Sound in Electronic Gambling Machines - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 9

if the game involved was a custom-built game for
the purposes of the study (we could find no refer-
ences to the game in Google), and so Yamada's
findings remain dubious at best. However, what
Yamada's work does show is that it is highly likely
that music plays an important role in increasing
the illusion of success.
Of course, winning sounds are particularly
important to the popularity and attraction of the
machines and losing sounds are rarely heard. When
losing sounds are used in some machines, they are
intentionally employed to antagonize the player,
creating a short-term sense of frustration that, it
has been suggested, prolongs the play period in
what has been called “acoustic frustration”:

game, the louder and quicker the music usually
becomes. High pitched sounds—very common to
slot machines—are also very useful in attracting
our attention as they perceptually appear closer
to us. Notes Millicent Cooley (1998): “Advertis-
ers use this principle when they pump television
commercials full of high frequency audio that
makes characters sound as if they are intruding
into viewers' homes.” The types of sounds used
in EGMs are also carefully chosen according to
Western cultural likes and dislikes. As one study
of pleasing sounds found, chimes are particularly
highly rated: “Our highest rated sounds generally
related to escapism (e.g., fantasy chimes, birds
singing) and pleasure (children laughing)” (Effrat,
Chan, Fogg, & Kong, 2004, p. 64).
Large wins in slot machines are character-
ized by a “rolling sound” with the length of the
win tied to the length of the music cue. Winning
sounds are often carefully constructed to be heard
over the gameplay of other players to draw atten-
tion to the machine and to raise the self-esteem
of the player, who then becomes the center of
attention on the slot machine/casino/bar floor
(Griffiths & Parke, 2005, p. 7). Often, this music
contains high pitched, major mode songs with
lots of chimes and money sounds. Higher pitch
also has a tendency to increase the perception of
urgency, with that increase in perceived urgency
corresponding to an increase in pitch, but it also
helps to cut through the ambient noise of a busy
casino (Haas & Edworthy, 1996).
There are several implications here for com-
puter game sound. First is the reinforcement role
of both encouraging and antagonistic sound. Sonic
rewards are under-utilized in games and the idea
of a reward schedule, while it has been used in
computer games, is likewise unusual. To tie the
two together—to have a system of sonic rewards
at anticipated specific timings in the game—can
help to keep a player interested for longer. Los-
ing sounds, as discussed above, are perhaps the
equivalent of player health decreases or death in a
computer game. It is quite common for computer

Antagonistic sounds invoke frustration and disap-
pointment. For example, on The Simpsons fruit
machine, Mr. Smithers smugly informs Homer
Simpson that, “You're fired”, or Chief Wiggam
says, “You're going away for a long time”. At pres-
ent, we can only speculate about the consequences
of such sound effects. In line with hypotheses sup-
porting frustration theory and cognitive regret…
this might make the fruit machine more inducing.”
(Parke & Griffiths, 2006, p. 171)

This idea of acoustic frustration could be
adapted and utilized by computer games more
effectively than is currently seen. For instance,
commentary on gameplay (see below) is com-
mon in some types of games but absent in most
computer games. Sound effects and music could
play a commentary effect without using dialogue
as well.
The types of sounds used are particularly
important to their affective power. Pulsating
sounds that increase in pitch or speed (vibrato
and tremolo) have been shown to help to increase
tension and verbal reinforcements (both nega-
tive and positive) are used to goad the player on
with a sensation known as perceived urgency
(see Edworthy, Loxley, & Dennis, 1991; Haas &
Edworthy,1996). The deeper a player gets into a