Video game music
soundtrack or background music accompanying video games
Video game music (VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to the style of music known as chiptune, which became the sound of the early video games.
With technological advances, video game music has grown to include a wider range of sounds. Players can hear music in video games over a game's title screen, menus, and gameplay. Game soundtracks can also change depending on a player's actions or situation, such as indicating missed actions in rhythm games, informing the player they are in a dangerous situation, or rewarding them for specific achievements.
Video game music can be one of two kinds: original or licensed.
The popularity of video game music has created education and job opportunities, generated awards, and led video game soundtracks to be commercially sold and performed in concerts.
History
Early video game technology and computer chip music
At the time video games had emerged as a popular form of entertainment in the late 1970s, music was stored on physical media in analog waveforms such as cassette tapes and phonograph records. Such components were expensive and prone to breakage under heavy use, making them less than ideal for use in an arcade cabinet, though in rare cases such as Journey, they were used.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Video game music” as soundtrack or background music accompanying video games. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1062702. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Video game music” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.