A Music Information Retrieval Approach to Classify Sub-Genres in Role Playing Games

2026-01-05

arXiv.org

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of systematic, quantitative analysis of video game music (VGM) within role-playing game (RPG) subgenres, which has hindered understanding of how musical features relate to narrative or gameplay mechanics. For the first time, music information retrieval (MIR) techniques are systematically applied to analyze VGM across three RPG subgenres. By extracting quantifiable audio features and employing statistical methods, the research establishes empirical links between musical characteristics and subgenre semantics. The findings successfully identify several audio features significantly associated with specific RPG subgenres, offering data-driven evidence for how VGM contributes to and supports game narrative and interactive mechanisms.

Technology Category

• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Mining of Visual, Multimedia & Multimodal Data
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Procedural Content Generation & Storytelling
• Machine Learning: Statistical Relational/Logic Learning

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Mining multimedia, multimodal, multilingual, cross-lingual Web data
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web query analysis, representation and understanding
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems

Abstract

Video game music (VGM) is often studied under the same lens as film music, which largely focuses on its theoretical functionality with relation to the identified genres of the media. However, till date, we are unaware of any systematic approach that analyzes the quantifiable musical features in VGM across several identified game genres. Therefore, we extracted musical features from VGM in games from three sub-genres of Role-Playing Games (RPG), and then hypothesized how different musical features are correlated to the perceptions and portrayals of each genre. This observed correlation may be used to further suggest such features are relevant to the expected storytelling elements or play mechanics associated with the sub-genre.

Problem

• Music Information Retrieval
• Video Game Music
• Role-Playing Games
• Sub-genre Classification
• Musical Features

Innovation

• Music Information Retrieval
• Video Game Music
• Role-Playing Games
• Musical Features
• Genre Classification