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I\u2019m rebooting myself on game audio, thinking about what really made me want to start that weird job. Playing a large array of games from the 90s to now these days.<\/p>\n
Maybe I should do a 3 point \u201cwhy game audio is still so obscure?\u201d post because it\u2019s always made games much better, the last one I played for which it\u2019s totally the case being Hotline Miami.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the AAA industry a lot of game audio is about 3D audio, High Dynamic Rendering and other 7.1 requirement that pretty much -and I know, it hurts- no one cares about. Meanwhile game audio design goes toward the less is more approach which leaves us with background audio fading in and out while dialog takes the main piece of the game audio cake.<\/p>\n
I come from a time when game audio was literally made to tractor beam kids to arcade machines blasting kicks and punches, electro bass and sticks clickety-clicks. <\/p>\n
In 2013 kids play on soundless touch, mobile devices with shitty headphones at best, no sound at worst. Parents play on their couches in the evening, with the sound on moderate if not low volume after a hard day. Nothing technically or socially that matches what \u201ctechnical\u201d sound design requires to enjoy it at its best.<\/p>\n
I feel like there\u2019s a tremendous difference between what\u2019s going on the market and what game audio designers do. So we end up with very rough, fill-in game audio for 80% of games, 10% with Hollywood-like audio budgets and 10% that are doing something that makes sense (indie games, mostly).<\/p>\n
I\u2019m from the Mizuguchi<\/a> school of thoughts which could be described as \u201cthere is no difference between Audio and Visual, it\u2019s all one experience with computer games.\u201d<\/em> So I obviously see all audio to be one experience. Of course there are different fields but let\u2019s blend more, sound folks. Game audio is a mix of different skills. Everything should go together in a better way than in a weird sandwich way, like we often do these days. Old arcade games have great sound design signatures from sound effects to music to voice over. and it goes with the visuals too. It\u2019s tight.<\/p>\n It feels like before game audio was part of the experience when it\u2019s now more on the side of production value (bigger game, more developed audio). <\/p>\n It\u2019s changing, developers are back on caring for audio (all the last indie games shine on that).<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost something entirely shifted from game audio and it shouldn\u2019t be. Choosing the type, designing the music should totally be part of the game audio designer\u2019s job. It\u2019s amazing how soporific music became in games with the advancement of 3D graphics. The last game music people talk about\u00a7remember are from early 2000s, and most are from the 80s\/90s. It says something. We need to be more bold about it. Never forget Sagat stage, one of the weirdest game music ever<\/a> and absolutely memorable because it fits that moment in the game (almost the end), that character, that mood. Composed by Alph Lyla<\/a>, Capcom in-house band made of composers and sound designers. See what I mean? We totally lost that or let\u2019s say that it\u2019s too rare.<\/p>\n Past the novelty of it mid 90s \u2013people in the game talking to me, yay!- I\u2019ve never been a fan of voice-over (well explained here<\/a>). In Skyrim you\u2019re looking at 60,000 lines of dialogs. Mass Effect 3, 40,000 lines. It\u2019s great and all but mid-sized developers shouldn\u2019t dream of doing the same but dig around others aspects of game audio that would cost less and impact I would say, even more than hours of acting. Because seriously, there\u2019s also a whole lot of terrible dialogs out there.<\/p>\n3. Game audio doesn\u2019t do music enough and voice over too much.<\/h4>\n