Sure Jon, but how many game developers just don’t care, how many have an audio engine running in alphas? How many have a precise idea of what they want early, even before having visuals? How many game developers know that sound can help locking a game style or a gameplay? How many see audio as a way to juice up to the max? How many see sound as a chore? How many love old school 90s Japanese games but never searched to know what their process of making games was (page 6 and 7)?
What made their games so sonically compelling and I’m enlarging to all the audio including music, is that in Japanese game development audio is taken seriously. It’s simple, not easy!
There’s a problem of design with most of Western game development: In games if we want to give the best experience possible, music and sfxs are going to play together. They can’t be really sandwiched on top of a game. This is what we do a lot today with mixed results oscillating between unremarkable or “in your face” audio.
When it is like in Antichamber or Hotline Miami –two completely different games- it’s a beautiful dance between short audio feedback cues and wide, long mood triggers that soundscapes are (yes in my head, I put songs in the soundscape folder). It’s not about technical details, it’s not about 3D or HRTFs it’s about balance between information and feel.
There’s no more SFX and Music. There’s Game Audio. It should be the norm. Embrace it.