The US Recording Academy has made a decision to recognize video game compositions as a unique class of entertainment and has amended four of its awards to include the genre. The categories for “Best Music for Visual Media,” “Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media,” “Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media,” and “Best Song Written for Visual Media” were altered from “Motion, Television, or Other Visual Media” to “Motion, Television, Video Game Music, or Other Visual Media.” Now video game composers have a shot at having their work recognized on 4 fronts, and is a first step in higher recognition according to Recording Academy awards vice president Bill Freimut.

“I think this could be viewed as a first step in the direction of video games getting their own category. Many people from the game community have been asking us to create a special category for games over the years, but the main reason we haven’t is because we have received very few entries from game publishers.”

[The Shakedown]

This may sound strange to those out there who haven’t picked up a video game in the long forgotten days of 8-bit and 16-bit glory, but game design has come a long way in terms of audio and visual storytelling, and its high time that creators got the recognition they deserve. My video game soundtrack collection is almost a 3rd of my entire music catalog. In fact I’m listening to the soundtrack for Lair as I write this article, an aural journey that is easily good enough to be featured in a major Hollywood fantasy film. I can’t wait for the next Grammy Awards, to see if anything gets nominated.

[Source] Industry Gamers