Sound in Electronic Gambling Machines - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 8

sOUND IN EGMs increase the perception that the sound is more real

than it is in actuality and to reduce the recognition
that it is merely careful programming at play. The
patent describes:

The earliest slot machines, such as the Mills Lib-
erty Bell of 1907, included a ringing bell with a
winning combination, a concept that is still present
in most slots today. Playwright Noël Coward noted
that sound was a key part of the experience in Las
Vegas: “The sound is fascinating . . . the noise
of the fruit machines, the clink of silver dollars,
quarters, nickels” (in Ferrari & Ives, 2005). As
in the contemporary nickelodeons, sound's most
important early role was its hailing function, at-
tracting attention to the machines (Lastra, 2000,
p. 98). Sound in EGMs has advanced alongside
the technological changes introduced into the
machines in the last few decades. EGMs are now
using computer-generated graphics, popular mu-
sic, and high-fidelity sampled sound rather than
relying on mechanical ball-bearings, bells or basic
square-wave synthesizer chips.
Today, sound effects in EGMs are used for a
variety of feedback and reward systems. Up until
about the early 1990s, slot machines featured about
15 ''sound events'', whereas they now average
about 400 and are often carefully researched to
manipulate the player (Rivlin, 2004, p. 4). Sound
designer George Sanger described that sound is
created “by committee” and that the committee
“always want it to be more exciting” with little
consideration for a dynamic range in the excite-
ment portrayed (Personal communication, October
15 2009, Austin, TX). This includes sound effects
of coins falling even though many slot machines
neither accept nor pay out coins anymore. Notes
Bill Hecht, an audio engineer for IGT, “We basi-
cally mixed several recordings of quarters falling
on a metal tray and then fattened up the sound
with the sound of falling dollars” (Rivlin, 2004, p.
3). Moreover, these false coin sounds can portray
wins much larger than the actual win.
Unpredictable sounds in particular help to
capture and maintain our attention (Glass &
Singer, 1972). There has even been a recent patent
to randomize winning sound effects in order to

In the conventional slot machine… the sound
effects generated from the speaker are based on
only one kind of sound effect pattern. For ex-
ample, when a big bonus game occurs, a fanfare
indicating the occurrence of the big bonus game
is sounded, and so forth. Meanwhile, with a slot
machine in which a special game has once oc-
curred, the player typically keeps playing games
while expecting special games to further occur.
In this case, if the sound effects (winning sounds)
identical to those at the first occurrence of the
special game are generated upon the second or
later occurrence, the pleasure of gaming may not
fully be enjoyed. (Tsukahara, 2002, p. 1)

Slot machines use pseudo-random number
generators carefully programmed to elicit the
right reward schedule, however, and there is no
real skill involved, only manipulations of per-
ception. Recent research findings that music can
increase success rate, for instance, are fallacious
because it is simply not possible. Yamada (2009)
for example proposes that:

Results indicated that the no-music condition
showed the best rate of success. Moreover, a
“mixed” musical excerpt added “unpleasantness”
to the game and, in turn, resulted in a negative
effect on the success rate. Increasing the speed
increased the “potency” of the game, but did
not affect the success rate, systematically. In the
second experiment, we used the two excerpts
performed in various registers and with various
timbres as musical stimuli. (p.1)

It is unclear if Yamada custom-designed the
games that were tested or if the test was for il-
lusion of success and perceptions of gameplay
rather than actual success, and neither is it clear