Videogame Music History

Jordan Gibson

2-21-2015

English 104 Section 41

        Literature Review        

Musical instruments have been around for 40,000 years. The use of music for thousands and thousands of years shows how integral it has become in our lives. It is necessary for everything from movies to video games. Video games have been around since the early 1970’s. The first example of music, or sounds, in a video games would be in Pong (IGN). The player would hit a ball back and forth across a center line, and a clack sound would go off every time the ball hit a paddle. While that clack sound is nothing compared to the diversity of music and sounds in today’s video games, it shows how integral sounds and music in video games are.

Music in video games is not limited to just the actual music. As outlined by Karen Collins, dialogue, music, sound effects, ambiance, and interface sounds are all considered music by game developers due to it being audio (Procedural Music).  The main reason this is important is because while games are non-linear, which means that not every player will experience the same gameplay as everyone else, the music and sounds in the game are constant.         

People may not think much about the music that they hear while they play video games.        (As Glenn McDonald said, “As with film, television, and other primarily visual mediums, sound and music in the beginning were often the forgotten elements in video game design. That’s because sound elements have a more subtle effect than do splashy visuals or hyper-speedy gameplay. In fact, oftentimes the mark of superior sound design is that you don’t consciously notice it at all” (History of Video Game Music- GameSpot).)

Music is an afterthought in video games and most of us could care less about it. The think about the music in games is that we do not fully understand the significance that it holds on the overall value and quality of the game.

        Glenn McDonald also talked about how music works on the player subconsciously during a game. It draws you into the game world to make it seem more realistic. NPR talked about how Space Invaders used the music within its game to make the player feel something (Evolution of Video Game Music). As the ships started to come down, and they got closer and closer, the sound sped up and got faster. This was a trick that the programmers used to make the players heart rate increase. The game developers did a study to see how much the music affected the heart rate and the results were surprising. They did one text with the music and it raised the heart rate of the players and the players started to panic more and more as the ships got closer. Then they did a test when the game was on mute, and the people would not panic as much. The purpose of music in video games is to change the heart rate. To make a player move and make them feel.