From mixtapes to multiplayers: Sharing musical taste through video games

In the late twentieth century, the mixtape was a popular way in which fans shared their taste in music with others in their social network; the author of a mixtape would record a compilation of music, often an assortment of works by various artists, onto an audio cassette, and presented this playlist as a curated, thematic listening experience for the recipient of the mixtape. Since then, the mixtape has moved beyond tangible recording media to online peer-to-peer file sharing services (such as Napster) and shared, user-curated playlists on commercial music streaming services such as Spotify. In recent years, these playlists have been gamified – elements of competition, achievement and self-expression have been added to curated listening experiences in games wherein players create in-game musical playlists, share these playlists with others, challenge other players to quiz games about songs in their favourite genre, etc. Viewing social video games as transmutations of the mixtape, the article focuses on ways in which these games are emerging as vehicles of self-expression and taste sharing by examining the various degrees and methods of curatorial control afforded to players (and game creators) regarding the selection and sharing of musical content in gameplay and extending into ‘real life’.