United States-based independent label and publisher Materia Music, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, marks its 10th anniversary this year. The milestone coincides with the debut of Deltarune: Chapter 5, the latest installment from creator and composer Toby Fox, at #3 on Billboard’s Soundtracks chart and #5 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums.
The Chapter 5 release also marked Fox’s first appearance on a songs-based chart. “Flower Man” and “Cutie Mew Mew Magic” landed at #13 and #18, respectively, on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. The Chapter 5 soundtrack, released in June, topped the #5 peak of the Deltarune 3+4 soundtrack that Materia Music released in 2025.
Building a business around game soundtracks#
Fox first became known for Undertale. Materia Music has worked with him on the soundtrack for its spiritual successor, Deltarune, since Chapter 1 arrived in 2018.
Over the past ten years, Materia Music has built a way for that music to travel beyond the game. The label treats an original soundtrack as more than a single release, making it available as:
- streaming releases
- CDs and LPs for collectors
- sheet music for players learning the pieces
- merchandise for fans
“As a classically trained pianist, I am overjoyed by the reaction our sheet music books have had,” Sebastian Wolff, CEO of Materia Music, said. “Over 50K books printed and sold to date, inspiring the next generation of players, both of games and instruments.”
Fan demand and industry scale#
That range exists because fans actively seek out this music and continue to listen to a game’s original soundtrack long after the credits roll.
“During a single convention, more than 20,000 people walk past our booth, and the fans who stop almost always have a story about the first time a song from a game stuck with them,” Jen Miller, Consumer Events Coordinator for Materia Music, said. “They aren’t just shopping. They want a way to reconnect with their favorite game and share that feeling with other fans, whether it’s a record, a book of sheet music, a shirt, or a night at a live concert.”
“Game music has always had devoted fans,” Joel Andrew, Head of Operations for Materia Music, said. “What was missing is the infrastructure to serve them properly: the rights work, the manufacturing, the distribution, and the reporting. We spent ten years building that, so the people who make the music don’t have to figure it all out themselves.”
Gaming’s economic weight#
Materia Music’s rise over the last ten years matches the expanding audience that game music reaches. The global games market generates $560.55 billion annually, with a forecast expecting the market to reach $761.51 billion in 2026. The number of players worldwide already exceeds 3 billion, with an expected reach of 3.7 billion by the end of 2026.
The scale of the gaming industry shows up in deal prices, too. Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard dwarfs even the biggest music catalog sales, including the more than $1 billion Queen catalog acquisition and the $1.6 billion Hipgnosis acquisition. When a single game publisher can command that kind of valuation, the original music built for those worlds is working in a very different league than licensed or synced music that appears in games like GTA VI.
“For a growing number of people, a game is where they first fall in love with a song, and that love doesn’t go away when the game ends,” Wolff continued. “Our mission is to give this music the long life it deserves, with the human artists who write it sharing in its success.”
