For nearly as long as video games have been around, they’ve enjoyed a tight relationship with pop music. As early as 1983, Bally-Midway collaborated with Journey to make a game full of licensed songs and the band members’ digitized faces (which followed more than a decade of pinball cabinets featuring megaton bands), and that says nothing of media sensations like “Pac-Man Fever.”
Meanwhile, interactive musical experiences, somewhat outside the firm “gaming” realm, began emerging in the CD-ROM era. These ranged from simple computer-exclusive content slapped onto a normal album’s data track to full-blown multimedia software featuring the likes of David Bowie and Prince.
Thus, the synergy of gaming and pop music is littered with various “firsts,” and this week, a modest music video by a Texas indie band might not register as a particularly big deal. It’s not a Doom clone starring Iron Maiden or a hilarious light-gun game starring Aerosmith. But this “playable” music video arguably heralds a new era: one where video game engines, and thus a gaming mentality, has become utterly foundational in pop culture.
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