Stockburger, A. (2006). The rendered arena: Modalities of space in video and computer games. Unpublished thesis PhD, University of the Arts, London.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 15/05/2008, 15:04
"The sound theoretician R. Murray Schafer considers Aivilik culture as an example for the reversal of visual dominance developed in the European Renaissance. He points out that within the Eskimo culture acoustic space influences and supersedes visual space."
"With the exception of a number of text-based games, the overwhelming majority [of computer games] have to be regarded as audiovisual kinaesthetic artefacts and the relationship between sound and image lies at the centre of the gaming experience."
"[...] it is quite obvious that a mode of reduced listening will not be achieved during the playing of an audiovisual game, simply because one is drawn to construct relations between the visual and auditory information. It is, however, possible to describe sound qualities that are inherently spatial, independent of an indexical connection to their source."
"[...] there is no “natural” relationship between a visual object and a sound, simply because all of these elements are brought together by an “artificial” program. This is not an entirely new phenomenon, since quite clearly in the case of film the relationship between the visual and the audible is also artificially established during the post-production phase. Still it could be argued that in the case of digital games there is an even higher degree of artificiality, since so many of the objects in play are part of imaginary universes."
"[Effect sound objects may be] classified as being linked to the avatar, the game characters, objects, and events."
"Game music has a huge emotional impact on the player and it generally enhances the feeling of immersion."
"In a computer game, while there also exists a set of fixed relations between sound objects and visual objects, the temporal process of visualization and acousmatisation is much more flexible and open to variation. This state of affairs makes it necessary to regard acousmatic functions in a computer game as dynamic functions. There is a constant flux between user-controlled acousmatisation and visualisation on the one hand, and the scripted behaviour designed by game developers to prepare situations of suspense."
"Immersive functions of sounds within the game space depend on low frequencies and the diffusion of individual sound events."
Stockburger proposes five spatializing functions of sound objects:
Acousmatic function – defines the relation between a sound object and the visibility of the related visual element.
Indexical function – delivers information that is vital for the gameplay (e.g. ticking sound of bomb).
Spatial signature function – is present when the surrounding space affects the qualities of sound objects (e.g. echo, reverb).
Motion function – defines the motion of sound objects.
Motoric function – simulates movement or motion (motor sounds in racing or flying games, footstep sounds in FPS games).
