Two former members of the audio team behind Rockstar Games' ultra popular Grand Theft Auto franchise have struck out on their own. The duo have launched Solid Audioworks, an audio production company "offering a combined 30 years of ground and sound-breaking expertise."

Besides working on Grand Theft Auto series, the Solid Audioworks duo have also been responsible for creating audio content for such games as L.A. Noire, the Manhunt franchise, and Red Dead Redemption.

Valve has launched Steam Music Player, which lets users listen to MP3s while playing games in Steam. The Music Player allows users to create their own playlists, queue up mixes, listen to albums, and MP3s on your computer.

To go along with today's launch, Valve has some of the Half-Life and Portal soundtracks DLC available for free to those who own the related games and the documentary.

Harmonix announced that it will no longer add content to or provide maintenance for the Rock Band Network, the long running downloadable content portal for the Rock Band series of games. While the company says that it will no longer maintain or update the site with new content, Rock Band Network will continue to be online for the foreseeable future, at least.

Game Music Connect organizers today announced that its 2014 international video game music conference, which returns to London's Southbank Centre on September 24, will be supported by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

Game Music Connect is for aspiring and professional composers of all backgrounds and those interested in learning about the art and craft of creating video game soundtracks.

If you have ever wondered what goes into writing music for video games, then the PAX Prime 2014 panel, "MAESTROS OF VIDEO GAMES," is right up your alley. The special panel to take place at this year's PAX event will feature six of the industry's most accomplished composers discussing the processing of writing music for a video game.

Harmonix's Kickstarter for the current generation reboot of its cult classic PS2 rhythm-action music game, Amplitude, is within striking distance of getting fully funded. Earlier in the week it looked like the project would not survive the Kickstarter funding process, but in the last several days the project has seen a surge of public support.

Rock Band series creator Harmonix has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the reboot of its 2003 rhythm-action game, Amplitude. The goal is to update the cult classic music game for the PS2 to newer Sony systems such as the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. The new Amplitude game will feature new high definition visuals, new music, and other surprises to be revealed.

Here's something you don't see happen every day: a major video game, a prominent YouTube personality and a mega pop star all coming together to create something special. The ultra popular sand box world building game Minecraft got some mad props recently in the music video for Lady Gaga's hit song, "G.U.Y."

Game Art Connect Ltd. announced that Game Music Connect, a one day event dedicated to all things related to music in video games, will return to Southbank Centre in London, England on September 24.

Game Music Connect is aimed at aspiring and professional composers of all backgrounds and those interested in learning about the process of creating video game soundtracks. The event features interviews, practical demonstrations and roundtable discussions with leading composers and audio directors working in the space.

Maybe it's a cheeky joke that became reality or perhaps they are simply seizing the moment, but punk band Fall Out Boy has decided to get in on the Flappy Bird media frenzy by creating a parody game called "Fall Out Bird." It sounds like an April Fool's Day joke come early, but the game is a real thing, according to the BBC, and it will be released very soon.

Indie developers including the makers of The Witness, Thomas Was Alone, VVVVVV, and Ridiculous Fishing, are railing against YouTube and Google over their new copyright detection policies after being the target of false copyright claims on videos of their own games.

Mike Bithell, creator of puzzle platformer game Thomas Was Alone, was the target of a claim by a group called 'Indmusic' for "systematically" claiming rights to footage of his game. He lashed out at the group via Twitter:

Video game cover band Critical Hit has released a second music video on YouTube today - this time playing its own rendition of "Battle for New York" from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The band will also be performing live at BlizzCon 2013 on November 9 and taking part in a panel on sound in games. In case you don't know, Critical Hit is a game music cover band led by Blizzard’s composer Jason Hayes, as a side freelance project.

Today is the day that the world is introduced to Critical Hit, an all-star cover band led by composer Jason Hayes. Hayes is best known for his work on the World of Warcraft soundtrack, and he is joined by performers and recording artists with an amazing list of

The Video Games Live: Level 3 album has been successfully funded on Kickstarter, raking in a total of $285,081 from 5,679 at its close. While the crowd-funding campaign had a slow start 30 days ago, it managed to meet its goal, much to the delight of Video Games Live concert series frontman (and former Reviews on the Run co-host) Tommy Tallarico.

The Kickstarter campaign for the next Video Games Live album, "Video Games Live: Level 3," is inching towards the halfway point with 22 more days to meet its funding goal. As of this writing the project has raised $112,064 of its $250,000 goal from 2,076 backers.

Video Games Live has launched a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund its latest album, "Video Games Live: Level 3."

Video Games Live: Level 3 will be recorded with a 72-piece orchestra, a rock band, and a 60-person choir. They are seeking $250,000 to record arrangements of tracks from over a dozen video games such as Tetris, Portal, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Dota 2, Journey, Beyond Good and Evil, and BioShock.

The second annual PlayFest, a festival dedicated to music, animation, and video games, will take place in Málaga, Spain September 5-8. Playfest brings together leading artists, composers and companies to participate in master classes, conferences, screenings and concerts.

This year’s concert will feature music from Star Trek Video Games (presented by BuySoundtrax Records) and conducted by Kevin Kiner (Star Trek: Borg).

The 2013 Boston Festival of Indie Games announced that it will present a night of video game and chiptune music from some of the world's most exciting performers in Boston, Ma. The one-day event, Boston Plays Indies, is being sponsored by music game developer Harmonix and BostonFIG.

The fine folks at Video Games Live are teaming up with streaming service Twitch to give those who can't make it to Comic-Con in San Diego the chance to experience just how wonderful a Video Games Live concert can be. The concert will air on twitch.tv/twitch on July 20th, beginning at 8PM PT. A pre-show begins at 6PM offering interviews with various composers including Journey composer Austin Wintory and Destiny composer Marty O'Donnell.

NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will host its fourth annual video game week June 17 -21 (12:35am ET on NBC). The weeklong event will likely feature a lot of the games being shown at E3 this week, along with Fallon's signature comedy sketches and special music guests and performances.

Musical guests to appear during the week also have ties to the video gaming world: on Monday Anamanaguchi will be taking the stage for their first live in-studio performance on American TV. The band is well-known for being at the forefront of the chiptune scene.

Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth, but too many world-renowned DJs jamming together makes everything cooler. DJs Gramatik, Cherub and HeRobust will perform at Epic Games’ ECGC 2013 Opening Night Party, kicking off the East Coast Games Conference (ECGC) on Wednesday, April 24 at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, N.C. Epic Games is a platinum sponsor of ECGC this year. Epic will also have a presence in the ECGC exhibition space, and senior staff from Epic will lead numerous conference sessions as well.

Former Guns N' Roses front man Axl Rose has lost his 2010 lawsuit against Guitar Hero III maker Activision, reports GameSpot (by way of the The San Marino Tribune). In his original complaint, Rose claimed that the publisher duped him in several ways in order to get the band's popular "Welcome to the Jungle" song into the game.

With just nine days to go, the latest indie game music bundle, "THE NUBUWO WINTER BUNDLE" has managed to raise $2,900 of its $8,000 goal from 124 backers. The Kickstarter campaign urges supporters to "discover game-inspired music and fund Tokyo's FAMI-MODE 2012 DVD, featuring live chip music performances and interviews."

Yeah, I'm late with this week's poll.  Sorry about that.

Being a musician makes me a bit of a music snob.  I think pretty much everything on the radio is crap.  As such, when I try to play karaoke video games, I'm more often than not presented with a song I've never heard which, needless to say, puts me at a significant disadvantage.

Rockstar Games was forced to pull Grand Theft Auto: Vice City from Steam, according to reports from The Sixth Axis and Cinema Blend.

Publisher Ubisoft has filed a $1 million lawsuit against BEP Music LLC in Superior Court claiming that it created an iOS versions of a popular Wii game, which its client refused to acknowledge as per a licensing agreement the two companies entered into in June of 2011.

When the Obama Administration's Copyright Czar Victoria Espinel sent out a request for comments on future strategies related to copyright enforcement, it came as no shock when trade groups representing the interests of the movie and music industry asked that a major P2P site be taken down.

According to a recent survey conducted by TechBargains.com (as reported by CED Magazine), 33 percent of cord cutters would not return to cable, even if the cost was drastically reduced. Cord cutters are consumers who have ditched traditional cable television viewing in favor of using online video services such as Netflix and Hulu.

Taking a break from offering DRM-free pay-what-you-want indie games, the folks behind the Humble Indie Bundle are trying out a new medium - music. Today they announced the Humble Music Bundle, offering six digital albums from the likes of Cristopher Tin, They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, and Hitoshi Sakimoto (who created the music for Valkyria Chronicles).

Families of victims and survivors of the deadly shooting at the Dark Knight Rises opening movie who might want to sue the film studio Warner Bros or other companies such as AMC theaters, but experts say that history shows these lawsuits don't tend to get very far because it's tough to prove a liability. The reason that such lawsuits usually fall flat is because companies are rarely held liable for "intentional crimes of non-employees" and the ruling in Brown v.