Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the retention and decision-to-gamble stages occur.
In other words, sound is used to draw people in,
make them feel comfortable, and convince them to
play. The authors hypothesize that the background
sounds and music might increase confidence of the
players, increase arousal, help to relax the player,
help the player to disregard previous losses, and
induce a romantic state leading them to believe
that they may win.
One study into the effect of background music
on virtual roulette found that the speed of betting
was influenced by the tempo of the music, with
faster music leading to faster betting. Another sug-
gests that there are two main types of casino design:
a playground design (spacious, with warm colors,
vegetation, and moving water) and a low-ceiling,
crowded and compact area. This study found
that music increased perceived at-risk gambling
intentions in the playground casino design while
decreasing the intentions in the other gambling
design. In the presence of just ambient sounds,
however, this finding was reversed (Marmurek,
Finlay, Kanetkar, & Londerville 2007). What is
certain is that the flashing lights, the room lighting,
the carpeting, and visual design of the space, the
conflicting smells of food, perfume and alcohol,
and in particular the use of loud sounds serves to
at once create feelings of excitement and luxury as
well as serving to distract the player by increasing
cognitive load (the efforts involved in process-
ing multi-modal information and use of working
memory) (see Hirsch, 1995; Kranes, 1995; Skea,
1995). Multiple conflicting stimuli and calls
on attention leading to this increased cognitive
load causes people to process information using
guessing, stereotyping, and automatic response to
stimuli rather than reasoned and rational response
and introspection.
5
This depends, somewhat, on
the type of music involved, as well as the personal
perception of the individual involved (Carter,
Wilson, Lawsom, & Bulik, 1995; McCraty, Bar-
rios, Atkinson, & Tomasino 1998; Wolfson &
Case, 2000).
Some slot machines, however, employ noise
cancellation technology to remove any “destruc-
tive interference” that may distract a player from
the flow of gameplay, to increase immersion
(Schull, 2005, p. 67). An Australian study found
conflicting reviews of background ambience, with
some players getting distracted, and others report-
ing excitement: “You can go either way when you
hear somebody else going, you can get all hyped
up and think, gee their machine's going I could
also have it, or it could go the opposite, why isn't
my machine paying. It has a double affect” versus,
“The minute I hear the 'ching, chong China man',
I quickly run around to see”… Two participants
noted that the music made them “anxious” and
“desperate” as they believed that everyone else
around them was winning something, when they
were not” (Livingstone, Woolley, Zazryn, Bakacs,
& Shami, 2008, p. 103).
Computer games today are rarely consumed
in an arcade environment whose music and sound
can be manipulated, but the use of non-diegetic
music in games as well as the use of ambience
could be adjusted to take into consideration
some of the results of these studies. For instance,
altering the perception of time through the use
of changing tempos or generating feelings of
excitement with carefully timed sound effects in
the ambient world may help to engage the player.
There are also implications here relating to games
that require further research. In particular, how
does the fact that players can substitute their
own music in Xbox360 games influence their
perception of gameplay? How does the use of
familiar music impact the player's perception of
unfamiliar games? These questions are outside the
scope of this chapter, but clearly have important
consequences in regards to player engagement
with and enjoyment of a game. Of course, more
easily manipulated than the environmental space
in which gameplay takes place, is the use of sound
in the games themselves.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search