I was looking forward to this entry in particular because of how historically significant both MGS 2 and 3 were.

MGS 2 because, while it wasn't the first time someone with a film composing background came to score a game, this was arguably the game that turned it into a common practice. MGS 2 was extremely influential for Western game development, and I'm not surprised that the composer approach was one of those things that carried over into the rest of the industry.

And MGS 3 because, unless I'm missing an earlier title, it was the first time that the MV/RC sound was openly heard in a video game. Then over the following 10 years, it would be the predominant sound of the AAA first(and third)-person shooter genre. The big titles from that genre would also be primarily scored by film composers. Medal of Honor evolved from early Giacchino into Christopher Lennertz, and then RC with Ramin Djawadi, before circling back to Giacchino for Above and Beyond. The first Call of Duty was scored by Giacchino before moving on to film composers; the Treyarch-developed CoD games would then consistently be scored by RC people, until the back-to-back-to-back releases of CoD: Black Ops III, CoD: Infinite Warfare and CoD: WWII, after which the franchise came to be dominated by the music of Wilbert Roget II, Jack Wall and Sarah Schachner. Gears of War started being scored by Kevin Riepl before being taken over by Steve Jablonsky and Ramin Djawadi. Far Cry emerged and eventually came to be scored by Clint Mansell, Dan Romer, Pedro Bromfman and Brian Tyler. DOOM, Halo and Battlefield are the only big franchises I can think of that largely skipped the trend, and even then Halo 4 was scored by Neil Davidge and Battlefield just released a game scored by Hildur Guðnadóttir.

A great side-effect of film composers working in games is that some of their protegees would find their careers there. Sarah Schachner worked under Brian Tyler, and their work on games is what pushed her into pursuing a career as a game composer. Stephen Barton, as you mention, also worked with HGW, and now he's a regular of Respawn Entertainment, having worked on both Titanfall games, Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Watch Dogs: Legion.

I can't overstate how much of a massive change the hiring of HGW on MGS 2 was for the gaming landscape.

> Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004) - Not heard
> HGW; other incidental music by Norihiko Hibino;
> add’l music by Justin Burnett & Toby Chu; programming by Meri
> Gavin

> Seems to be available only via an out-of-print CD - but since I missed
> Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty in the last era I’m gonna
> include some of what I’ve learned about the franchise below.

> With MGS2 going to the PS2 and thus having fewer hardware limitations, the
> studio was able to actually have music beyond just sampled strings fit on
> the game. They went to Harry Gregson-Williams after Hans Zimmer turned
> them down because they weren’t going to pay him enough, though it’s also
> likely he thought game scores were second-tier work and perhaps didn’t
> even understand how lucrative hit releases could be (he would tell Harry
> “watch out, you're here to try and build a path to being a film
> composer”). Harry was contacted on the basis of his work for Enemy
> of the State of all things. It’s possibly the earliest confirmed
> instance of someone going to a cheaper version of Zimmer after he’d turned
> them down, though I have a sneaking suspicion earlier works for this
> criteria as well, namely Gavin Greenaway’s sublime Disney Parks works.

I've read conflicting statements on whether HGW was the first choice or just took it because they couldn't get Zimmer. Rika Muranaka, music supervisor on the first four MGS games, claims that HGW was the one they wanted because of Enemy of the State, going even as far as making a proper demo reel with his own music to show them why they wanted him. But then I've also read this version of wanting Zimmer first.

> The compositional process required the sound department to act as a
> middleman between Hideo and HGW, who would admit some early struggles with
> writing music with no images. “It was quite a primitive process. I
> think I was one of the first Hollywood film composers to do the music for
> a game. He wasn’t able to send me the film, and that’s my normal working
> process, would be to start with… hello!… the film. So, if ever I’m stuck
> with my work, I go to look up at the screen and learn something, and
> bounce off that. I would be sent little descriptions – adjectives. And I’d
> have to write 30 seconds or a minute of music in that vein, so it was kind
> of difficult for me, and different. But I liked it.”

Indeed, reading this was a fascinating look into how games used to be made back then. At the core of the process was Muranaka herself, because she had to coordinate between the other composers and HGW, and because HGW was used to writing music to pictures and they couldn't provide any, she had to ensure he knew how many minutes of music they'd require, what the music needed to do, work out the logistics of the interactive portions of the score, even ensure proper communication between Hideo Kojima and HGW, since he speaks very little English.

> Harry would end up writing another
> 45 minutes of music used across the game’s cutscenes, with gameplay music
> being done by Norihiko Hibino.

It's interesting how this approach would shift over the years. At first yeah, it makes sense to give the film composer the more film-like portions of the game to score, and leave the gameplay sections to game composers.

What's interesting is how this line would get more blurry as time passed and the medium was taken more seriously (which, depending on who you ask, was either game developers wanting to be validated by the film industry, or film composers themselves seeing games as a place with real opportunities). Eventually you'd get film composers writing interactive music. Mileage will vary on how much they understood the concept and application of interactivity, but some of the most deeply interactive game music I've ever experienced was music written by film composers. Ghost of Tsushima, God of War and Spider-Man: Miles Morales are scores that stand toe-to-toe with the work of composers like Austin Wintory, Lena Raine, Olivier Deriviere, Garry Schyman or Jason Graves in terms of how well-attuned to their games they are (they aren't just playing in the background while you play).

It helps that AAA games often have huge audio teams behind them facilitating the composer's needs/guiding them through the process, something indie devs don't have, which is why it's extremely rare to see a film composer scoring an indie game (that and, you know, money).