TBH I never really got the point of those "video game score played by a real orchestra" things, although to be fair most of them seemed to be for games from the console world so as a PC gamer I didn't have any attachment to the original tunes in the first place.

For me I really felt things turn between Dune 2 and Command & Conquer when Frank Klepacki got to put full-blown lyrics and guitars into the soundtrack. I did listen to a bit of industrial music at the time so I still enjoyed it for what it was, but it never felt as magical as dedicated OPL3 scores like Stéphane Picq's Dune... and when Trent Reznor was pulled in to do the score for Quake I was just like, okay, that's it, game music is over now. I think Epic kept it on life support by still using demoscene composers like Siren (Alexander Brandon) and MCA (Michiel van den Bos) who both went on to do Deus Ex, but since then seems like chip musicians and tracker composers are mostly doing niche indie games.

It's always a blast when you play a AAA these days and hear something that still has a bit of that old vibe - one tune I always remember is Sam Hulick's Uncharted Worlds, which is the galaxy map song from Mass Effect. I think you could probably build it on OPL, SID, even AY chip and have it still sound great.

I like Trent Reznor, but the quake soundtrack is... Not good.

It was the most popular game of a generation. Games that popular don't really need to have good music, it gets heard so much that people grow attached to it no matter how weak it is... But the Quake soundtrack failed even at that.

So it's no wonder game music composing didn't die!