An Acoustic Communication Framework for Game Sound - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 145

Table 3. A set of listening modes emergent out of the current discussion on fidelity, verisimilitude and the
ecology of game sound. These modes reflect and attempt to identify macro trends borne out of historical
shifts in the qualities, techniques and functions of game sound over time

A listening that supplies the perceptual conditions for immersion - building up a mental image of an environ-
ment from the little that is provided acoustically by the game's soundtrack, for example, the way a game like
Cooking Mama is reminiscent of Super Mario games and evokes a fun, fantastical, care-free world.

Imaginative Listening

An analytical, culturally-critical type of listening that has emerged over time in experienced players who look
for iconic game music themes through platforms and generations of a particular game (some notable examples
here being the Final Fantasy , Super Mario , Zelda and Mega Man series).

Nostalgic Listening

A listening position that describes the ability that gamers develop to very quickly and fluidly interchange
listening attentions—one moment they may be immersed in the heat and tension of a battle and in the next they
may pause to change their settings, entering a user interface type of soundscape (for instance, in the Fallout 3
example in Figure 2, the player shifts constantly between the battlefield ambience/listening position and armour
selection/target selection screens).

Disjunctive Listening

A non-analytical, electroacoustic listening that allows the player to feel immersed into the game reality with
the minimum amount of auditory complexity. In the absence of truly realistic soundscapes, players effortlessly
ignore loops, repetitions and lack of sonic fidelity in order to become more immersed in the game. The name is
inspired by Ware's (2004) naive physics of perception idea.

Naive Listening

The type of listening that Truax (2001) calls media [flow] listening (p. 169) where players listen with an under-
lying expectation of how the flow of the game's soundscape will unfold, tacitly familiar with the sonic elements
of the games in general.

Conditioned Listen-
ing

A result of cross-pollination of different media genres, this listening position addresses situations where game
soundscapes contain radio, telephone, or TV sounds (most famously featured in Grand Theft Auto ). Conversely,
the popular events of Video Game Concerts are settings where game sounds live on outside gameworlds and are
performed, listened to, and used for other purposes outside of games.

Inter-textual Listening

priate it is to discuss the game world in terms of an
ecology and, therefore, the greater the immersive
function of the game sounds'' (p. 479). Grimshaw,
unlike Schafer, analogizes game soundscapes
to an actual bio-ecology where various species
(in our case, sounds) interact, co-exist and are
co-dependent on each other. He also focuses on
the ecology of first person shooter (FPS) game
soundscapes as this genre lends itself particularly
well to a discussion of ecology in terms of sound.
Spatialization and 3D sound rendering are honed
to an art form in FPS games and the player literally
has to listen through the character's ears in order
to play and succeed in the game. Sounds of shots,
enemies in the background or out-of-the-frame
(extra-diegetic) sounds are extremely important,
as are user interface sounds including warnings
and alarms that often require immediate attention
and split-second decisions (trans-diegetic sounds,
per Jørgensen, 2006). Schafer, however, would
still look at ecology from the perspective of bal-

ance within an acoustic community where each
sound has a meaning in the sonic context and a
place within the spectral niche of the soundscape.
This acoustic balance may or may not be in sta-
sis: at certain times an element may mask and
overpower other sonic elements. For example,
in action scenes music often takes on a dominant
sonic role overshadowing smaller environmental
or game alert sounds (in Figure 4 it is clearly vis-
ible in the full sequence layout (top section) that
music tracks have a significantly higher/broader
dynamic range than all other sound effects). For
Schafer, and especially for Truax whose work
focuses more on electroacoustic sound, sound
balance is not simply about loudness but also
about value connotations. Music, for example,
is not only a much stronger emotional, affective
device than environmental sound within a given
game environment, but it also carries a history of
being used commercially, to condition consumers
into spending time and money in certain settings