The video game industry represents a large and growing market for music composers and creators. Analysts have pegged its worldwide size at above $1.3 billion annually with a compound annual growth rate above 7 percent.
Chase Bethea is a Los Angeles-based audio professional who creates music for this market. As his LinkedIn profile notes, “Audio and games are my biggest passion and I like to exhibit the eclectic, abstract, and addictive creations that are in my mind… I am dedicated to contributing my skill and talent to the next great generation for video games.”
Because I am generally intrigued by the creative process and am fascinated by the philosophy and mechanics of effective sonic branding, I was eager to interview Chase. We cover many topics in our talk, including:
- The importance of creating a sonic identity that resonates with a brand’s ethos and can be used across various marketing materials.
- The degree to which game development projects have pre-existing guidance or direction for music composition.
- The importance of evoking emotions in audio composition for commercials and video games.
- The need for composers to be mindful of their emotional state while composing, as it can affect the quality and duration of their creative output.
- How Chase’s approach to writing music for video games uses a “sonic palette” that evokes the specific console systems of the past.
- Examples of effective sonic branding, including Nissan and McDonald’s recent branding efforts, using a consistent tone and melody across the brands’ marketing campaigns.
- The lingering effects of a video game on the player’s subconscious, including residual melodies and textures.
- How AI-enabled music tools are likely to affect the music compositional process now and in the future.
