Letter from the Editor

By Savina Ciaramella Executive Director Game Audio Network Guild

Greetings!

I hope you’re doing well. We dedicate this issue of The Audio Source Magazine to all the hard-working women in game audio. As we celebrate these extraordinary women, we still have a long way to go for equality and diversity in the video game industry. It’s up to each one of us to advocate for and engage more women.

Our cover story features Leslie Ann Jones, a trailblazer in the music industry and an inspiration to all aspiring women engineers globally. Leslie has broken down many barriers and garnered several GRAMMYs and other accolades throughout her career. We’re very proud to have her as a member of the G.A.N.G. Board of Directors and this years’ G.A.N.G. Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient.

This week has been epic with the return of GameSoundCon in person and online. The hybrid event was attended by over 850 game audio professionals from several countries around the world. The presentations were very informative, and the sponsors showcased their innovative products and services. The return of the Demo Derby was a big hit, and it was wonderful to catch up with old friends while making new ones at the mixer.

I’m pleased to announce that Nick Hart joined our team as the Communications Manager helping us facilitate the day-today operations. Lucas Fehring, our Events Producer, has been moderating monthly webinars. A recent presentation was The Music and Sound Design Behind Arcane League of Legends. Please feel free to reach out to the Communications Team if you have any questions or comments at communications@audiogang.org.

As things start to get back to normal, there are reminders that some things are forever changed. Some of us have settled into the “new norm” while others struggle. Let’s continue to be helpful and a source of stability for our family, friends and colleagues that need us.

Best wishes!

- Savina Ciaramella

The Long Road to the GRAMMYs for Game Music

By Brian Schmidt, President of Game Audio Network Guild

If you haven’t heard (and if you are in game music and sound, it’s hard to imagine you haven’t!), there is a new GRAMMY category this year, Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media. Yes, we finally have our own GRAMMY category. At the GRAMMYs on February 5, 2023, one or more composers will take home the first ever GRAMMY specifically for video game music.

G.A.N.G. served an important role this year as a service to the game audio community by acting as a vehicle for composers to submit their video game score soundtracks for the new category. For a number of reasons, most composers of video game scores weren’t able to submit their game soundtracks themselves for GRAMMY consideration this year. G.A.N.G. worked closely with the Recording Academy and was able to step in to help overcome this obstacle during this summer’s GRAMMY nomination season, and was authorized by the Recording Academy to create submissions on behalf of others. In keeping with the core pillars of our organization, we provided this service to the entire game audio industry, regardless of whether they were a member of G.A.N.G. and charged no fee.

Since many of us in games weren’t familiar with the process of submitting to the GRAMMYs, we worked with the Recording Academy to help publicize the new category and educate composers and game companies about the rules, guidelines and processes to ensure that their video game score soundtracks were properly submitted and eligible. G.A.N.G. ultimately directly submitted almost two dozen game soundtracks to the Recording Academy on behalf of composers and game companies.

The road to a game music GRAMMY has been a long time coming! Rewind to 1998. That’s the year composer (and previous G.A.N.G. Board Member) Chance Thomas first approached the Recording Academy about creating a GRAMMY category for video game music. Chance had put together a group of 10 composers who worked on video games to help drive home the point that “game music wasn’t bleeps and bloops” and was worthy of its own category. At the time, game scores weren’t eligible to be submitted for GRAMMY consideration in any category. The closest category was “Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or Television,” but that—as the name implied— didn’t include games. The group spent the afternoon with representatives from the Recording Academy to help them better understand the game music landscape.

Who was the key representative from the Recording Academy at that meeting to press the case for a game music GRAMMY category? None other than G.A.N.G. Board Member and 2022 Recipient of the G.A.N.G. Lifetime Achievement Award, Leslie Ann Jones!

Several months later, the group’s impact on the GRAMMYs would start to appear. Although game music would still not have its own category, video game soundtracks were deemed to be eligible under the revised category “Best Instrumental Composition for a Motion Picture or Other Visual Media.” With the addition of “..or Other Visual Media,” game soundtracks became eligible for the coveted GRAMMY award, although as part of the category that included Film and TV soundtracks.

For several years, every GRAMMY nominee in that category, however, remained a Film score, including such iconic scores as The Lord of the Rings, Up, Toy Story 3 and Ray. Even without a nomination in the Visual Media category, game music was starting to make an impact. In 2011, composer Christopher Tin’s theme song for Civilization IV, “Baba Yetu,” received a GRAMMY in 2011 in the category “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists,” which appeared on his 2009 album, Calling All Dawns. Although not specifically entered as a piece of video game music, it nonetheless was the first time that a composition written originally for a video game took home a GRAMMY.

In 2012, history was made again as Austin Wintory’s haunting soundtrack for the game, Journey, was nominated in the (yet again re-named) category of “Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.” Although Austin’s score ultimately lost the GRAMMY to Trent Reznor’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie soundtrack, it was nonetheless a breakthrough for the game industry to have a full game score soundtrack receive a GRAMMY nomination.

And in 2022, The 8-Bit Big Band’s arrangement of “Meta Knights Revenge” from Kirby Super Star took home the GRAMMY award for “Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella.” So video game music has definitely been making its influence known in the GRAMMYs over the years.

But 2023 will be genuinely historic, with the presentation of an award created specifically to recognize video game scores, celebrating the composers, producers and others involved in the creation of music for video games and other interactive media.

Cheers to the Game Audio Community, and we look forward to continued recognition and success at the GRAMMYs!

January 9th, 2023 Start