Art & Creativity Quote by Nobuo Uematsu

Uematsu isn’t begging for respect; he’s calling out a category error. “Just an effect,” “something like a BGM” frames game music as sonic wallpaper: functional, disposable, subordinate to “real” art that happens elsewhere. His phrasing is careful but pointed - “still people” implies the argument is outdated, a stubborn hangover from an era when games were treated as toys and their soundtracks as technical garnish.

The intent is corrective and strategic. Uematsu wants to move game music from the utility closet to the concert hall, not by scolding audiences but by demonstrating value: “show that is not true.” That verb matters. He’s advocating for proof through experience - performances, albums, themes that linger outside the screen - because the prejudice he’s describing isn’t purely intellectual. It’s cultural habit. People default to thinking games are interactive systems first, stories second, and music last, a layer you notice only when it’s missing.

The subtext is authorship. Calling it “BGM” reduces composers to service workers executing mood cues. Uematsu’s career (Final Fantasy’s leitmotifs, melodic clarity, emotional pacing) argues the opposite: game music can carry narrative memory, define character, and do the heavy lifting of feeling when pixels and text can’t. Contextually, he’s speaking from the generation that watched chiptunes evolve into orchestral scores - and is insisting that sophistication alone isn’t the point. The point is that the music was always doing more than “background.” We just didn’t have the language, or the willingness, to listen.