Time for New Terminology? - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 87

aspects that recognize the specificities of game
sound compared to sound in other media. At the
same time, however, these attempts also demon-
strate that the use of concepts designed to explain
traditional media is problematic and confusing.
There is a need to invent a terminological apparatus
that fully grasps the uniqueness of game sound
without trivializing it or confusing it with related,
but different, features in other media. However,
what the adaptations above have in common, is
seeing game sound as qualitatively different from
sound in other audio-visual contexts. Specifi-
cally, there is a tendency to pay attention to the
interactive nature of game sound and to see it as
a part of the user interface of the game in that
it provides information to the player that helps
feedback and control (Saunders & Novak, 2006).
These adaptations also suggest that gameworlds
operate in a different manner compared to story-
worlds. This is particularly evident in Grimshaw's
extended understanding of diegetic sound as all
sounds that derive from a gameplay event. In the
following I will discuss how the understanding of
game sound as interface, and the gameworld as a
different construct to traditional diegeses, affects
the idea of diegetic sound and I suggest alternative
ways of discussing the relationship between the
gameworld and game sound.

and argues that gameworlds are radically different
from storyworlds because they are worlds designed
for playing games . This means they are unified
and self-contained wholes, structured as arenas
for participation and contest, and are therefore
subject to a coherent purpose (Klevjer, 2007, p.
58). Such worlds are created around a different
logic than “fictional storyworlds” and, as long as
all elements are explained as being parts of the
game system, they do not need to be explained
as a credible part of a hypothetical world. Espen
Aarseth (2008) makes a clear distinction between
gameworlds and fictional worlds by stating that
the virtual world of World of Warcraft (Blizzard,
2004) is no fictional world but instead “a functional
and playable gameworld , built for ease of naviga-
tion” (p.118). This is also emphasized in Aarseth
(2005) in which he describes the environmental
design of Half-Life 2 (Valve, 2004). It is a care-
fully designed environment with a specific layout
that guides the players through specific areas, and
limits the freedom of navigation in order to set
up the challenges of the game, at the same time
as it is given properties that remind one of the
physical world in terms of world-representation.
I want to follow up on Klevjer's and Aarseth's
approaches and further point out that gameworlds
are universes designed for the purpose of playing
games. This means that they are fitted for very
specific uses, and their layouts are decided in terms
of functionality according to the game system. En-
vironmental features and dungeon layouts are not
created randomly but, because of careful design,
they are oriented towards a specific gameplay
experience. This view will be the starting point
for the following discussion that will focus on
the functional aspects of gameworlds and sounds
connected to it. As we will see, this view of the
gameworld is important for understanding how
sound is used, and explains why players do not
see what I earlier called transdiegetic sounds as
interfering.
As different constructs compared to traditional
fictional worlds, gameworlds operate on other

sOUND AND tHE GAMEWOrLD

I have suggested above that diegetic and non-
diegetic are problematic in connection with games
and game sound because gameworlds are different
constructs compared to traditional fictional worlds,
or diegeses, and because of the way the players
interact with them. In this section I will go into
the characteristics of gameworlds, what makes
them different from traditional fictional worlds,
and what consequences this has for understanding
their sound usage.
Rune Klevjer rejects using the term diegesis to
describe gameworlds due to its link to storytelling,