Surviving the Game: Published Soundtracks as Archives

Fanny Rebillard discusses the issues surrounding the archiving of video game music. Building over the preexisting research about game preservation and music preservation through recordings in popular music studies and ethnomusicology, Rebillard identifies a number of problems, including those of changes in audio format and the loss of elements related to interactivity and graphics. She discusses how the resolving of these issues during the archiving process, especially through published soundtracks, can provide new perspectives on the wider place of game music. The organization of tracks in such archives is important, and Rebillard closes the chapter with some suggestions for published game music typologies, focusing on the broad categories of completion level and track list organization.