Sounds disruptive: How video games are resetting the music medium's conventions | Playable Futures

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This series of Playable Futures articles considers how the design, technology, people, and theory of video games are informing and influencing the wider world.

The snowballing intersection of music and video games has been a near-obsessive talking point across both sectors over recent years. From famed musicians taking starring roles in triple-A titles, to placement on FIFA playlists starting to rival Spotify for gathering new fans, opportunities abound.

At the same time, the music industry is still guided by concepts established decades ago, from the dominant licensing model, to the album and single release framework. The potential for even more happenings around music and games coming together is profound, and yet until recently, the former's legacy conventions have arguably held things back.

That was something very much on the minds of Alex Tarrand and Oleg Butenko as they began to concoct their concept for Styngr, a gaming-focused blend of music industry joint venture and technology platform. The duo of co-founders saw an opportunity to modernise the ecosystem that connects music and games.

"Music [has] this legal architecture that's been in place for a long time and it doesn't really match the speed or requirements of game companies"

"We were looking at how the potential crossover of music and games wasn't being fully realised, and we saw that this old model of music licensing didn't really work for most games," offers Tarrand, Styngr COO. "That's how it was, and how it still is to a degree. But things are changing, and they have to.

"Video game companies, essentially, are software companies. Software companies want to be able to move fast, socket into APIs, or take a code library like an SDK for advertising or analytics. They keep moving, are used to immediate integrations, needing to move fast and iterate. And then when it comes to music, there's this legal architecture that's been in place for a long time – some of it from the Motown era – and it doesn't really