By Mitch Rice
The world of video games is one of great depth, huge profits, and iconic titles. Dating back over fifty years, video games have brought immense joy to the masses, inspired creativity, and influences a lot of our popular culture. One of the major features that often stands out among the world’s most popular video game titles is the music and sound. Many of us experience some great nostalgia when hearing a track from our favorite games that we played in our childhood, and this is a testament to both the joy we get from playing these games and the sheer power of music and sound. This article aims to delve into why sound design and music are such important factors in video games and why it is still greatly considered in many different areas of the games industry. But first, let’s take a look at why music affects us so much and the science behind sound.
The Science Of Sound
Essentially, sound is all about vibrations and waves. When an object vibrates, it will create a sound wave, whether it’s audible to us or not. That wave is basically made up of vibrating particles smashing into other particles and creating a chain reaction of collisions. These waves move away from the source of the sound, bouncing off of surfaces and other objects. As you’ll know, sound can be made into extremely complex combinations of waves. Music is one of these, essentially consisting of an assortment of different sound waves being created simultaneously and in certain patterns. Our eardrums react to these sound waves when they enter our ears. Those vibrations of our eardrums are then turned into signals that travel through our nerves to our brains. Our brains will then interpret those signals, converting them into the sounds we hear. Certain technologies convert sound waves in much the same way, such as microphones, operating like a digital eardrum, sending the sound data to whatever they are connected to, be it a speaker, recording device, or computer of some kind.
How Music Affects Our Brain
From a biological standpoint, the brain is quite a complex organ, and music can have a profound effect on it. When it comes to memories, these fade, more often than not, but there are some that we will hang onto often due to being impactful to our lives. These can be negative memories of fear, sorrow, and other bad feelings, or they can be profound points of learning or moments of intense joy and love. Music can attach itself to these memories, often due to us hearing them during certain events, such as the song that was playing when you met your partner or a tune that you listened to during your favorite summer as a child. This music can then trigger the same hormones to be released that were released by your brain at those points in time. This is why people often state that a certain song feels as though it has transported them back in time to a particular moment. This same effect can happen with tastes, smells, touch, and of course, sight. More often than not, we will listen to music that makes us feel happy, as our brains release dopamine when we’re listening, as this molecule makes us experience pleasure, motivation, and satisfaction. This is why having a good playlist to listen to at the gym can help us to work much harder than if we weren’t listening to anything.
How Music Started In The Games Industry
Music began to be incorporated into games in the 80s. Namco’s Rally-X game was the first reported game to feature a continuous melody as its background music. Of course, many games had music in them, but more often than not, this was a jingle for the title screen, and that was it. The sound was not complex at all and was composed using chiptune. This was also known as 8-bit music and is a type of synthesized music and sounds using very basic sound chips. This is the general sound you’ll likely remember from old arcade games or an old Nintendo console, for example. During this era, composers began creating now-iconic 8-bit tracks that can stir up extreme nostalgia for many of us today. Games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, Doom, and Tetris all boast some very recognizable and iconic tracks throughout the entire game, and many of us can hum their themes off the top of our heads.
The Impact Of Sound In Games
While sound and music will be able to generate nostalgia, sound design in games today is much more important. After all, that nostalgia isn’t going to be a thing until a few decades’ time when we are reminiscing about the games we currently play. Sounds design can actually make or break a game, though. Aside from the music, the noises you hear when playing can either help to immerse you in the experience or be unnecessarily jarring, even to the point that you no longer want to play that game. When it comes to casino games, for example, sound design can improve the experience of players significantly. Slot games at an online casino need to feel similar to those you’d play in a real casino, giving the player as authentic an experience as possible and improving their level of enjoyment. The classic sounds of slot machine jingles when dials are spinning, buttons are being pressed, and money is won enough to encourage people to keep playing, and the same can be said for other games, too.
Giving Players Control
A common theme in video game music over the years has been to hand over the controls to players as to what music is playing. Repetitive music, no matter how iconic, can easily get on your nerves when you’re trying to concentrate, and this ended up with developers adding music and other audio controls to game settings. Some even allowed you to not only mute and turn down the volume of the game’s music but also select which tracks are playing. One of the most popular gaming franchises, Grand Theft Auto, took this to the next level and instead incorporated this music choice into the game itself, allowing players to change their radio stations to suit their tastes. This also then led to later games having more and more access to licensed music.
The Music Of Video Games Today
Today, the music of video games continues to be an impactful feature, and some have even built their whole gameplay around music itself. Games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are naturally all about playing music. In these games, you match the beat by hitting buttons at the right time on a special controller shaped like an instrument. This concept has also progressed towards virtual reality, with games like Beat Saber becoming one of the most popular games in the world of VR. Some other games have even incorporated music into the movement of the game itself. Niche independent developers have created games like Crypt of the NecroDancer, in which you move your character through a randomly generated dungeon, fighting enemies and dodging traps, all to the beat of the game’s music. It’s fair to say that music has and always will play a pivotal role in the creation of video games, whether the gameplay hinges on the music or simply helps to invoke certain feelings in the player.
Data and information are provided for informational purposes only, and are not intended for investment or other purposes.
