Emotion, Content, and Context in Sound and Music - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 242

Table 1. Overall Game Genre Preference of Survey Participants in Rank Order

Game Genre Preference (%)

Role-Playing Game (RPG) 39

Shoot-em-up 24

Strategy/Puzzles 12

Adventure 9

Sports 9

Simulation 3

Other 3

This survey was undertaken to establish the
various factors that subjects considered important
when it came to purchasing a new computer game.
Our initial hypothesis was that users would rate
factors such as playability and visuals of a game,
much higher than the sound and music, demon-
strating that the focus in the computer gameworld
tends to be in the areas of the graphical and
gameplay domains. The survey had a total of 34
respondents. A profile of the gamers participating
in the survey, in terms of their game type prefer-
ence, is shown in Table 1.
We believe a future study should investigate
whether the favoured game genre affects particu-
lar factors that users specifically look for in games.
For example, role-playing games have been tra-
ditionally much more limited in terms of their
graphic and aural flamboyance, with greater
emphasis being placed upon story-line and depth,
whilst action and adventure games are often much
more visually stimulating.
Figure 2 and Figure 3 illustrate the results
of questions where participants were asked to
indicate the most important and, since it was as-
sumed prior to the study that the playability or
gameplay would most likely be rated highly, the
second most important feature that influenced
game purchasing decisions.
Not surprisingly, we found that the most im-
portant factor is playability. The rating for all the
other possible factors are negligible, although
somewhat surprising is that no participants rated

the sound or musical elements to be important
when deciding upon a game to buy. Intriguingly,
the ability to play a game online with other users
took favour over sound, which is an intriguing
insight into the mind of the 21st Century games
player. Users who selected the “Other” category
were prompted to provide a more detailed expla-
nation. The responses received here all related to
one of the following comments: “depth and cre-
ativity”, “the whole package” and two participants
stated that the “story or scenario” was most im-
portant.
It is argued, on the basis that playability will
always rate highest, that the results in Figure 3
are more insightful than those in Figure 2. After
all, the whole notion of computer games is that
they are to be played with! This time we see, as
we might well have expected, that the graphics
and visual stimulation was the most popular fac-
tor. As expected, the sound present in a game was
cited by a low percentage of those surveyed. The
users who chose the “Other” category on this
occasion also stated that the factor important to
them related to the story of the game. Encourag-
ingly, however, and still applicable in the context
of sound in games, is the percentage of users that
value the interface.
If we consider some of the most recent success-
ful games, where the use of music and sound has
been prominent, these titles almost all employ an
interactive sound interface of some form. Prime
examples include the Guitar Hero , Rock Band ,