Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Preface
- A Landmark Timeline of Video Game Music
- Foreword: The Collaborative Art of Game Music
- Introduction
- Part I Chiptunes
- Part II Creating and Programming Game Music
- Part III Analytical Approaches to Video Game Music
- Part IV Realities, Perception and Psychology
- Part V Game Music, Contexts and Identities
- 18 Game Music and Identity
- 19 Game Music and History
- 20 Open Worlds: Globalization, Localization and Video Game Music
- 21 Female Credit: Excavating Recognition for the Capcom Sound Team
- Part VI Beyond the Game
- 24 Producing Game Music Concerts
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
21 - Female Credit: Excavating Recognition for the Capcom Sound Team
from Part V - Game Music, Contexts and Identities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Preface
- A Landmark Timeline of Video Game Music
- Foreword: The Collaborative Art of Game Music
- Introduction
- Part I Chiptunes
- Part II Creating and Programming Game Music
- Part III Analytical Approaches to Video Game Music
- Part IV Realities, Perception and Psychology
- Part V Game Music, Contexts and Identities
- 18 Game Music and Identity
- 19 Game Music and History
- 20 Open Worlds: Globalization, Localization and Video Game Music
- 21 Female Credit: Excavating Recognition for the Capcom Sound Team
- Part VI Beyond the Game
- 24 Producing Game Music Concerts
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter focuses on the Japanese game development company Capcom (CAPsule COMputers), arguably ‘a well-established developer and publisher’,1 known for some of the most popular action arcade games of the 1980s and early 1990s, including Ghosts ’n Goblins (1985), Commando (1985), Bionic Commando (1987), Final Fight (1989), Ghouls ’n Ghosts (1988) and Street Fighter II (1991), developed with male players in mind. The music for these action games was provided by the mostly female Capcom Sound Team. Ayako Mori and Tamayo Kawamoto joined Capcom in 1984, and other core members of the team included Junko Tamiya, Manami Matsumae, Harumi Fujita, Yoko Shimomura and Tamayo Kawamoto, most of whom left the company in 1990 shortly after their seminal soundtrack work as a team on the arcade game Final Fight had been completed. Yoko Shimomura, who composed the memorable themes for Street Fighter II, left Capcom for the game developer Square in 1993 to pursue her dream of scoring orchestral music for role-playing game (RPG) titles, bringing to an end the domination of Capcom’s female Sound Team. This collective of female composers went on to influence a host of game composers through their pioneering work on early arcade hardware. Yet in versions of games ported from the arcade to home consoles and computers, their work was left uncredited. Popular recognition for their work has been relatively slow, due to a number of factors that include the use of pseudonyms and the company’s crediting policy, as well as the routine exscription of women in a male-dominated game industry.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music , pp. 376 - 388Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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