The first and perhaps most important observation one can make about contemporary video-game music is that there is no longer any such thing as video-game music. This was not always the case and whether it will be the case in the future is open to question. A few years ago the genre known as ‘Bitcore’ (Collins 2005: 2) or ‘Chiptune’ (Wikipedia) defined, to all intents and purposes, the phenomenon known as video-game music. This genre, usually characterised in negative terms by its rudimentary electronic timbres and restricted number of voices, nevertheless produced some extremely innovative and memorable tunes. Since the mid-1990s, the improved memory capacity and increased processor speeds of game consoles have freed video-game composers from the technological constraints which gave the work of their predecessors such an identifiable aesthetic. Today, video-game music inhabits every style imaginable, from baroque to bluegrass, rockabilly to symphonic (Belinkie 1999). It is for this reason that I claim it no longer exists. Today's video-game music is more accurately described as music that has been written for, or adapted to, video-games. Therefore the analytical focus must shift away from form and towards function.