The Score is a collaborative editorial vertical exploring the intersection of music and video games.

In our Season 2 research on music and the metaverse, we identified gaming as one of the hottest entry points for today’s artists to create and monetize visually immersive, interactive experiences around their music. Yet, the gaming industry also remains as misunderstood as it is overhyped, and carries a much richer diversity in experiences, perspectives, and formats than might make it into the mainstream media.

This column seeks to break down these gaps in understanding for a music-industry audience — highlighting of-the-moment opportunities for artists and their teams to collaborate with gaming companies of all shapes and sizes, across mobile, PC, and console games. Every two weeks, Water & Music member Mat Ombler will break 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!

What are the licensing opportunities for independent artists in video games?

Tl;dr —

• According to a recent Guardian article, 25–30% of people now encounter new music from games. This is in part due to a significant rise in music and gaming collaborations — fueled by the music industry growing its presence in games and metaverse platforms, the adoption of virtual concerts by mobile games, growing popularity of rhythm games, more sync opportunities for artists as a result of bigger video game soundtracks, and major gaming companies using music stars as influencers and brand ambassadors.
• Despite this growth, barriers to entry for most gaming opportunities remain high, and many independent artists are struggling to find a presence in video games and metaverse platforms.
• This has facilitated a need for new and existing companies to bridge knowledge gaps between music and gaming to improve the ways these two industries work together, which is leading to more opportunities for independent artists. Independent record labels such as Monstercat and Merlin are forming partnerships with game studios and streaming platforms; music consultancy groups are expanding their work beyond film and TV to help game studios build bigger and more diverse soundtracks; and music metaverse startups are being founded with the aim of making virtual concerts more accessible.
• As our Season 2 research on music and the metaverse identified knowledge gaps in gaming, we wanted to explore the ways that music is currently used in video games, and highlight the key areas that smaller and independent artists need to be aware of if they want to pursue opportunities in gaming.

If you’ve ever discovered a track from a video game, here’s something you can try right now: Type it into YouTube. Not only is it likely to have millions of views, but we’re willing to assume that many of the top-rated comments are from gamers talking about the impact it has on them from hearing it in the game.

Video games have shaped the music tastes of millions of players across the globe. Ask anyone who’s discovered new music through Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Grand Theft Auto, Wipeout, or FIFA. Before the days of Spotify, YouTube, and even Limewire, video games with licensed soundtracks essentially served a secondary purpose as music discovery platforms for record labels — providing instant, recurring access to millions of engaged players.

To this day, as players create new characters, wait for matches, and chat in lobbies, video game soundtracks inevitably permeate players’ lives and open doors for featured artists. According to a recent Guardian article, 25-30% of people now encounter new music from games.

This is influenced by the rise in several different forms of music/gaming collaborations — from in-game concerts and music events blasted out to the tens of million daily active users for gaming platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite, PUBG Mobile, and Garena Free Fire, to mobile games like Beatstar paying out millions every year to rights holders, the licensed soundtracks for popular gaming franchises including FIFA, Saints Row, Need For Speed and Forza growing bigger every year. EA’s FIFA franchise is the most prominent example of the latter, with the latest soundtrack for FIFA 23 featuring over 100 artists from 34 countries.

Yet if you’re an independent artist looking to place your music in a video game, it’s worth pausing to ask, “How accessible are these avenues for me?” Unless you’ve got the money to hire a large team of developers and creatives, music events and gaming concerts such as those in Roblox and Fortnite seem limited to big names only.

The few exceptions in the music industry are able to own the whole stack from music/asset creation to distribution and monetization within games. For instance, independent electronic label Monstercat pushed its artists into Roblox through its Lost Civilization world, a branded experience where players can dance to their favorite Monstercat tracks and interact with artists on their roster. It’s had 8.7 million visits since launching in September 2021. Monstercat’s artists also benefit from the label’s longstanding relationships with video games such as Rocket League and Beat Saber, where Monstercat music is showcased to millions of players and sometimes released exclusively. Both games have a strong following on Twitch (3.8 million followers for Rocket League and 681,000 for Beat Saber) and a passionate community of content creators. Most of the music in Rocket League is safe to stream, but Monstercat’s music licensing subscription, Monstercat Gold, allows content creators to access thousands of Monstercat songs and use them in videos without fear of DMCA takedowns.

Elsewhere, there are opportunities in more DIY platforms like Minecraft — if you can afford the server space. During the peak of the pandemic and following the cancellation of SXSW in 2020, Courier Club convinced 30 bands from the canceled line-up to play a virtual festival inside Minecraft. Bands were asked to pre-record their sets or submit live audio of previous performances. With the technical and financial support of web infrastructure companies, Courier Club created three Minecraft servers (represented as stages) which became Block by Blockwest Festival, viewed by 134,000 people.

All of that said, traditional sync placements are still the most accessible route into video games for most artists. Finding a way in can be tough for independent artists, but is certainly not impossible. In this piece, we’ll walk through the most straightforward paths into video games for artists — shedding light on the organizational structures and workflows driving today’s music placements in video games, so that artists across all career stages know what to expect from the process.

Music is licensed into video games for various purposes — whether it’s heightening the emotion of a specific scene, establishing a brand identity or acting as background music in games that aren’t as heavily driven by narrative.

Here are some of the most common uses:

Background music

Sports and racing games typically have heavily licensed soundtracks. FIFA, Madden, Need for Speed, Gran Turismo, Forza, Burnout, and Rocket League are just some of the major video game franchises licensing music to fill space while selecting teams, customizing cars, or racing.

In-game radio stations

Open-world games bound to cityscapes tend to license music heavily to accommodate a gameplay experience that is persistently exploratory in nature. Games such as Grand Theft Auto, Watchdog, and Saints Row, where players explore and drive various vehicles, often have in-game radio stations.

We’re starting to see in-game radio stations branch out into less traditional genres, too. The radio stations in Bethesda’s games feature licensed music from mid-century jazz and blues artists to support the game’s post-war settings, while the radio station in Final Fantasy XV is a first for the traditionally fantasy RPG, featuring new music from Afrojack and Florence and The Machine commissioned just for the game.

Storytelling and atmosphere

It’s also common for video games to use licensed music to support specific narrative moments. There’s a pivotal moment in Gears of War 2 on the Xbox 360 where “Mad World” by Michael Andrews plays. The soundtrack for Death Stranding features Bring Me The Horizon, Low Roar, and Chvrches — all handpicked by the game’s creator, Hideo Kojima, to write original music for the game. Life is Strange is one of the best examples of a game with a carefully licensed soundtrack, featuring plenty of tearjerker moments thanks to music from independent artists, including Message to Bears and Mogwai, integrated into the game.

Live-service games

Live-service games are regularly updated with new content and have no set end game or forthcoming sequel. The format allows developers to provide new content post-launch, which sometimes includes music. Rocket League is an excellent example of a popular video game releasing new music through content updates, most of which is from Monstercat artists thanks to a longstanding relationship with the record label. This music is hard to miss for Rocket League’s 87 million active monthly players, as it plays over the main menu while you’re searching for matches and customizing your vehicle.

Custom music kits (replacing existing music)

Some games offer music to players through music kits, which players can use to replace existing music cues or integrate with player emotes. The first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) allows players to purchase music kits to cue for specific multiplayer moments like starting a new round, choosing a team, or winning a game. Similarly, Fortnite players can bust out dance moves for their avatars by purchasing player emotes based on trending music, and FIFA’s Goal Song mode introduced in 2021 lets players choose which licensed track plays when goals are scored.

Marketing collateral

To grab the attention of players and drive up excitement for a game’s launch, game studios use licensed music in marketing collateral such as launch trailers and gameplay videos. This music often matches or is remixed to match the game’s themes. The launch trailer for the action game Just Cause 3 is one such example, featuring Torre Florim’s cover of The Prodigy’s “Firestarter.”

“All of the songs in that campaign are based around fire and explosions and we found this song from a pretty obscure compilation of covers from a Dutch label,” Ben Sumner, founder of music consultancy Feel For Music, which worked on the above trailer, tells us. “We were told the track went from modest sales to selling ten times as much following the placement.” As the most-liked comment on the music video highlights: “I wouldn’t have known about this amazing song if it wasn’t for Just Cause 3. So glad I came across an amazing artist!”

Unless you’re a major artist, don’t expect to get rich off the back of sync placement in a video game. Most deals settle on a buyout basis, and the two independent bands we spoke with who successfully secured placements in AAA games netted between the bottom and middle range of four figures.

Of course, money aside, placing music in a video game is an easy way to introduce it to millions of potential new fans, hopefully contributing to future sales of records, merch, and concert tickets. Goldfinger’s “Superman,” featured in the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, is now widely regarded as a theme for skateboarding. As the band’s vocalist John Feldmann told Kerrang in 2022: “It’s the biggest song we’ve written, but I didn’t have any idea what that song would become. It was never a radio single; its popularity is testament to how powerful and how important [Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater] was for the culture of our scene.”

It’s not unusual for artists to experience an uptick in their Spotify plays and listeners following placement in a video game. Sumner says that one track he placed for a major dance artist in a AAA game resulted in a 40% increase in plays across the artist’s entire Spotify catalog in the period following the game’s release. Similar spikes in consumption have been documented around in-game activations for the likes of Marshmello, Travis Scott, and Blackpink. “Looking at the numbers, most big video games outperform big TV shows and films in terms of numbers and engagement,” says Sumner.

As for gaming and metaverse platforms, there are plenty of stories about increased streams, revenue and social media engagement off the back of virtual concert appearances in Fortnite and Roblox. But we wanted to highlight a lesser-known metaverse platform, Avakin Life, to showcase that it’s not only Roblox and Fortnite where artists are finding success. Here are some figures from its collaboration with the pop-leaning avatar artist Polar:

• Polar successfully launched her first track “Close To You” in September 2021, during an exclusive watch party in Avakin Life, which 660,000 players experienced.
• In her second Avakin Life viewing party in May 2022 for the launch of Hack My Heart, Polar enjoyed an audience of more than 754,000 players and the viewing party gained over one million visits.
• Polar headlined Avakin Life’s Solar Sounds Festival in July 2022, where she received over 2.2 million visits from players, with more than 100 thousand combined hours viewing hours.

Of course, just because a video game has tens of millions of players, we can’t assume that all those tens of millions of players will reach a point in the game’s narrative where licensed music is used in the same emotionally charged way as, say, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” in Stranger Things. Moments like these in video games are fewer and far between compared to film and TV.  “A tune in FIFA can have a huge amount of success, but that’s often because of pure repetition,” Sumner continues. “Everything that’s embedded in the narrative is different because people have to play long enough to reach that point.”

While larger game publishers such as PlayStation, EA, and Activision have fully realized music teams of A&R reps, licensing experts, music supervisors, composers, and audio directors in-house, many studios rely on external support from external experts to bridge the gaps between gaming and music. It’s common for large studios to reach out to licensing experts, too, especially if they’ve established contacts to help secure rights for high-profile names.

As an artist, while you do not have to be signed to a major label to get your music into a video game, nor do you need management representation, having a team around you is certainly helpful. A manager can actively pursue opportunities in video games on your behalf and may have the contacts to make things easier. Similarly, a label might position your music well if approached by a game publisher to broker a deal or provide added visibility if the game’s music supervisor includes other artists from the label. There are also agents that specialize specifically in sync placements. “A lot of people don’t even know that sync agents exist, but they will take on artists with the sole purpose of getting their music used in media,” Sumner says. “They take a large cut, but a small slice of something is better than a big slice of nothing.”

In some cases, independent artists have a distinct advantage if they can help minimize any uncertainties around ownership, as it will help make the clearance process much smoother. Two independent artists that had their music featured in recent AAA games told us their opportunities arose after music supervisors discovered their work (external and internal) through Bandcamp.

“From our perspective, companies are always looking for the next new thing,” Sumner explains. “Sure, for trailers and ads they want someone most people have heard of, but there’s a lot of kudos that comes with finding or working with an artist that’s just about to break. That’s probably more of a common brief for us – ‘who can you find that’s the next big thing?’”

Networking is incredibly important too, and independent artists would do well to attend gaming conferences to learn more about the game industry and meet developers. There is a thriving independent and mobile market within the video game industry, and development studios for mobile and independent titles are often small and don’t have contacts in the music industry. There is an opportunity here, then, for independent artists to not just license their music into games, but to write original music too — although this sometimes requires composers to be fluent with middleware software such as Wwise to create adaptive music.

If you’re planning on pitching your music for a game sync, here are the key factors to keep in mind:

• Know where your music fits. Music directors, A&Rs, and music supervisors work to place artists according to a brief, usually governed by the style and characteristics of the game world. If you want your music in a game that’s part of an established franchise — say, FIFA, GTA, or Need For Speed — ask yourself if your music would sound familiar to the player base.

• Know whom you’re targeting — and personalize your pitch accordingly. LinkedIn can be your best friend here, as you can quickly look up credits for previous games in existing franchises to determine who might be the best point of contact. You can also look at credits for video game trailers to find out which music consultancy companies were involved. When you reach out to a given contact, explain why you think your music is worth listening to and why it would be a good fit for future music projects they might be working on to show you’ve done your research and understand not only the game you’re referencing, but the person you’re reaching out to for help.

• Get specific about the elements of the track. Specifically, if you have the stems, mention that in the email. Often, music selected for a video game trailer is remixed to fit the action on the screen. Further, signaling that stems are available can open up opportunities for editing and customization for different in-game experiences. Alternatively, you can always go one better if you want to really impress who you’re contacting.

• Make your music visible. This also qualifies as general career advice regardless of the promotional opportunity you’re targeting: Publish on as many platforms as possible to improve visibility and increase the chances of discovery. As well as having your music visible, have your contact information visible too. “I’m constantly amazed by how many artists don’t have contact information on their pages,” Sumner says.

Asterisk: The rights conundrum with music/gaming livestreams

While there are many benefits to getting your music in a video game, the popularity of video games on live streaming platforms such as Twitch and YouTube presents new challenges from a licensing perspective, across the entire industry (indie and major).

Video game studios have had to respond to deluges of takedowns from music rights holders by implementing a “stream mode” for licensed music, which allows streamers to mute all licensed music in the game when they’re broadcasting to avoid DMCA takedowns. This can result in some pretty awkward moments for games that heavily rely on licensed music in key narrative moments — something which Sumner knows all too well after a game he worked on music supervision for, Life is Strange: True Colors, was affected. “The streamer modes are ridiculous. It’s like saying, let’s have a stream mode where you can’t see any of the graphics,” says Sumner. “You’re taking out such a huge element of the game, just so it can be shared online?

Of course, music rights are incredibly complicated. An unwillingness from major game studios to engage with PROs and rights holders means that large parts of the gaming industry are still playing catch-up with music licensing laws. Sony PlayStation Europe is the only gaming platform holder registered with a PRO — and that’s only in Europe through PRS, which means it’s very rare that artists and composers globally are paid performance royalties. (GameSoundCon explores the question of whether video game composers can get royalties from their music placements in this detailed breakdown here.)

On a larger, more positive note, though, as gaming companies strive to build themselves into larger pop-culture brands, they are putting more of a premium on the role of music as a unique value add to players. They’re also more willing to experiment with different kinds of music integrations beyond just your traditional soundtrack, in a way that could potentially benefit a wider range of artists. In turn, the rapid growth of the video game industry is making the music industry pay attention to gaming a lot more, and invest in teams and partnerships that can make these cutting-edge kinds of integrations happen. All in all, the more video games that hit store shelves and online stores, the more opportunities for artists as a result.

As a reminder, we’ve set up a dedicated forum channel for The Score in our Discord server, where members can discuss and share music and gaming resources in between issues. Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed so far — we’ve been super impressed by our community’s enthusiasm and range of knowledge on this topic!

We encourage you to pop into the forum, say hi, and even make a new post of your own. As a reminder, you can suggest topics for future issues directly in the forum by clicking here. If it gets enough upvotes and our editors find it compelling, we’ll feature it as the main topic in an upcoming issue and credit you for seeding the idea.

Here’s our round-up of the latest music & gaming stories being discussed in the Score.

• Amazon Music has announced One Take, a three-part TV show pitting professional Fortnite players against influencers and musicians such as Deno and Lady Leeshurr. The show can be watched on Amazon’s Twitch channel here. Matches take place in user-generated Fortnite maps and are designed with music elements such as challenges and escape rooms that reflect hip-hop, grime, and drill. While the event is not sponsored, endorsed or administered by Fortnite creator Epic Games, it showcases the game’s deep links with music and how easily music can be integrated into user-generated content.
• Nintendo live-streamed two concerts for Animal Crossing and Splatoon 3 as part of Nintendo Live 2022, a physical event that took place in Tokyo this weekend (October 8–9). DJ K.K. took to the decks and was joined on stage by various Animal Crossing characters, while a live band performed various tunes from Splatoon 3 under the guise of the in-game band, Deep Cut. You can watch both performances here. In recent years, Nintendo has been making more of an effort to push its music through live performances, although these only occur in Japan. Unlike other video game companies such as Square Enix, Microsoft, Capcom, Sony PlayStation, and Konami, Nintendo doesn’t make its soundtracks available through DSPs.
• Celestial, the song that Ed Sheeran has written in collaboration with The Pokemon Company, will also feature in the upcoming Pokemon games, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. It’s unclear how and where the track will appear, but the last mainline Pokemon games, Sword and Shield, sold more than 24 million copies worldwide (as of March 2022).
• Could we see Fortnite-style music collaborations in Activision’s latest title, Overwatch 2? The VP of Overwatch says he’s interested in exploring similar brand collaborations in their free-to-play title in an interview with GameInformer.
• Krafton, the company behind PUBG: Mobile, now has its own virtual artist, ANA. Whether Krafton can replicate the success of Riot Games’ virtual artists like K/DA remains to be seen. You can check out ANA’s music video for Shine Bright here.
• IDOL has announced the signing of Bandai Namco Game Music to handle digital distribution of its game soundtracks, starting with Elden Ring. (Speaking of Elden Ring, the game’s soundtrack — for the most part, an incredibly dissonant and terrifying grandiose orchestral score — is being performed in an avant-garde concert by jazz legend, Kenny Garret, through a collaboration with Bandai Namco. The concert takes place at Hollywood’s Bourbon Room on 3rd December.)
• Doja Cat’s collaboration with the video game House Party is getting review-bombed because of a “lack of nudity.”
• South African rapper Nasty C is now an official Call of Duty: Mobile brand ambassador. His collaboration will see him “host livestreams and in-person events to promote Call of Duty: Mobile to South African gamers.”
• The top-down, stealth action game, Serial Cleaners, was released on PlayStation at the end of September and features a soundtrack scored by producer and former touring member of Nine Inch Nails, Joshua Eustis.