New Wine in New Skins - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 402

Learning from the experience of sound de-
signers within movies, we can conclude that we
should not avoid the ambiguous and unidentifiable
at all costs. Interaction is essentially a process
of ambiguity, requiring ongoing negotiation of
meaning and goals not just between humans but
also between humans and truly interactive com-
puter systems. Instead of associating an image,
action and sound with pre-determined, one-to-one
relationships, we can create “situations” in which
something can take place rather than conveying
“one single message”. Games do not have to be
“understandable” all the time: They may confront
us with situations that seem accidental, but reveal
their poetic quality as part of an overall gaming
experience.
Ambiguity, and also the potential to surprise,
represents certain qualities of life that need to be
taken into account when designing experience
systems like computer games. This demands a
consideration of similar techniques used in film,
such as the deconstruction of causality or defamil-
iarization, whereby, in addition to the crafting of
static sounds, they can also be achieved procedur-
ally by manipulation in real time. It is important
to keep in mind that any sound, even ambiguous
ones, can become familiar again, constituting new
categories of signifiers and establishing links to
the experience from whence they emerged.

intentionally and unintentionally (Seitter, 2007).
Playing games with sound also means hearing one-
self being active. The player does not just listen to
sonic events or a soundscape, he also does sound.
Sounds thus manifest his presence and agency in
the gameworld. Chion has introduced the term
l'ergo-audition” , to describe this “hearing oneself
doing something”. First of all, this is relevant as
regulatory feedback. But the concept includes
also (inter)subjective and socio-cultural dimen-
sions of meaning making. Usually, we hear other
people's activities rather than our own. However,
when we break a sonic taboo, for example when
sneezing during a classical music concert, we
become more, even painfully, aware, of our own
sounds. We are also aware of our sound-making
capacity in the exact opposite case: when we en-
joy hearing ourselves, a phenomenon that Chion
labelled “plaisir de l'ergo-audition” (Chion, 1998).
The sound of the beer can that I kick around, the
sound of the champagne cork popping-they are
positive manifestations of my agency and I want
them to be heard by others as well. This effect is
increased by interesting and surprising relation-
ships between my action and the sounds and also
because they encourage exploration.
This manifestation of positive agency can be
a powerful means of creating compelling experi-
ences in games. I have mentioned the simple but
effective feature of singing in the game Aquaria .
Although not very explorative, this interaction is
very satisfactory, not only because of the pleas-
ing sonic quality but also because it activates the
“joy of self-hearing”. Of particular interest is an
effect I call “differential of power”: If I press a
small button and this results in a massive, pow-
erful sound, I experience a feeling of power and
influence. A weak and fragile sound, however, is
a sign of weakness and powerlessness. Specifi-
cally designing this relationship between player
and gameworld contributes to the creation of
engaging experiences. After the discussion of
procedural approaches above, it is easy to imagine
now that the control of this relationship could be

Field of Action 2: sonic Agency
and Mediation of self

Hear Me Interact

From an anthropological point of view, making
sound is one of the first performative acts of a
human being, and the crying of the newborn can
be considered the first “public statement”. Sound
plays an important role in the constitution of our
self image and for expressing this self image to
others. Through breathing to laughing, crying, and
screaming, we have an immense palette of sonic
archetypes, and we use these instruments both