Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games

by KC Collins

Overview

An examination of the player's experience of sound in video games and the many ways that players interact with the sonic elements in games.

In Playing with Sound, Karen Collins examines video game sound from the player's perspective. She explores the many ways that players interact with a game's sonic aspects—which include not only music but also sound effects, ambient sound, dialogue, and interface sounds—both within and outside of the game. She investigates the ways that meaning is found, embodied, created, evoked, hacked, remixed, negotiated, and renegotiated by players in the space of interactive sound in games.

Drawing on disciplines that range from film studies and philosophy to psychology and computer science, Collins develops a theory of interactive sound experience that distinguishes between interacting with sound and simply listening without interacting. Her conceptual approach combines practice theory (which focuses on productive and consumptive practices around media) and embodied cognition (which holds that our understanding of the world is shaped by our physical interaction with it).

Collins investigates the multimodal experience of sound, image, and touch in games; the role of interactive sound in creating an emotional experience through immersion and identification with the game character; the ways in which sound acts as a mediator for a variety of performative activities; and embodied interactions with sound beyond the game, including machinima, chip-tunes, circuit bending, and other practices that use elements from games in sonic performances.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262312301
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	01/11/2013
Series:	The MIT Press
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Karen Collins is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. She is the author of ten books on sound, including Game Sound and Playing with Sound (both published by the MIT Press), and is the director of the film Beep: A Documentary History of Game Sound.

Table of Contents

Preface: Game Sound Gets Heard vii

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

How Is Interacting with Sound Different from Listening to Sound? 2

The Sound of Music: Musical Sound 3

Interacting with and Listening To 4

Game Players: An Interactive Audience 13

Game Players: An Embodied Cognition Approach to Audience 15

1 Interacting with Sound: A Theory of Action, Image, and Sound 19

Schizophonia: Disembodied Sound? 23

Synchresis: Integrating Sound and Image 26

Kinesonic Synchresis: The Event-Driven Nature of Interactive Sound 32

Kinesonic Congruence and the Player 35

2 Being in the Game: A Sonic Approach 39

Extension and Incorporation 41

Self-Produced Sound 43

Sonic Game Space: Point of Audition in Games 44

Spatial Sonic Embodiment in the Game 56

3 Sound at the Borders: Enacting Game Sound 59

Posing and Playing 60

Voice and Role-Play in Games 68

Alternate-Reality Games 82

New Sonic Boundaries: Identification, Performance, and Cocreativity 87

4 Embodying Game Sound in Performance: The Real and the Virtual 89

Performing Music in Games 92

Performing to Music in Games 96

Performing Game Musk 105

Creating Music from the Game 111

Interacting with the Game as Instrument 119

5 The Second Life of Game Sound: Playing with the Game 121

Sonic Modification and Player-Generated Content 123

Modeling Game Sound 126

Art Mods 134

Player-Generated Content: A Fourth Wall of Sound 138

Conclusions 143

Future Directions in Interactive Sound Studies 147

Notes 149

References 155

Audiovisual References 173

Index 179

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Karen Collins's Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games is a comprehensive and compelling look at players' use of sound in video games, which examines the topic from a variety of angles and within a range of different contexts. Collins delivers another fascinating book on game sound destined to be a classic in the area of game sound scholarship.

—Mark J. P. Wolf, Chair, Communications Department, Concordia University, Wisconsin

With Playing with Sound, Karen Collins cements her status as the foremost expert on game sound and music. This richly detailed and well-argued text pushes forward the field of game studies to acknowledge the key role that sound plays in the experience of playing video games. Collins tackles the subject from the player's point of view, arguing that we don't merely listen to sound but interact with it to create believable worlds and inhabit memorable characters across a universe of videogames.

—Mia Consalvo, Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design, Concordia University

Endorsement

With Playing with Sound, Karen Collins cements her status as the foremost expert on game sound and music. This richly detailed and well-argued text pushes forward the field of game studies to acknowledge the key role that sound plays in the experience of playing video games. Collins tackles the subject from the player's point of view, arguing that we don't merely listen to sound but interact with it to create believable worlds and inhabit memorable characters across a universe of videogames.

—Mia Consalvo, Canada Research Chair in Game Studies and Design, Concordia University

Mark J. P. Wolf

Karen Collins's Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games is a comprehensive and compelling look at players' use of sound in video games, which examines the topic from a variety of angles and within a range of different contexts. Collins delivers another fascinating book on game sound destined to be a classic in the area of game sound scholarship.

Mia Consalvo

With Playing with Sound, Karen Collins cements her status as the foremost expert on game sound and music. This richly detailed and well-argued text pushes forward the field of game studies to acknowledge the key role that sound plays in the experience of playing video games. Collins tackles the subject from the player's point of view, arguing that we don't merely listen to sound but interact with it to create believable worlds and inhabit memorable characters across a universe of videogames.