Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not a big music guy and no offense to anyone but maybe with the exception of a couple of tracks from the Red Alert series I don’t particularly care to listen to game music when I’m not playing a game. At least not without giving it a good listen to first.
By bundling the OST with the game it inflates the price to the point where it’s not actually a good deal if the sound track doesn’t interest you. This latest game looks kinda neat but I could literally get the game itself from Steam directly (at least now during the Summer sale) for less than half of this “deal”.
Yeah ok bit of a “first world problem” for a price of less than 2$ but still.
depends on the game, the soundtrack and the deal
there have been deals where combo cost the same as the game itself, = free soundtrack
other times where you get the soundtrack for pennies
and ofc others where the savings are minimal so you might begin to make considerations
maybe i’m a little like you, not a big soundtrack guy, so i rarely buy soundtrack for games
but if the “deal” is good enough i still buy the game+OST bundle deal,
-even if i never listen to the soundtrack or know ahead of purchase the likelihood of me listening to it on its own is low. Deal is good enough? those considerations goes right out the window if i find it a good or decent value proposition
plenty of times i have bought the game on it’s own, other times bought the bundle deal, all depends. But don’t think i’ve ever turned a deal flat down on its face just because of including OST without making/adding extra considerations to my decision
and sometimes you look up the soundtrack and find, even if you might never play it (thank you steam for making soundtracks ridiculous to load), you get your interest peaked enough to think “hmm, maybe” and change your idea of the value in the deal and buy it anyways (or not too ofc)
I absolutely love soundtracks and some of the games on offer I have purchased simply because the soundtrack was included. The vast majority of music I listen to is soundtracks or remixes and covers of game music or otherwise associated.
Best thing about video game music is that there’s so much variety available, you can find an OST of any genre or type you’d fancy.
I enjoy most of them. Some can be an annoyance or an ear worm but on the whole most of it is quite nice.And it sure beats what I used to do…LOL…
Unpacking those files could be tedious. See, suits of music and film, pay attention. I have paid extra for the OST. Now that they usually offer the music.Give me a reasonable price and I don’t mind spending it.
Edit; The only time you don’t need a soundtrack is when you got “dialogue Gold” like this…
Because you are laughing so hard , you can’t hear the music.
I love music, and I love video game music but, like the TC, I have little desire to listen to the OST outside of the games. So bundled soundtracks don’t add any value to me. I’m sure they do for a lot of other people though. And, like Gnuffi said, sometimes the added cost is so minimal that you don’t even notice it.
Yeah, I usually listen to an audiobook when I don’t want to listen to background music… better use of my time. So never really got any use of these +OST deals.
Wow, had no idea this many people completely ignore music or even sound in their games. That would take so much of the experience away for me. I played EVE online for many years a long time ago and the running joke “Eve has music?” was a thing for a reason. I personally really enjoyed the eve music and I found turning it off and playing my own stuff in the background just really ruined the immersion. To this day EVE’s sound track sits in my playlist and whenever a song from it comes on at random I remember the good old days of Ushra’khan fighting CVA for providence.
Of course you don’t want music clogging up coms when you’re in a fleet where orders needs to be passed out to 100-1000s of people quickly and clearly so in those cases even I turned it off of course. But in any other situation or game I couldn’t imagine playing games without the music.
There are games and games… you don’t want anything interfering with your Mark of the Ninja aural perfection, or interrupting Chrono Trigger’s beautiful soundtrack. But games like The Elders Scrolls… it’s just fanfarre filler which you can turn off after a few hours. Even more so games that rely basically on licensed tracks, Hotline Miami excluded.
Exactly! I need my Chrono Trigger music, it’s flawless. However I play some games like 100% Orange Juice(one of my favorite games) completely without music because I’d rather have something else on.
It would for me, too. I’d probably replay a part of a game if for some reason I played it without any sound. That said, I don’t feel any need to listen to music outside the game. In fact, I generally find music I loved is a lot less enticing when seperated from the game I love.
The Sexy Brutale is definitely on my list of games to grab at some point as well as it’s soundtrack. If you enjoyed that music and hadn’t really heard anything like it before you should go look for electroswing on youtube.
I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to a game sound track.
It doesn’t put me off buying something if it comes with an OST, but it’s certainly not a draw for me. Plus most of the time there is the option to buy just the game. Not on Chrono I grant you, but Steam, GOG etc.
Real glad I read this post. I thought I was the only one NOT going about my daily routine listening to OST. I just don’t get listening to it away from the game. Thank you Chronies, perhaps I am sane.
Do you hate your ears? Because it sounds like you might if you are attacking game music like this and this. Or this. Or this (Metronomicon, don’t even own yet and I love listening to it’s music). Or this?
Jokes aside, I know a lot of us have 1 or 2 games with soundtracks we LOVE to listen to, regardless of our favorite style. I am however of the opinion that we shouldn’t be paying extra for it. Sound design, composition, and orchestral scores created for a game are supposed to be part of the game, therefore it makes little sense why I’d want a game and want to pay separately for it’s soundtrack. I understand why devs do it, I just get a tiny bit irritated.
But it’s not the end of the world! Chrono should partner with the devs in whichever method is deemed most appropriate for everyone. <3
Came across this video just yesterday, makes a few good points on the subject.
With how greatly varied soundtracks are I don’t get why you’d make a blanket statement against listening to them all, especially since in so many cases there’s no real difference between a video game soundtrack and any other album of a similar genre.
thought “VGM” was doomed there for a moment with all that other stuff 
