SotA Anthology 2015-16 | Page 92

SotA Anthology 2015-16

How, and to what extent, does
music contribute to ‘immersion’
in video games?

Just as there are many
different
video
game
genres, there are different
types
and
levels
of
immersion experienced by
their players. The role of
sound, however, can be
categorised into two main
groups: sound that draws
the player into the fictional
game world, and sound that
shuts out the real world. The
first relies on sound to help
create a multidimensional
world in which a protagonist
can exist, such as roleplaying games or first-person
shooters. The second is a
different kind of immersion
that uses music to blur time in
games based on cognitively
demanding environments
with little or no narrative
development,
such
as
puzzle games and scrolling
platformers. If a role-playing
game is successful in
being immersive, constant
high energy music is not
needed to draw the player
in and keep their attention.
Instead, sound and music
need to be more sensitive
to the on-screen action
and environment, as they
are vital in adding depth
to a world that the gamer
can begin to feel a part of.

Similarly, in puzzle games
such as Nintendo’s Tetris,
the music and sounds
used do not need to create
a multidimensional world
because to be immersed,
the player does not have
to believe that they are a
brightly coloured shape in
the same way that they might
identify with the protagonist
or narrative of a role-playing
game. Instead, the music
needs to loop seamlessly
with positive reward stingers
for completing cognitive
tasks; it needs to block out
the surrounding real world
as much as it needs to draw
the player in, rather than
creating emotional cues.
Immersion is not the same
experience across games,
and this also applies to the
implementation of music.
The study of immersion
in media is often referred
to by psychologists as the
study of presence and
spatial presence, occurring
when “media contents are
perceived as ‘real’ in the
sense that media users
experience a sensation of
being spatially located in
the mediated environment.”
(Groner,
Weibel,
and

Assassin’s Creed II ©Ubisoft

Dr Giles Hooper leads MUSI272: Music in Gaming,
which aims (amongst other things) to give students an
understanding of the relationship between music and
gaming contexts. In this essay, graduating BA Music/
Popular Music student Kate Mancey discusses immersion.

Wissmath, 2009). A group of
European psychologists lead
by Wirth created a theory
that suggests that spacial
presence happens on two
levels, and that these levels
of immersion are contributed
to by media factors,
process components, user
actions and user factors.
On a primary level, media
factors and user factors
work together: features of
the game grab the player’s
attention at the same time
as the player consciously
gives their attention to
the game, creating what
the psychologists refer
to as automatic attention
and controlled attention.
Once the player’s attention
has been engaged, if the
game has been successful
in creating an engaging
world then a secondary
level of immersion occurs,
where the player exhibits a
suspension of disbelief as
the game-world’s physics
and laws overtake the real