When you discover artists or songs in video games Why do some people make an issue of it?

[Rossriders]

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but I could not find said thread, so if so, point it out to me please.

TD;DR version - While it's a few months old (of an issue if not longer), it's bound to happen again so I'll just ask it.

Why do some people make it an issue that one must have to find out about a song or an artist/group before discovering it in a video game? What drives a person to criticize others who do discover something in a game or what's the reason? How does one rationalize that?


I have my own answers/theories but I'm curious to as to what other opinions are.


Long version:
This has been something I've noticed for quite a while, but it became very obvious sometime before, during and after the release of Call of duty Black ops, most noticeably during some comments on Youtube concerning songs including but not limited to "Fornatue son" by CCR, "Sympathy For the devil" by Rolling Stones and so forth. To lesser degree other games such as Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2010 with such comments that at times got highest rated including 'Thumbs up if you heard X band before Z game'.

To me it gives the impression that apparently, if you discovered or came across a band or a song in a game, it apparently speaks something negative about you. As if you 'should have' found out about it beforehand. If you found it in a game, you therefore must be 'looked down on' because you apparently could not find it beforehand, you needed a game to find it for you.

It has been something that has been on my mind for a long time, the 1st time I could recall it was oddly enough when listening to a Pitchshifter song on Youtube and someone had an opinion that amounted to 'you're not a real pitchshifter fan if you discovered this in Test drive 5'.

To say you HAD to buy the album or otherwise heard it elsewhere by some other means first before playing the game (never mind how unless one was looking for it, one could have easily missed www.pitchshifter.com or their works at around or before the release of test drive 5).

As someone who looks for music from time to time, my simple reality is that for the long list of artists be it 'licensed' or whom have made their name and them some on video games (from Ayako Saso to Saki Kaskas, from Frank Klepacki to Norihiko Hibino, Romolo Di Prisco to Yu Miyake) or anything outside of that, there's still a very long list of music artists and groups I still have yet to listen to.

I will come across music I've never heard about by a game one way or another, and I'm certain the same is for many others.

And I would think on some end it would be nice, especially for some artists who aren't as exposed in given areas to get some exposure for their music. It's an opportunity for one to at the least try something else and broaden their horizons that much more (the only drawback to having a vast number of favorites is that the number can get very, very high if one lets it be).

So I'm asking everyone here, to those who've seen what I'm talking about, to those who have no idea what I'm talking about, to those who've written comments along the lines of what I'm pointing out, whaetver...

What's your take on all this?

I have my own potential answers on this, but I'm wondering what anyone else who cares enough to read and post, to their own opinions.

By the way, if we did go by the 'You can't qualify if you've come across it in a game', well here's a list of artists I should never be allowed to be fan of... EVER including but not limited to...

Apollo 440
Junkie XL
Pitchshifter
KMFDM
Fear Factory
Gravity Kills
Rush
Death From Above 1979
The Bodyrockers
The Chemical Brothers
The manic street preachers
Garbage
Ash
Pnau
Breakbot
Omni Trio
Shinichi Osawa
South Rakkas Crew
Boy 8 Bit
Busy P
The Qemists
Dom and Roland
Calyx and Teebee
Amon Tobin
Jespyer Kyd
Boom Boom Satlites
Django Reinhart
Judais Priest
Da Shootaz
Aquasky
Rascal and Klone
Moloko
Ron Trent
Pjanoo
...and many (many) more.

Until later

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Well, look at hipsters for one thing.
It's cooler to know something before someone else did.

As well as this: After knowing about something for ages, its really annoying to suddenly have the comments box filled with a bunch of people talking about how cool Call of Duty is.

 

[Inner Pickle]

There will always be music snobs. I lived with a musicians for a while and they would be the most pretentious twats about music, deeming me 'uneducated' for not knowing or indeed liking Frank Zappa or not knowing what Beatles song was playing or whatever. Its nothing new, its just people liking to boast about how awesome they are because they knew something before you did or before it became popular. That's pretty much the long and the short of it.

 

[bassdrum]

Well, look at hipsters for one thing.
It's cooler to know something before someone else did.

As well as this: After knowing about something for ages, its really annoying to suddenly have the comments box filled with a bunch of people talking about how cool Call of Duty is.

/thread

Really, it's just people trying to show off that they knew something good before you did. It's annoying and childish, in my opinion. Then again, it's also annoying to see a discussion about a song/artist/album get thrown off by a bunch of idiots who just want to talk about how awesome a game is. Sure, they might not be wrong, but it's kind of obnoxious to hijack a conversation like that.

 

[Rochnan]

Well, you can't know everything from the start, and to me, it feels the same as discovering something on the radio, or through a friend.
So thumbs up if you knew the Rolling stones before you had a radio (or friends)!

In an interesting turn of things, it was only when I listened to the Rolling Stones that I learned about the inclusion of 'Sympathy for the Devil' in Call of Duty. And then I went to find out where it was used, which got me interested in Call of Duty.
Thumbs up if you played Call of Duty before you heard the Rolling Stones?

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Hell, if we're not allowed to like any music from video games, scrap pretty much anything popular from the last 50 years, have you SEEN how much DLC stuff like Rock Band has?

Sadly, music snobs and there's a lot of them, I imagine there's Bieber fans who look down on gaming, see video games as 'below' music, and their beloved 'artists' shouldn't be devaluing their sacred tunes by allowing us to blow stuff up while we listen to it. Music can only be enjoyed in an empty dark room, allowing only your ears to function, to fully understand feel it.

BALLS.

I remember seeing a bunch of Youtube comments under a Phil Hartnoll video, pretty much abusing anyone who'd come to 'For Silence' from the Chime game, a charity game on steam that does nothing but celebrate electronic music.

Still, TV portrays gamers as serial killers or shut in cheeto stained basement dwelling fatties, movies have us locked down as nerds and losers, playing Street Fighter 2 with a one button Atari joystick, or desperately waggling a joystick to get thru Final Fantasy 10, why should music be different to them?

I think all other art forms are just pissed because we're more popular, more interesting and we make more money than all of them. (utterly unresearched rhetoric backed up with zero facts, I learned that from the news.)

 

[funguy2121]

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but I could not find said thread, so if so, point it out to me please.

TD;DR version - While it's a few months old (of an issue if not longer), it's bound to happen again so I'll just ask it.

Why do some people make it an issue that one must have to find out about a song or an artist/group before discovering it in a video game? What drives a person to criticize others who do discover something in a game or what's the reason? How does one rationalize that?


I have my own answers/theories but I'm curious to as to what other opinions are.


Long version:
This has been something I've noticed for quite a while, but it became very obvious sometime before, during and after the release of Call of duty Black ops, most noticeably during some comments on Youtube concerning songs including but not limited to "Fornatue son" by CCR, "Sympathy For the devil" by Rolling Stones and so forth. To lesser degree other games such as Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2010 with such comments that at times got highest rated including 'Thumbs up if you heard X band before Z game'.

To me it gives the impression that apparently, if you discovered or came across a band or a song in a game, it apparently speaks something negative about you. As if you 'should have' found out about it beforehand. If you found it in a game, you therefore must be 'looked down on' because you apparently could not find it beforehand, you needed a game to find it for you.

It has been something that has been on my mind for a long time, the 1st time I could recall it was oddly enough when listening to a Pitchshifter song on Youtube and someone had an opinion that amounted to 'you're not a real pitchshifter fan if you discovered this in Test drive 5'.

To say you HAD to buy the album or otherwise heard it elsewhere by some other means first before playing the game (never mind how unless one was looking for it, one could have easily missed www.pitchshifter.com or their works at around or before the release of test drive 5).

As someone who looks for music from time to time, my simple reality is that for the long list of artists be it 'licensed' or whom have made their name and them some on video games (from Ayako Saso to Saki Kaskas, from Frank Klepacki to Norihiko Hibino, Romolo Di Prisco to Yu Miyake) or anything outside of that, there's still a very long list of music artists and groups I still have yet to listen to.

I will come across music I've never heard about by a game one way or another, and I'm certain the same is for many others.

And I would think on some end it would be nice, especially for some artists who aren't as exposed in given areas to get some exposure for their music. It's an opportunity for one to at the least try something else and broaden their horizons that much more (the only drawback to having a vast number of favorites is that the number can get very, very high if one lets it be).

So I'm asking everyone here, to those who've seen what I'm talking about, to those who have no idea what I'm talking about, to those who've written comments along the lines of what I'm pointing out, whaetver...

What's your take on all this?

I have my own potential answers on this, but I'm wondering what anyone else who cares enough to read and post, to their own opinions.

By the way, if we did go by the 'You can't qualify if you've come across it in a game', well here's a list of artists I should never be allowed to be fan of... EVER including but not limited to...

Apollo 440
Junkie XL
Pitchshifter
KMFDM
Fear Factory
Gravity Kills
Rush
Death From Above 1979
The Bodyrockers
The Chemical Brothers
The manic street preachers
Garbage
Ash
Pnau
Breakbot
Omni Trio
Shinichi Osawa
South Rakkas Crew
Boy 8 Bit
Busy P
The Qemists
Dom and Roland
Calyx and Teebee
Amon Tobin
Jespyer Kyd
Boom Boom Satlites
Django Reinhart
Judais Priest
Da Shootaz
Aquasky
Rascal and Klone
Moloko
Ron Trent
Pjanoo
...and many (many) more.

Until later

I think you're a bit too sensitive. It is odd that you're a member of western society who didn't know who The Rolling Stones and CCR were until you discovered them in a video game. Such bands are omnipresent to the point of being inescapable (like Florence and the Machine or Mumford and Sons at the beginning of the year).

I grew up in the 90's, in a town not exactly known for freethinking or enjoyment of original music, so much of my exposure to different styles came from my love of certain movies and their accompanying soundtracks: Swingers, Desperado, etc. I very likely would never have discovered Royal Crown Revue or latin rock in general otherwise. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. But how is it that you just don't discover a lot of music except through video games? Don't you ever just relax with friends and share music? Don't people loan you CDs or link you to a streaming song they just found?

Also, if you had never heard the following bands before, I would envy you:

Fear Factory
Gravity Kills
Judas Priest

 

[PurplePlatypus]

Spoiler

You're not worthy, you weren't physic/hipster enough to have known about it before you came across it.

 

[Rossriders]

I think you're a bit too sensitive. It is odd that you're a member of western society who didn't know who The Rolling Stones and CCR were until you discovered them in a video game. Such bands are omnipresent to the point of being inescapable (like Florence and the Machine or Mumford and Sons at the beginning of the year).

I grew up in the 90's, in a town not exactly known for freethinking or enjoyment of original music, so much of my exposure to different styles came from my love of certain movies and their accompanying soundtracks: Swingers, Desperado, etc. I very likely would never have discovered Royal Crown Revue or latin rock in general otherwise. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. But how is it that you just don't discover a lot of music except through video games? Don't you ever just relax with friends and share music? Don't people loan you CDs or link you to a streaming song they just found?

Also, if you had never heard the following bands before, I would envy you:

Fear Factory
Gravity Kills
Judas Priest

Well, I actually had heard of CCR and the Rolling stones well before Black ops, it was more like I was reminded since one of the more memorable times for CCR for me was from the film Forrest Gump, I have heard and listened to a lot of songs by the Rolling Stones (and Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Colour Purple, Run DMC, Pubic Enemy, 2Pac, Bigge Smalls and so forth) I guess my problem is that because I've got so many favorite artists (that are in the tripple if not quadrupal digits) and songs (four digits to even five), I can't always recall everything all the time (granted that applies to everyone but still). Which is why I do like it when I am reminded, such as with a game such as Black ops.

For the case of the 3 bands you mentioned, Fear Factory and Gravity kills were 2 of the 5 or so groups I came across for the 1st time playing Test Drive 5 in 98/99, while I did like their tracks, the songs that stuck with me more were from Pitchshifter and Junkie XL, for the later 'Def Beat' which made me very happy to see that song appear again in Need for Speed High Stakes and Gran Turismo 3.

For Judas Priest, if I had listened to him, it didn't give a lasting impression until Gran Turismo 3, then Shoot-Em-up.

I could post an attept to name every single group/artist I've come to like (and maybe even just how I've heard of them, including Pendulum, The Prodigy, Dieselboy and so forth) but that may be a long list of text, unless you really want to see it.

Short reply shorter - I have, it's just I wonder why some people make it an issue if say, other people came across it for their first time via a game, or in my case, being reminded.

Sorry if it did come out a bit ranty, wasn't the intent but then again, you can assume one's reactions but you woun't really know till you see it (or read it in this case).

Out of curiousty, how many here had been introduced to say, the Beatles or Huey Lewis and the news thanks to Seasame Street?

 

[Haukur Isleifsson]

I personally think games are a great way of introducing people to music that they otherwise would never have encountered. In games the music is almost always in the background and rarely interrupt the experience unless it is truly god-awful. But if you like the music you will recognize it and remember it despite the distraction of the game. There are a great deal of songs (I'm more of a song guy than an artist guy) that I would not have encountered (or encountered much later) if it had not been for this or that game.

F.x.

Man on the edge by Iron Maiden from some Carmageddon game.
Romance #2 For Violin & Orchestra In F, Op. 50 from the embassy mission in Hitman 2
Ave Maria (Schubert) from Hitman: Bloodmoney
Peace sells from True crime: Streets of LA
Actually there are a bunch of songs and artist I got into big time after playing the GTA Vice City:
Twisted Sister - "I Wanna Rock", Mötley Crüe - "Too Young to Fall in Love", Quiet Riot - "Cum on Feel the Noize", Ozzy Osbourne - "Bark at the Moon", Love Fist - "Dangerous Bastard", Iron Maiden - "2 Minutes to Midnight", Megadeth - "Peace Sells", Anthrax - "Madhouse", Slayer - "Raining Blood", Judas Priest - "You've Got Another Thing Comin'", David Lee Roth - "Yankee Rose", Hall & Oates - "Out of Touch", Michael Jackson - "Billie Jean", Bryan Adams - "Run to You", Yes - "Owner of a Lonely Heart", The Buggles - "Video Killed the Radio Star", The Fixx - "One Thing Leads to Another", The Outfield - "Your Love"

Probably has something to do with why I like thrash so much today.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Oh yes I hate this! Call of Duty: Black Ops was the worst, not Black Ops itself, but the reactions of people who liked the songs featured in it.

The comments for those songs on Youtube are full of people saying that they were "listening to this song before you were born" and "fuck Black Ops for introducing The Rolling Stones to todays generations!".

 

[CleverNickname]

People on the internet/youtube being idiotic finger-pointing assholes? Stop the presses!

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Mostly it's a case of music snobbery, as has been said. People like to think they're unique, so if they knew some obscure band that later gets popular and has a big new following they find a way to remain unique while still liking the band. "I knew them back in '99 before Tony Hawk made them popular" or whatever.

 

[Netrigan]

Well, look at hipsters for one thing.
It's cooler to know something before someone else did.

As well as this: After knowing about something for ages, its really annoying to suddenly have the comments box filled with a bunch of people talking about how cool Call of Duty is.

Same as it ever was. People have a tendency to get annoyed when a pivotal song of their youth gets discovered by the younger generation in some non-standard way. Whether it's discovering The Beatles Revolution because of Nike, Sweet Dreams because of Marilyn Manson, or Black Dog from car commercials... it's a sense they like it for the wrong reason.

Also comes into play when a band breaks into the mainstream. It's always cooler to look down upon the slightly younger generation of fans.

Remember when we recognized these trends as eternal instead of trying to blame it on a tiny sub-set of hipsters?

actually, this never happens. Every generation thinks they created everything.

 

[Amphoteric]

Hipsters'll be hipsters

 

[Fwee]

Forget the pathetic people who judge on that kind of thing.
Example:

Spoiler

Hidden for image reasons. Some people are sissies.

Personally I think video games are a great way to introduce people to musicians they might have never had the chance to come across. I played the PS1 game Apocalypse and spent an hour just watching the rooftop video of "War?" by... Uh... System of a Down! That's it!
My favorite example is from Xbox's game Phantom Crash. In the game you can visit a music store and purchase songs to listen to while you're destroying other mechs in the arena. As soon as I came across "Rock N Roll Can Rescue the World" by Electric Eel Shock, it was the only track I listened to. Because it's that good.

But then again video games can also have the "MTV, Radio" affect of playing the same old overplayed shit. If I have to hear "Click, Click, Boom" one more time I'm going to start collecting dick stumps. With a rusty, broken knife.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

It makes me laugh sometimes. What does it matter how you discovered it as long as you apreciate it?

As a side note, I remember looking up 'This Is War' by 30 Second to Mars, which made its world debut in Dragon Age: Origins and had the comment 'thumbs up if you knew this song before DA:O' *facepalm*

I don't know if that was serious or not, but the sad thing was it had 80+ thumbs up.

EDIT: Although I have to admit, it's a sad, sad, time when The Who is known solely as 'the CSI music'.

 

[Rossriders]

EDIT:
It makes me laugh sometimes. What does it matter how you discovered it as long as you apreciate it?

As a side note, I remember looking up 'This Is War' by 30 Second to Mars, which made its world debut in Dragon Age: Origins and had the comment 'thumbs up if you knew this song before DA:O' *facepalm*

I don't know if that was serious or not, but the sad thing was it had 80+ thumbs up.

Although I have to admit, it's a sad, sad, time when The Who is known solely as 'the CSI music'.

What's even sadder for me is that in spite of knowing The Who's songs well before I ever though about watching CSI, there are times I now associate the 3 particular songs use for the themes with them in spite of having heard them a LOT before then.

Go figure.

That and there's a reason why I sometimes don't bother ever commenting on most videos with few exceptions, at this point I'm not really surprised, and why something such as 'Thumbs up if you've heard X before why' is one reason why i bothered to open this thread to begin with.

 

[jumjalalabash]

Making money and a living doing something you like isn't kewl E-nuff four hipsters.

 

[Inkidu]

I was surprised 30 Seconds to Mars did a song for Dragon Age: Origins. You only actually find this out if you sit through the credits of the game. I don't look down on anyone for not knowing this because the damned credits to that game are like an hour long. You'll hear it twice.