Sound in Electronic Gambling Machines - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 4

rounds available depending on the version of the
game: a Great Lobster Escape, and a Buoy Bonus
round in which additional payouts are guaranteed
but the amount of payout varies. 3 In these bonus
rounds, the player is asked to select from a variety
of options, giving the player the illusion of control
and the perception of skill. The use of a stopping
device, for instance, in which the players can stop
the spinning of the reels voluntarily, increases the
perception that the stopping is not random but that
there is some form of skill involved: By having
that control, there is an increased probability of
success, thus making the game more attractive to
the player (Ladouceur & Sévigny, 2005).
Indeed, slot machines today can feature a li-
brary of game variations, in order to increase what
the industry calls “time on device” (Schull, 2005,
p. 67). Some features of EGMs (and particularly
bonus rounds) such as nudge and stop buttons,
give the illusion of control to the player—an
important component but one that the gaming
industry has referred to as being an “idiot skill”
(Parke & Griffiths, 2006, p. 154). This perhaps
calls to mind the “button-mashing” skill of the
early arcade game beat'em-up genre. 4 David Sur-
man (2007) notes that Capcom's 1987 arcade hit
Street Fighter, for instance, was released with a
touch-sensitive hydraulic button system in which
the increase of the player's pressure on the button
related to the power of the player's character's
kicking and punching, thus encouraging play-
ers to bang and smash on the buttons. He states:
“This 'innovation' led to many machines being
rendered defunct by over-zealous players smash-
ing the control system. The cacophony of these
large red buttons being bashed would come to
signify the arcades which stocked a number of
these first Street Fighter units” (pp. 208-209).
When the player has an increased perception of
control, they are more likely to engage with the
game, play for longer, and spend more money.
Bonus or built-in “secret” functions (often a
cancel button, slow-down or hints—these are typi-
cally not actually secret but often not immediately

apparent) also increase the illusion of control.
The bonus elements of gameplay are sometimes
hinted at by the sound (as in The Simpsons EGM,
in which Krusty the Clown says “Here's a clue
for ya, Jack”). A simple bonus or increased skill
component leads to an increased psychological
involvement on the part of the player and, it is
suggested, has a “significant effect on habitual
gambling” (Parke & Griffiths, 2006, p. 176).
The use of these functions helps to keep players
interested in that they hope that they will learn
the “secrets” of the machine and thus be able to
demonstrate their skill through winning as well
as increase their winnings. Of course, similar
bonus rounds and “Easter Eggs” are often built
into computer games to reward the regular player
who has taken the time to find them—thus upping
the player's credibility amongst other gamers.
Usually superfluous to gameplay, Easter Eggs
are nevertheless viewed as rewards for the time
spent on the device (see Oguro, 2009). But even
beyond the world of Easter Eggs, players develop
skills beyond the initial simple skills required to
technically play a game, notes Surman (2007):

While a player new to videogames explores the
pleasures of the gameworld with the clumsy
curiosity of a toddler, as one becomes a more
sophisticated gamer other pleasure registers come
into play, which are concerned with a literacy of
sorts in which one is sensitive to the codes and
conventions of the gameworld, and the panoramic
experience of worldliness reduces to a hunt for
the telltale graphical or acoustic 'feedback loops',
confirming success in play. Still higher, as the core
gameplay becomes exhausted, players end up cen-
tring on the reflexive undoing of the gameworld;
pushing it to its limits, exploring and exploiting
glitches, ticks, aberrations in the system. (p. 205)

This description fits closely with Csíkszentmi-
hályi's (1990) ideas of the requirements for flow
(immersion), where a careful balance between
difficulty and skill is required to continually en-