What is it in game music that you like so much and how could it be better?

These lists of questions are nice... but my thoughts have never flowed well within the confines of things like this. So I just want to lay out a few things in my own style as the thread creator said would be allowed.

I love VGM, mainly because video games have been a hobby of mine since as long as I can remember. My introduction to entertainment was primarily molded from my interaction with video games. Before books and movies and television could make an impact, I was playing video games. Using this as a base, I want to now state that I feel that a common misconception people have with video game music albums being primarily produced in Japan and rarely produced here is the cultural difference we as Westerners have with our Eastern counterparts.

I often wonder if the Japanese make comparisons of VGM to things like so-called "Actual Musicians" (humor the term, please) or if the Japanese relate the stories of their video games to the plots and structure and quality of their films, television shows, or novels. I'm willing to wager that they don't.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think over in Japan video games are recognized as a viable entertainment medium. Something that stands on its own. We're talking about a culture that is only now seeing the death of the arcade, whereas you'd be lucky to find a viable arcade here in America now, unless you live somewhere in Southern California or near places like the Family Fun Center in Omaha. I feel there's a lot to be said when we see "all about" guides and, more to the topic, VGM soundtrack releases in Japan but rarely anything of the sort here in America until recently.

I think they regard the music as standing alone and they might not make the same comparisons we do to "Real Music" as some might put it. Or at the very least, those concerns and comparisons are negligible to them, because there's very much a market for VGM albums there. The way VGM seems to be regarded here in the West is changing, because production seems to be better and more like movies and television and such. I'm not sure how I feel about this, because I liked a lot of the signature repetition, the "chiptune"/"Sounds like its from Mega Man" description of the sound of certain VGM. It evokes something familiar from my childhood, something I hope doesn't disappear as games get more cinematic, become more simulation or "experience" than contests of competitive and/or personal mental skill.

I think it's a mistake to try and make distinctions or comparisons to other forms of entertainment when discussing video games or VGM in this case, because while video games might be similar to movies, books, and such, they are still games. The outer art is molded around the "game" itself, the music included. And I enjoy video game music because it evokes those contextual feelings at times. I think that's enough to make it stand alone to me, even if it really could be said to not be as good as "real music" or whatever.

I think as video games become more than what they were, at least presentation wise, we'll experience newer, but not necessarily better music as time progresses. The only thing I hope of video game music is that it and its fans don't forget where it came from as it gets to where it is going.

Jam it back in, in the dark.