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that appears to be non-diegetic affects diegetic
events, thereby disrupting the traditional meaning
of diegetic and non-diegetic sound (Jørgensen,
2007b). In Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994), on the
other hand, one of the characters is sitting in his
car accompanied by what at first appears to be
non-diegetic music. Suddenly he starts whistling
along with the music. In this case, the audience is
not led to believe that the character hears music
that is not present; instead, they re-interpret the
music not as non-diegetic, but as diegetic music
played on the car radio.
On the surface, the situations from the game
and the film may appear similar, but in terms of
how it affects its context, there is a huge difference
between the film music and the game music: In the
case of the film music, we revise our interpreta-
tion when we realize that the fictional character
actually can hear it (Branigan, 1992, p. 88). There
is therefore never any ambiguity connected to the
origin of the music, and we are never led to believe
that the character hears music that is not present
in his world. The game music, on the other hand,
has a functional value related to the game system:
it provides a warning to the players about a change
in game state: namely that an enemy is aware of
their presence and about to attack. In this sense,
the role of game music is to enable the player to
use its informative value to make progress in the
game. In this respect, film music and game music
have fundamental different roles. While film music
provides clues about moods, upcoming events,
and how to interpret specific scenes, game music
works as a user interface that provides usability in-
formation that helps players progress in the game.
Also, while non-diegetic film music never allows
the audience to change the protagonists' behavior
or to save them from certain death, game music
can enable the player to guide their avatar away
from danger or to make them draw their sword
even before the enemy has appeared. This is, of
course, a direct result of the difference between
players and audiences and it puts emphasis on the
fact that the concepts of diegetic and non-diegetic
have not been designed to take this difference
into account, and is therefore not sufficient for
analyzing sound in computer games.
categorization of Game sound
There have been different attempts to categorize
game sound and, in this section, I will present some
of the most fruitful endeavors. Although only a
few scholars base their descriptions on whether
or not sounds are diegetic and non-diegetic, many
refer to the concepts and may in some cases use
them as unambiguous ways to look at sound. This
section will provide a short overview of such
scholarly attempts before the next section goes
on to discuss specific attempts to adapt diegetic
and non-diegetic concepts to game sound.
Alex Stockburger (2003) was perhaps the first
academic that came up with a method of catego-
rization for game sound. He defines a number
of “sound objects” according to their use in the
game environment, and separates between score
sound objects , zone sound objects , interface sound
objects , speech sound objects , and a range of dif-
ferent effect sound objects connected variously to
the avatar, to objects usable by the avatar, to other
game characters, to other entities, and to events.
Although Stockburger emphasizes the importance
of understanding the functional role of sound, his
categories do not cover this. Instead, his model
describes sound according to what kind of object
it is connected to in the game engine. He also uses
diegetic and non-diegetic as matter-of-fact and
straightforward concepts and does not discuss
how they should be interpreted in terms of game
sound. One who does argue that diegetic concepts
can be usefully applied to game sound is Zack
Whalen. He states that non-diegetic game music
has two functions; to “expand the concept of a
game's fictional world or to draw the player for-
ward through the sequence of gameplay” (2004).
In other words, it can either support the sense of
spatiality and presence in the game environment,
or support the player's progression through the
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