No, you may never have whistled its theme, "Blow Me Away," in the shower. And it may never rival "The Bodyguard" or "Saturday Night Fever," the two best-selling soundtracks of all time. But the musical score to the Xbox video game "Halo 2" -- on the Sumthing Else Music Works label -- is no slouch when it comes to sales. It's been in the Top 50 of Billboard soundtracks since the day it was released on Nov. 9, 2004. And it is now considered the best-selling video game soundtrack ever, with over 120,000 units sold.

Given the fact that the average movie "original score" soundtrack sells no more than 10,000 copies, that's saying something.

And so it would seem that video gamers do have interests other than just blowing things up. Which is one reason why developers and publishers are paying more attention these days to the music that accompanies gameplay, splurging on Hollywood composers just as they have been signing on big-name Hollywood voice talent of late.

When Seoul, Korea-based Webzen launches "Sun," its next massive multiplayer online game in the fourth quarter, it will boast music by Howard Shore, best known for his Oscar-winning score for "The Lord Of The Rings" series. As armies and monsters battle it out online, the action will be accompanied by the National Philharmonic Of Russia as conducted by Vladimir Spivakov.

Jesper Kyd, a Danish composer who regularly alternates between the two media, eagerly describes how he's been getting quite a reputation in the game world. He's done the scores for all four games in Eidos' "Hitman" franchise, as well as for the cinematics in Ubisoft's "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory" and music for 17 other titles. Six of the scores are sold separately on CDs. And his score for the third "Hitman" game -- last year's "Hitman: Contracts" -- won the award for the best original music at the 2nd Annual BAFTA (British Academy Of Film & Television Arts) Games Awards in March.

"I enjoy the challenge of writing music that people need to listen to over and over and over," he says. "It's very different from a movie soundtrack in which there may be a big action scene with lots of horns and aggressive sounds. Imagine having to listen to that five or 10 times in a row when your video game character is stuck in a room; I think you'd go crazy. And so I focus on creating a style of music that's entertaining, creative, has some meat to it, and hopefully is something you'd want to hear again and again."

Another challenge to video game composers is that the stories aren't linear as they are in movies; if the player chooses to make a left and encounters a dragon instead of a right where he might find a pot of gold, the music needs to change in order to be appropriate to the situation.

"A movie might be two hours long, but it can take 20-40 hours to finish a video game," Kyd explains. "It's not realistic to write that much music, so the trick is to write, perhaps, just two hours of music, for example, in many small pieces so that the right theme can play depending on what is occurring in the game."

For that reason, Kyd says that video game composing is much more difficult than writing for films, "which is why there's so much bad video game music out there."

But gamers seem to enjoy Kyd's music, which, according to Paul Baldwin, vp of marketing at Eidos, has become a big marketing point for the publisher's "Hitman" franchise. Which is one reason why Eidos shelled out for a 90-piece orchestra and a 60-person choir to perform Kyd's most recent score.

"We've always presented the 'Hitman' brand in a way that's very similar to how a film is presented," Baldwin explains. "So, for the fourth game in the franchise, we created a one-sheet (poster) that says 'Eidos presents an IO Interactive Production ... Hitman: Blood Money ... with music by Jesper Kyd ... performed by The Budapest Symphony Orchestra & Choir.' It may not be THE key selling point, but for gamers who like the 'Hitman' games, who appreciate their graphics and gameplay, the fact that Jesper is doing the music will make them feel all the more comfortable about buying 'Hitman: Blood Money.' "

The latest installment in the ongoing adventures of Agent 47 is scheduled to be released in the fall for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC.

Baldwin believes there are two reasons why it's just recently that soundtracks have become marketing tools for games.
"There's an evolution or maturation process going on in terms of the overall quality of games," he says. "A great soundtrack -- in addition to great gameplay and great technology -- has increased the overall entertainment value. While it may not be on the top of the list of what gamers demand, they are coming to expect that it's just part of the equation."

Secondly, he adds, soundtracks have entered the game publishers' "arms race" -- "one publisher raises the bar with unusually impressive graphics or special effects, and then every publisher feels it needs to follow suit," he says. "Recently, a great soundtrack has become part of that checklist."

That's why a publisher like Microsoft will spring for a composer like Danny Elfman -- who recently completed the score to the big-budget film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- to write the theme for the Xbox adventure game "Fable."

Fortunately for the game publishers, the cost of composing music for an A-list game is considerably less than for an A-list movie, according to Bob Rice, CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based Four Bars Intertainment, which manages video game composers.

"Generally speaking, the creative fee for the composer of a 90-minute A-list film can range from $500,000-$1.5 million plus another $500,000-$1 million for live music production. That compares to a 90-minute A-list game which will cost $90,000-$120,000 for the composer's creative fee plus another $50,000 to $200,000 if a 'real' orchestra is used as compared with a 'virtual' one," says Rice. "That's quite a difference."

But it's considerably more than if the game developer has the music written in-house, says Eidos' Baldwin, "and then the cost is just three peoples' salaries." The score for Eidos' "Tomb Raider" games were done internally, he adds, mainly because the developer, Crystal Dynamics, has a sound team in its studio.

"They were awesome," he notes, "but when the score is done by a no-name person, well, it's not really a key selling point then, is it?"
And that, in a nutshell, is the dilemma of the developer or brand manager whose job it is to decide what sort of soundtrack each game deserves -- a budget variety or one that can be used as a marketing tool.

Greg O'Connor-Read, whose Las Vegas-based Music4Games company promotes video game music, believes the choice is obvious.

"A great soundtrack is like a musical advertisement; it reminds the gamer about the game," he says. "It was very clever of Microsoft to utilize the 'Halo 2' theme -- which is a Gregorian chant-driven vocal -- to promote the game in all its advertising, in its trailers, and so forth. Every gamer who has ever played 'Halo' knows that theme and instantly recalls the game. Jesper Kyd did the same thing last year when he took some of the 'Hitman' themes and adapted them for a cinematic trailer that was shown in movie theaters before 'Kill Bill 2' last year. The music worked on a very clever subconscious level and became a huge marketing tool."

Until recently, only about 25% of Eidos' games got the "big soundtrack" treatment, but that's changing, says Baldwin, as scores become more and more a part of the key feature mix. "I expect that will inch up to 50% in the near future."

Which undoubtedly will increase the cost of game production at a time when developers are straining to hold costs down.

"It's a slippery slope," says Baldwin. "You add celebrities to your games, you add big-name composers, you pay more. For the blockbuster titles, at least, there's just no way around it."

Paul "The Game Master" Hyman was the editor-in-chief of CMP Media's GamePower. He's covered the games industry for over a dozen years. His columns for The Reporter run exclusively on the Web site.