You're definitely right on the money with this one. I just had a roommate at a conference who had a habit of staying up all night playing World of Warcraft. Even though I haven't ever played the game (and had my eyes closed trying to sleep while he was playing it), I knew he was playing a videogame. The sounds tended to be very repetitive--even more repetitive than you'd hear in a movie of the same type. But you're precisely right--there is no mistaking those Pac-Man sounds. If you hear them, you know for sure it's supposed to be a videogame. On the other hand, if you hear someone playing the latest Final Fantasy, you might think they're watching a show or even listening to the radio.

I used to think that it was really uncreative to try so hard in videogames to mimic TV and movies. If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch one--I don't need the equivalent of a movie in 15-minute increments of game cutscenes. However, now I'm more of a mind that these blends can be creative if done artistically and with common sense.

But, in the end, I find that listening to classic SIDs or even Amiga mods evokes more feeling in me than any old modern remix. Why anyone would want to buy a symphonic version of an old 16-bit Final Fantasy soundtrack eludes me.