Beats me but my hypothesis is that Movie and TV show soundtracks do not require someone to buy the movie or TV series first in order to gain the privilege to buy the soundtrack, so I think it is a completely retarded business model for video games personally. I'm tempted to think "greed" is the reason, but I can't imagine that they sell more copies of the soundtrack by forcing people to buy the game who might not want it, or already own it on some other distribution platform. I think it's just a case of the game industry grasping firmly onto business models that have their roots in the 1800s rather than the modern Internet.

Imagine if they tried to sell Movies where you can only buy Friday the 13th part 8 if you already own parts 1-7. "We only want your money for our new film if you also give us money for every other film we made preceding it, otherwise we don't want your money and would rather risk the product becoming an economic failure.

I dunno, what do you guys figure - meth or cocaine? A mixture of both perhaps?

To make more money of course... :) Yeah, rhetorical answer... :) Just makes no sense to sell it separately for a cash grab and then not let people buy it who don't own the game on the same platform (or at all). No sense from the consumer side of the till anyway.

Possibly the same reason you don't get handed a CD/download voucher in the theater for the soundtrack to the movie you're about to watch.

I've never been a big fan of selling music as DLC (regardless of whether I've yielded and paid for it as such) but it isn't (and really doesn't seem like) a very non-transparent way of wringing the consumer's wallet for a little extra cash.

Many composers likely don't see much (if anything at all) in the way of money through sales of the game(s) they've written music for, even with the situation sometimes working out that they can negotiate getting paid through a shared revenue basis (something I imagine a lot of developers may not readily agree to) according to total copies sold or any similar deals.

Assuming the composers retain the rights to their music (as they should) then the DLC soundtrack method likely benefits them more than it does the person/team/etc. that worked on other aspects of the game. Obviously not as huge a difference they'd see from sales of their work through other channels (self-distribution via sites like Bandcamp, etc.) but the potential trade-off being that exposure of their work being available to buy right there and then is likely higher (assuming someone playing any game they wrote the music for enjoyed that aspect of it).

There's also situations that get ugly and/or weird - such as what happened with the individual who composed music for Paranautical Activity (a short summary of which is detailed here).

Damn, that sucks. One of the reasons i love GOG, are the game extras. Usually, soundtrack, had almost always been a free bonus inside said extras, the regular, if not main, freebie (plus treat, attraction)... Double damn. I decided to buy a handful of OSTs too, since the moment they became separately sold, from 2-3 games i really liked and their soundtrack was really awesome, but i ain't making it a habit.

Some pirates will be rubbing their hands, soon, i gather. GOG's selling model made piracy have no use or reason, up to now... Cash grabs (from developers) will revive Jolly Roger, undoubtedly. At least i am a landlubber for good, but i cannot guarantee anything about others.