ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the music in postmillennial role-playing games (RPGs) illustrates these "differing cultures." It explores to avoid cultural stereotyping, considering the cultural context of the styles and functions of music in these games offers new perspectives on game design, player expectations, and music as an aspect of genre in video games. More prosaically the popularity of music in RPGs no doubt results in part from exposure; players will likely hear the same music many times over the course of a game, and avoiding listener fatigue is critical to avoid frustrating or alienating them. Although many early computer-based RPGs contained relatively little music, the console boom of the mid-1980s saw a marked increase in wall-to-wall music, with few silences. Despite the overall generic similarities, the choice of music from Final Fantasy and The Elder Scrolls also highlights a divide in both style and audience between RPGs created in Europe and North America and those created in Japan.
