An Acoustic Communication Framework for Game Sound - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 148

game stations: hence gaming's early and ready
acceptance of sonic masking. As games moved
into the home and became more technologically
sophisticated, game sound changed to provide a
fuller, more subtle soundscape, often to be deliv-
ered through headphones. With the emergence of
MMORGs, the popularity of game tournaments,
expos, LAN parties and, most recently, Guitar
Hero and Rock Band house party nights, gam-
ing is once more returning to a social model of
play where the sounds of the cultural context and
setting are again significant and instrumental in
forming that sense of acoustic community that
unites designed game sound with the incidental
(acoustic and electroacoustic) sound-making and
sonic environment.

minent event, I realize: science and programming
still have a ways to go), we need to generate
precisely the type of historical and socio-cultural
analysis of game sound touched on in this chapter.
We need to understand the importance of all the
elements of a game soundscape, which, for better
or for worse, have become important to audiences,
or at the very least, we are now habituated to.
There is a crucial epistemological relationship
there—through inter-textual cross-pollination
and transference of practices and artefacts, we
have internalized many of these arbitrary mean-
ings and a realistic physical modelling of a game
soundscape might not mean much to us or even
be conducive to gameplay. Designers, audio en-
gineers and programmers need to know and think
about these issues.
Further, I believe the focus on listening posi-
tions in this chapter is a key to understanding not
only some of the cultural practices surrounding
gameplay, but it can also tell us something about
auditory perception that designers or scientists
could potentially use. Listening to game sound
is now every bit as everyday as everyday listen-
ing goes in our media and technology-saturated
environment, so games offer new opportunities
to science, given the fact that contextual listen-
ing has always evaded laboratory psychoacoustic
studies. Clearly, my main concerns however,
are with the opportunities for critical and media
studies to engage with and treat game sound and
the phenomenon of listening to game sound as
another rich cultural artifact—a text if you will—
that can add to the layers of theory and critique
surrounding media, art, and cultural expression.
While the use of fidelity and verisimilitude are
only two relevant heuristics in the analysis of
game sound, it is my hope that the field of media
studies will identify others and conduct the same
kind of rigorous examination of their historical
and cultural roots in order to elucidate their role
and importance not only in game sound but in our
culture-at-large today.

cONcLUsION AND FUtUrE
DIrEctIONs

This chapter explores the notions of fidelity and
verisimilitude manifesting historically both as
global cultural conventions of media and technol-
ogy, as well as, more specifically, being design
goals in the production of sound in games. By ex-
ploring these two perspectives of acoustic realism
through the lens of the acoustic communication
framework with its focus on patterns of listening
over time, acoustic communities and ecology, I
hope to offer a model for future theorizing and
exploration of game sound and a lens for in-depth
analysis of particular game titles. As well, it is my
hope that placing some much needed emphasis
on listening, ecology, and the holistic acoustic
setting of the gaming experience will benefit not
only sound designers and game theorists but will
also continue the trajectory of deepening inquiries
into game studies as a rich and unique form of
interactive media deserving of its own theoretical
attentions.
For example, before we go ahead and favour
real-time audio synthesis and physical modeling
for their realistic acoustic rendering (not an im-