Time for New Terminology? - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 93

typically hears the generic sound of a mouseclick
every time he selects an action from any of the
menus. Integrated interface sounds are typically
related to user interface elements that have been
placed into the gameworld, such as exclamation
marks and the icons above the heads of characters.
The sound played as the avatar gets a boost to
stamina in Diablo 2 is a typical example of this
and it is a system-generated sound that works as
a notifier that also identifies the boost in question.
Emphasized interface sounds have a somewhat
different relationship to the gameworld as they
often appear to be generated by friendly NPCs in
the gameworld. An example is the lines spoken by
NPCs in World of Warcraft in response to player
targeting: When the goblin merchant says “Hi,
you're a tall one!” This is a sound that appears
to be diegetic in the traditional sense of the term
since it is something a character in the gameworld
actually says, but it is in fact a system-generated
sound that has been stylized and fitted into the
gameworld. Iconic interface sounds , however,
are completely integrated into the gameworld and
correspond to Saunders and Novak's dynamic user
interface features. In terms of film theory, these
sounds would be labeled diegetic as they seem
to belong naturally to the universe in which they
are in. They can have any kind of generator and
may provide any kind of usability information. An
example of an iconic interface sound is heard when
the avatar moans because he is injured in Crysis .
While this model is limited to solely taking
into account spatial integration of game sound,
it is fully compatible with my earlier models de-
scribing the usability value of a sound (Jørgensen,
2007b) and what generates a sound (Jørgensen,
2008). When combining these functions, we may
study game sound along several dimensions that
grasp usability on a more general level by iden-
tifying whether a sound provides responsive or
urgent information and whether it is related to
control functions, orientation or identification.
Such a combination would be able to dive into
the gameworld describing what event generates

a sound and identifying what that event means
for the player's state. Last but not least, it would
take into account how the sound is integrated into
the gameworld. Combined, the models will form
a comprehensive and detailed analytical tool that
describes all gameplay related sounds in computer
games, without creating the confusing association
to traditional diegeses.

cONcLUsION

When sounds work functionally in the sense of
providing gameplay-relevant information to the
player, it must be seen as part of the user interface
of a game. In this respect, we need to acknowledge
its status as such and use an approach that allows
us to describe it in terms of an interface. However,
the traditional distinction between diegetic and
non-diegetic is not based on participatory use
and does not allow us to describe game sound in
this way. This article presents a game-oriented
alternative to diegetic and non-diegetic that takes
into account spatial integration of sounds from a
gameplay perspective. The model is also compat-
ible with earlier models characterizing game sound
(Jørgensen, 2007a, 2008, 2009) and together they
form a framework that allows us to describe the
interface aspects of computer game sounds while
also paying equal attention to its relationship to
the gameworld as an environment that reminds of
those of fiction but instead is built on game rules.
While this chapter argues for substitution
of the terms diegesis, diegetic and non-diegetic
when discussing sound in games, it should be
stressed that these terms may be fruitful in some
respects. They may be used when a scholar wants
to compare computer games and game sound with
other media and they may also be used the way
this chapter does; to show why they are prob-
lematic. From these perspectives, Galloway's,
Ekman's, Grimshaw's and Jørgensen's earlier
work on the subject are important contributions
that are especially fruitful for those seeking to