The current climate of the video game world has been speckled with a fair bit of controversy over the role of women in the industry, both in-game and outside of games. No doubt, women have been involved with video games since the beginning, and one particular facet of the gaming industry that hasn’t gotten a lot of focus in regards to its diversity is video game music. Due to the fact that video game music is not as easily identifiable as being male or female-influenced, it’s sometimes very easy to go by without knowing just how much an impact female composers have had in gaming through its entire lifespan. Indeed, it in essence makes little difference what gender, race or creed a composer is, as their musical ability is what makes the games they compose for and creates their legacy with video game fans.
Thus, I decided I wanted to make a small series of spotlight features over the next couple of weeks, highlighting some of those female composers whose works are either well known or obscure, but nonetheless important to the history of gaming.
The first composer I wanted to focus on briefly doesn’t have a huge repertoire of game compositions under her belt, but the quality more than makes up for the quantity when it comes to Japanese composer Michiru Ōshima.
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