Tommy Tallarico

Tommy Tallarico (born February 18, 1968) is an American video game music composer, musician, television personality, live show creative director and producer. He and his company, Tommy Tallarico Studios, worked on several video games since the 1990s. He co-hosted the television shows Electric Playground and Reviews on the Run from 1997 until 2006. In 2002, he created Video Games Live (VGL), a global video game music orchestra.
In 2018, after he became the president of Intellivision Entertainment, the company began work on and sought investors for an original video game console named the Intellivision Amico, for which Tallarico was frequently present in pitch videos. He has since stepped down from his position as CEO, but remains on the company's board as president.
In 2020, it came to Tallarico's attention that a sound effect he owned from a game Tommy Tallarico Studios worked on, Messiah, was used without permission in the video game Roblox. This led to a legal dispute which ended in 2022 with the removal of the sound effect from the game.
Early life
Tommy Tallarico grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts, later attending Cathedral High School. He told The Washington Post in an interview he would take his father's tape recorder to the arcade to record songs as a child. After graduating high school, Tallarico attended Western New England University for a year. According to the Los Angeles Times, Tallarico moved to Southern California in 1991 to try and obtain a job in the video game industry. Tallarico took a job as a keyboard salesman at a Guitar Center in Santa Ana, California. On his first day, Tallarico met an executive from Virgin Mastertronic. Shortly after, Tallarico was given a job at Virgin as one of their play-testers.
Career
While play-testing, Tallarico often asked his bosses to let him create video game music. Tallarico's first musical project at Virgin Interactive was for the Game Boy version of Prince of Persia. "The main focus of writing video game music back then was it had to be simple and have a great melody," Tallarico said. Tallarico worked on a number of other games while at Virgin Interactive, including The Terminator.
Tommy Tallarico Studios
Tallarico continued working with Virgin Interactive as head of music and video division until 1994, when he went on to found Tommy Tallarico Studios. David Perry formed Shiny Entertainment at the same time, and the two studios collaborated on Earthworm Jim and MDK. In 2005, Tallarico wrote part of an orchestral score for Advent Rising performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
In September 1999, the "oof" sound effect was created for the game Messiah during its development, with the involvement of sound designer Joey Kuras (then employed at Tallarico Studios) and potentially, Tallarico. Tallarico has at times claimed that Kuras created the sound, that it was a collaboration between the pair, and that he created it himself. The sound effect was subsequently used in Roblox from 2006 to 2020, played after a character died in-game, and became an iconic part of the game after its adoption by meme culture. Tallarico, who claims ownership of the sound, disputed Roblox's use of it in June 2019. This dispute ended in July 2022 when the Roblox Corporation pulled the sound from all games on its platform.
Television
In 1995, Victor Lucas, founder of the Electric Playground, interviewed Tallarico at E3 . Lucas thereafter asked Tallarico to work with him on a television show. In 1997, Tallarico and Lucas started Electric Playground TV, which provided gaming news and reviews. In 2002, the reviews section of Electric Playground, Reviews on the Run, was spun-off into its own program, which Tallarico and Lucas hosted as well. In the U.S., Reviews on the Run was broadcast on G4 TV as Judgment Day. The Electric Playground is the longest-running video game television show in history.
In 2006, Tallarico began to spend less time on the show owing to other projects, missing almost all of 2007 and 2008. In 2009, Scott Jones took over his spot as full-time co-host with Victor Lucas.
Music concerts
In 2002, Tallarico co-founded Video Games Live, a symphony orchestra concert series that plays music from video games, with Jack Wall. Tallarico hosted and played guitar for the shows. He also created the visuals—scenes from video games, as well as lights and lasers—that are played in sync with the music. VGL has been awarded two Guinness World Records: one for the most video game concerts performed (357 at the time the record was awarded), and another for largest audience to ever view a video game music concert live (752,109 people in total, where 750,023 viewers watched online via the Youku app, and 2,086 people attended the concert in person at the Beijing Exhibition Center).
Tallarico has produced seven VGL albums. The first album, Video Games Live Volume 1, debuted at No. 10 on Billboard Top 10 for Classical Music Crossovers. The second volume, Level 2, also sold as a Blu-ray DVD concert, debuted at No. 8 on the same Billboard list. In August 2013, Tallarico also opened a crowdfunding campaign for the third album Level 3 on Kickstarter. According to Tallarico, Kickstarter was chosen as the means to fund the album because he had not been successful in attracting support from the recording industry, which he claimed was because music producers "don't think gamers are willing to pay for music" and did not recognize the perceived "culturally artistic significance" of video game soundtracks. The Level 3 campaign successfully met and surpassed its goal of $250,000.
In 2014, Tallarico and electronic dance music artist BT began working on Electronic Opus. As with Video Games Live, Electronic Opus presents EDM music alongside a symphony orchestra. They used Kickstarter to fund an album, with a goal of $200,000. The show opened at the Miami Winter Music Conference in 2015.
In 2016, Tallarico co-produced the Capcom Live! concert tour with Shota Nakama.
Intellivision Entertainment
Following the death of Keith Robinson in 2017, founder of Intellivision Productions, Tallarico purchased a stake in the company from the estate. In May 2018, Intellivision Entertainment was re-formed with him as president. In the winter of that year, he announced the intent for the company to release the Intellivision Amico with the target of October 2020.
As of July 2022, it is reportedly still being worked on.
As of September 2022, the Amico has been delayed at least three times. The console has been viewed very negatively by critics, drawing criticism for its delays, fundraising tactics, and use of NFTs. The status of the console has been described as "grim" by TechRaptor and compared to a car crash by Kotaku.
In February 2022, Tallarico stepped down from his role as CEO of Intellivision, remaining on board as the company's president and largest shareholder. He was replaced by the company's former chief revenue officer Phil Adam.
Personal life
Tallarico is vegan, and advocates for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, including donating music for the PETA browser game Super Tofu Boy in 2010.
According to the LA Times, his house in San Juan Capistrano "looks as if a 12-year-old with a huge bank account went wild", including a life-size Indiana Jones, several Star Wars characters, and a statue of Merlin.
In 2002, Tallarico founded the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.), a non-profit to recognize video game music and audio. The guild hosts annual awards for achievement in game audio.
In November 2022, British YouTuber Harris "Hbomberguy" Brewis published a video essay criticizing Tallarico, which called into question various claims he had made concerning his career and accomplishments that Brewis found to be misleading or dubious.
Video games
Albums
References
External links
1968 births
Living people
20th-century American composers
20th-century American male musicians
21st-century American composers
21st-century American male musicians
American critics
American male composers
American people of Italian descent
American sound designers
American television personalities
Game Developers Conference Ambassador Award recipients
Musicians from Springfield, Massachusetts
Video game composers
Video game critics