It takes many people to work on a game like God of War Ragnarök. Not just in coding and programming, but also in the audio sector.
One of the music production interns for God of War Ragnarök Jessica Mao, who notably worked on the editing, arrangement, and implementation of the Freya chase scene and Thor boss fight music, has posted a short thread on Twitter about her work on the game.
better get this out before Twitter dies.
i’m so happy to see so many folks enjoying God of War Ragnarök! i worked on the editing/arrangement/implementation of the Freya chase scene and Thor boss fight music. you can hear to a bit of each scene’s music in this video!
(short 🧵) pic.twitter.com/I2wCbX3UYx
— jessica mao 🍂✨ (@jmaomusic) November 18, 2022
i want to give a quick shoutout to Thor’s fight because that was a fun exercise in music arranging. the original mix was too fully orchestrated and had to be toned down to make room to grow in later phases. i made new stems using different combinations of the original stems…
— jessica mao 🍂✨ (@jmaomusic) November 18, 2022
…in ways that i felt worked best musically. the stem i’m proudest of is one where i removed all instruments and left just the percussion and vocals. you can hear it in this clip (under all the combat sounds lol). sometimes less is more 😄 pic.twitter.com/pnaVIBeABa
— jessica mao 🍂✨ (@jmaomusic) November 18, 2022
From my perspective, it’s always very cool to hear about what goes into the creation of video games in ways that we don’t often think about, like the adaptive composition of its music.
Unfortunately, this thread has a bit of a sour ending, as Mao reveals that despite her work on the game, her name does not appear in the credits of God of War Ragnarök.
unfortunately, my name is not in the credits, and apparently it can’t be added in a patch update. i was told that to be credited, my contribution to the game must hit some “minimum criteria,” hence my tweet from Monday. still not sure what this criteria could be…
— jessica mao 🍂✨ (@jmaomusic) November 18, 2022
The tweet that Mao references here is the tweet below.
so.
TIL of the existence of “the minimum criteria for an in-game credit.”
— jessica mao 🍂✨ (@jmaomusic) November 14, 2022
Mao worked full-time at Santa Monica Studio as a music production intern from June to August 2021, and from many people’s perspectives it sounds like she did enough work to be considered above the ‘minimum criteria for an in-game credit’.
Credits in large-scale games like these make it easier for workers in the games industry to refer back to work they’ve done in order to attain work in the future, as well as provide workers with a sense of pride in the work they’ve done being worthy enough of credit.
Sean LaValle, who works as a senior audio technical designer at Santa Monica Studio, replied to the end of Mao’s thread with his condolences, stating that he will ‘ask about’ an amendment to the credits of God of War Ragnarök, though it ‘may indeed be too late’.
I’m very sorry to hear about this Jessica! I fully agree everyone who contributed to a project should be credited.
It may indeed be too late but I will definitely ask about this.
— Sean LaValle (@SeanLaValle) November 18, 2022
A situation like this is quite timely considering recent events in the games industry related to composers not getting due credit. Of course, there’s the ongoing situation with Mick Gordon and iD Software/Bethesda, which will seemingly never end.
And then there’s Hbomberguy’s most recent video which sheds a light on how the lack of proper crediting for composers in video games can lead to one guy just taking credit for anything and everything (if you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend giving it a watch).
The days of development teams having to hide their names in video game easter eggs and female composers having to go by pseudonyms in credits feel like they’re long behind us, so why should people who worked on video games have to fight tooth and nail to be recognised for their contributions?
Leave a Reply