Purpose Realized

Alone in a dusty, lofted studio space in the small hours of the morning, Mark Roemer ’94 discovered a treasure trove of music—new songs and budding artists, entire genres he’d never before explored. As a freshman at Michigan State, he found himself working the overnight shift at the college radio station. With only the insomniacs and test-crammers to cater to, Mark reveled in unearthing hidden gems from deep within the record stacks. 

“It really expanded my musical taste,” he says. “I got really into obscure music and indie music, and finding stuff that nobody had heard of. It was like a badge of pride for me to be the one to introduce people to new music.” 

While most of campus was sleeping, Mark would wander the vacant concert hall that housed the station’s attic studio. One night, he noticed a fax from a record label tacked to the bulletin board. He plucked it off and put it in his pocket, effectively guaranteeing his position as the college representative for Universal Records. 

He spent the next few years arranging meet and greets and escorting the label’s “baby bands” around the Midwest to radio interviews, in-store signings, and other promotional events. When the opportunity came to move up the ladder, he packed his bags for New York City and didn’t look back. 

After several years working the record label circuit, Mark took a job as Vice President of Business Operations at CD Baby, the largest distributor of independent music in the world. Mark helped CD Baby pioneer music digitization. Home to the first and largest catalog of independent digital music, CD Baby was invited to meetings with all the major players in the digital media industry. “I was in the room with Steve Jobs when he announced iTunes,” Mark says. 

Mark’s career trajectory took a turn when a former Universal colleague called and told him he had a job interview in two days. “You’re going to be the creative producer for all of Guitar Hero’s marketing,” she told him. “I had never played Guitar Hero,” he laughs. “My roommates and I didn’t even have a TV!” 

His buddy immediately went out and bought a flat-screen TV, an Xbox, and the popular rhythm game with its trademark guitar-shaped controller. When Mark returned from work the next day, it was all set up in the living room. He played for 17 hours straight, mastering the expert difficulty level on the song “Eye of the Tiger.” The next morning, Mark walked into the interview bleary eyed but well prepared when the agency exec pushed aside his empty lunch plate and said, “So, shall we play?” “Sure,” Mark responded. “How about ‘Eye of the Tiger?’” 

“That gig changed my life,” he reflects now. 

As Creative Producer for the Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and Band Hero brands, he produced the viral videos and cinematic trailers that helped turn the games into a cultural phenomenon. He developed award-winning creative concepts and directed live shoots with artists like Van Halen, Metallica, Muse, Taylor Swift, Eminem, and more. 

Mark had never been a “gamer”—his televisionless household proof of that—but his work on Guitar Hero sparked something in him, altering his perspective on what he thought possible in the video game industry. 

“I saw how people reacted to games like they used to react to music, waiting in line for a release, creating their own ‘zines’ around the culture of gaming,” he says. “It became this identity-making thing for a lot of people, and music—it is that still, but it used to really be that.” 

While his career shifted focus to video game advertising, he always tried to infuse his passion for music into his work. When he had the opportunity to direct campaigns for Minecraft, the best-selling video game in history, it was no exception. “If you watch the trailers that came out between 2016 and 2018, they’re all loaded with the coolest music,” he says. “I put Justice in a Minecraft trailer. I put UNKLE in a Minecraft trailer!” 

Fast forward a few years, Mark is living in British Columbia, working remotely as Global Head of Production for an Australian-based creative platform. He gets a call from his friend and video game industry veteran, Mike Wilson, looking for some feedback on his idea to use a player’s breath control as an interaction mechanism in a game. 

After some digging, Mark uncovered extensive research on the mental and physiological benefits of patterned breathing and vocal intonation. Inspired, he quit his job and went all-in with Mike to create Realize Music: SiNG, a wellness-based virtual reality karaoke game. 

“It’s like Guitar Hero for voice,” Mark says. As players sing along to their favorite songs, the game responds in real time, visually projecting their voice into a psychedelic, interactive landscape where lyrics appear in the sky and are transformed by sound. 

“The more you participate, the more beautiful the world gets,” Mark explains. “You’re cocreating this experience with your voice.”  

But Realize Music is designed to be more than entertainment. Through vocal cord vibration and breath control, singing stimulates the vagus nerve, the key component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates functions like heart rate and blood pressure. Vagus nerve stimulation helps players enter a flow state—a neurological condition linked to dopamine release, reduced stress, and improved mood. From Eastern throat singing to Oming and chanting, singing as a form of meditation has been practiced for centuries.  

“The thing is, you can get into that same state that the monks achieve with their throat singing by singing Chappell Roan or Kendrick Lamar or Tom Petty or Billie Eilish,” Mark says. “When we figured that out, we knew we needed to give people the opportunity to choose whatever music is meaningful to them.” 

Realize Music boasts the largest catalog of music that’s ever been licensed for a game, with a library of more than one million songs. In a full circle moment, Mark found himself sitting in a meeting room at Universal Music Group, pitching his new project to his former colleagues, now decision-making executives. He was rewarded with a blanket license for the label’s full collection of music. He went on to acquire the same from the rest of the “Big Three”—Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. 

Players can belt out their favorite classic rock ballads or pop anthems in an immersive, judgment-free VR environment that lowers self-consciousness and encourages deeper participation, amplifying the physiological benefits. Drawing on established research about the mental health benefits of singing, the game aims to alleviate anxiety, ease mild depression, and evoke the powerful “chills” sensation brought on by an emotional response to music. 

“You know that feeling when you’re witnessing an exceptional performance and you’re completely synced with the music, and the hair stands up on your arms? There’s a scientific name for that,” Mark says. “It’s called frisson. It’s a deep, almost spiritual connection to a piece of art—a melding of body and mind. It happens infrequently in life, but in our game, people report having this experience all the time.” 

Since its release in November 2025 on the Meta Quest platform, the game has received overwhelmingly positive feedback. But for Mark, this is just the beginning. The company is currently in a seed round of fundraising to bring Realize Music: SiNG to all platforms. 

“I want everyone to have the opportunity to have this experience,” Mark says. “While VR is the premiere experience, I don’t want people to be limited by device or budget.” 

They’re expanding first to additional VR platforms, then to flat-screen devices—including PCs, gaming consoles, and connected TVs—with mobile to follow. And beyond that? The possibilities are endless. 

“We built this on the Unreal Engine, which is the same technology as the Las Vegas Sphere,” he says. “It has unparalleled visual fidelity and can be scaled to a very large format. I have a vision for this to be a touring, ticketed event. Imagine 5,000 people all singing along together!” 

Just the thought is enough to raise goosebumps.