Although the Grammys technically include video game soundtracks in the "Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media" category, they actually exclude game music: the only time a game composer has been nominated in the category was in 2013 for " Journey, and only once has Austin Wintory won the award. Earlier this year, the Grammy Awards announced the creation of the "Best Score or Soundtrack for a Video Game and Other Interactive Media" category (open in new tab), which is open to composers or soundtracks "created specifically for or in conjunction with video games and other interactive media The award will be given to the composer or composers responsible for an "original score.

The 2022 nominees (open in new tab) are:

This is entirely subjective, and I certainly do not presume to be an expert in this field, but to my mind this is not the most refreshing selection of games and composers I have ever seen. It seems to be a list of easy checkboxes: Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Marvel Licensing, Austin Wintory, the only person nominated for game music, and Christopher Ting, who won a Grammy for his game music ("The Baba Yetu" (opens in new tab)), but in a non-gaming context.

No doubt all of the nominees are great, but it does not appear to me that Grammy officials dug particularly deep to find nominees in their categories. Let's compare the Grammy nominations to the Game Awards nominations for which Bear McCreary was nominated (and eventually won):

This may be largely due to the way the Grammys nominate. Unlike the Game Awards pundits, the Grammy Awards are open to the music industry as a whole. That is, they cover a wider range of genres and sources, and the process is more traditional: Grammy nominations are made by members of the Recording Academy (open in new tab) or by record labels and media companies that have registered with the Recording Academy. So, for example, if you are an indie developer with a cool game and a great soundtrack, but did not know that you had to join the Recording Academy to submit that soundtrack for consideration, you are out of luck. You were out of luck. (The deadline for a soundtrack to be considered for selection was September 30, but the deadline to register with the Academy to submit your work was August 24.) Also, submitting a film for selection costs money.

Apart from that, there seems to be a strange timing issue with some of the nominees as well. According to the Grammy Awards website (opens in new tab), the "product eligibility period" for films submitted for selection is from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022. However, Aliens: Fireteam Elite was released on August 24, 2021, and Old World was released on July 1, 2021.

The Grammys explained the discrepancy in an email sent the day after our article was published: submissions for the music category in the visual media category, including games, are not based on when the film, show or game in question was released, but rather on the soundtrack album's The date of release shall be the criterion. The soundtrack for Alien Fireteam Elite was released on September 30, 2022 (open in new tab), more than a year after the game's release, which was the final date for the 2023 Grammy Awards.

While a reasonable compromise as far as this goes, the restrictive nature of the Grammy process when dealing with new types of media may be a major problem in the long run. It has happened before: in 2019, the Writers Guild of America eliminated the Video Game Awards category (open in new tab) on the grounds that there were not enough nominations, but this situation was largely dictated by the WGA's equally exclusionary eligibility rules.

The 2023 Grammy Awards will be held on February 5, 2023 and broadcast live from the Crypt. com arena, assuming that exposure in the FTX catastrophe (opens in new tab) does not force a name change before then.