Hardcore Music in Video Games – Where to Go From Here?

Cover image generated using Midjourney using prompt: demon of rock

Since my last blog post, I’ve made an adjustment to my media niche. Rather than focusing on hardcore in an Australian context, I will be shifting towards hardcore music in video games, examining fan bases mostly on Twitch and Reddit, and traits seen within the niche’s behaviour and activities.

Google Maps Won’t Save You Here

Above is my niche map of the mentioned subject, I’ve implemented the following categories in order to identify traits and research avenues within my niche:

• Locations/Platforms – how audiences reach this niche.
• Content Types – how audiences enrich within this niche.
• Personas – types of people that participate.
• Products – what the commodified causes of Hardcore in video games are, and the produced result of its fandom/participants is.
• Access – what is needed to access the content.
• Motivations – what emotions are participants experiencing whilst participating. 

Problematising

The ethnographic research skill of problematising will be a useful tool throughout the investigation of this niche. The beauty of music and gaming communities, is that diverse amounts of peoples are active participants, but where there is drawback, is determining levels of participation amongst demographics. The gaming community is commonly perceived as a mostly white male dominated space, despite female participant levels being near equal to their male counterparts. A similar perspective can also be applied to the hardcore music scene, with lack of appropriate representation being applied to the respective segments. The problem identified here with both audience groups, is that if gamers wanted to explore the fusing of the two communities, does it provide an accurate representation of who is actively participating within these groups.

Promo image for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

The main platforms used by this niche is Twitch, where games like Guitar Hero and Metal: Hell Singer are broadcasted to audiences. Upon preliminary observation, audience numbers amongst streamers are quite low, this could be an early indicator of lack of interest in the content and/or its creators.

Mapping out the niche has allowed me to further my understanding of the types of people and content I’ll be interacting with and has allowed me to further tailor my content towards the audiences’ appeal and aide in research development.

BCM 241, hardcore, media ethnography, media niche, video games

References:

  Chess, S, Evans, NJ & Baines, JJ 2017, ‘What Does a Gamer Look Like? Video Games, Advertising, and Diversity’, Television & new media, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 37–57.

Clement J 2023, Share of internet users worldwide who play video games on any device as of 3rd quarter 2022, by age group and gender, Statista, viewed 2^nd August 2023, <https://www.statista.com/statistics/326420/console-gamers-gender/&gt;.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Promo, image, The Riff Repeater, viewed 2^nd August 2023, <https://theriffrepeater.com/setlist-sunday-guitar-hero-iii-legends-of-rock/&gt;.

  Pow, W 2020, ‘Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games ed. by Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm, and: Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice ed. by Kishonna L. Gray and David J. Leonard (review)’, JCMS : Journal of cinema and media studies, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 205–209.

Updates:

• 9/9/2023 – Fixed Soundcloud link