicians to work with indie game developers. If you want to write music for a video game, it’s doubtful you’ll get your big break in a AAA game, but there are plenty of smaller mobile studios out there looking for music to feature in their games. And as Neon White’s collaboration with Machine Girl shows, music can significantly contribute to a game’s general appeal.

Metal: Hellsinger x System of a Down x Trivium x Lamb of God (and many more!)

What happens if you combine Guitar Hero with a first-person shooter like DOOM and ask world-famous metal vocalists to sing over the top of the soundtrack?

Metal: Hellsinger is the answer — a rhythm-based, first-person-shooter set in Hell where your trigger finger clicks away at the same tempo of the music that’s playing as you blast away enemy demons.

It’s undoubtedly one of the most metal video games ever created. Of course, that means it won’t appeal to everyone. Still, the game’s development studio, The Outsiders, has achieved a phenomenal licensing feat by getting so many prominent metal vocalists on board to lend their talents to the game’s soundtrack.

Every track in the game (written by composition duo Two Feathers) has been created for a specific metal icon and a unique level. The full roster includes the following:

While there’s undoubtedly some crossover between the listeners of these bands, that’s a lot of potential players that the game is reaching through the inclusion of these artists alone, especially as they all promoted the game on their respective social media channels.

The bands featured in this game got to benefit from Metal: Hellsinger being a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass, which means anyone with a monthly Game Pass subscription (think Netflix for games) can download the game for free. In a press release issued at the beginning of December, The Outsiders announced that the game had reached one million downloads.

Since the days of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and the initial GTA games, video games have been an essential platform for music discovery. That’s why companies like EA and Activision invest so much in licensing the biggest artists for their soundtracks.

We’re sure the release of Metal: Hellsinger has managed to convert some curious players that downloaded the game because it was on Game Pass into metal music. And just like the millions of players that headed out to buy albums, band merchandise, or tickets decades after discovering music through Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the benefits to the bands featured in this game’s soundtrack will be long-lasting.

Sky: Children of the Light x Aurora

Sky: Children of the Light is an open-world social indie game developed by Thatgamecompany, the same studio responsible for Journey and Flower — video games that focus on forming connections with other players. While the game might not have the same visual polish as Fortnite, the game’s latest collaboration with Norwegian pop star Aurora has resulted in the most impressive virtual concert experience in a video game to date.

The game was initially launched as a mobile-only title in 2019 on iOS, but was later released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021, and most recently on PlayStation to coincide with the release of its new Aurora season. In case you’re wondering, seasons are the recent seasonal events that occur in the game, and last between nine and eleven weeks each. New seasons involve new gameplay content, expressions, cosmetic items, stances, and “spirits” that players need to collect to progress in the game.

As you might have guessed, the Aurora season is themed entirely around Aurora. While most in-game concerts typically only last for 10 minutes or so due to the complexities of music licensing, the Aurora concert was a 45-minute experience with simultaneous support for up to a maximum of 4,000 players.

Yes, you experience this event alongside 4,000 players simultaneously — a number that, until now, was unheard of for virtual concerts, given most experiences cap at 100 players due to server restraints.

Like Journey, Sky: Children of the Light is a game that’s hard to describe. What you take away from the game is an experience quite unlike anything you’ve experienced before. The gameplay mechanics are straightforward and focus on players interacting and socializing with other players so they can extend their wings to reach new locations in the environment. It’s a game that very much falls into the “cozy” category of game genres and is a must-try for anyone that enjoyed their time with Animal Crossing.

The concert experience takes players underground across deep labyrinths and an underwater metropolis as fish and jellyfish before they soar into the air as birds, flying across mountainous areas all themed around concepts of Aurora’s music. The concert includes eight Aurora tracks, and players arrive in the main concert hall where they can interact with each other and a virtual version of Aurora in-between songs.

As a free-to-play game, monetizing the concert involved the following seasonal cosmetic items available through the in-game shop.

“In a real-life concert, you feel the collective energy of thousands of beautiful souls around you. You connect with the artist and their message on a personal level,” Thatgamecompany’s CEO Jenova Chen announced during a trailer for the concert at The Game Awards.

After 18 months of experimenting with the concert format, he’s confident he’s achieved that for the first time in a video game. And after experiencing the concert, we’re optimistic he has too.

The concert experience takes place every four hours and runs until January 2, 2-23. Make sure you don’t miss it! You can watch the full Aurora concert here if you don’t have access to a PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, or iOS device.

Even more highlights

Of course, these are just a small handful of music and gaming collaborations that moved us through 2022.

Here are our favorite notable mentions, in brief, below.

That’s it for The Score! We hope you’ve found this newsletter series useful. Remember, you can keep track of the latest gaming and music news over in the dedicated forum in our Discord server. Don’t forget to share your favorite gaming soundtrack while you’re in there!