From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media (review)

‘It’s time for a change in studies of music and the moving image.’ Thus rang Karen Collins’ call for scholarly action in her article ‘Video Games Killed the Cinema Star’, published in the debut issue of this journal (1:1 Spring 2007). In this short but thoroughly convincing article, Collins decried the fact that games audio is often met with misrecognition in academia, deemed too simplistic for serious scholarly attention or rapidly passed over as something to be looked at by younger, more technologically-minded researchers. In response to these excuses, Collins concluded her article by suggesting the manifold untouched areas of research in the world of game sound, ranging from possible ethnographic/sociological studies of fan cultures around games audio to reception/semiotic studies of how games audio changes the many conventional ways of hearing music.

Published a year after this call-to-arms article, Collins’ edited collection From Pac-Man to Pop Music rebuts the prejudices and preconceptions held by many scholars towards games audio. Offering a fascinating array of essays by academics and practitioners, this book testifies to the depth of research being undertaken on interactive audio in games and new media.

As a leading researcher on games audio, Collins provides an expert historical and technological introductory overview of the development of games audio, from the ‘waca waca’ catchiness of Pac-Man in the early 1980s right up to the interactive complexity of the multichannel surround sound in ‘next gen’ consoles. Drawing not only on her extensive industry experience as a web developer and digital designer but also on her own memories of playing on a Commodore 64 as a child, Collins’ enthusiastic introduction is fitting for a collection with such an eye-catching title and sets an appropriately upbeat tone for the rest of this animated group of essays. She pinpoints the main dilemma of games audio – its inherent repetitive nature – and the consequent desire for dynamic, interactive sound and music, which respond both to the needs of the game and its player(s). This problem of repetition appears to have been a catalyst for much of the research undertaken by the collection’s contributors, and Collins offers a preparatory outline of why games audio is repetitive in the first place (early distribution systems, competitive nature of the industry, etc.). She concludes by summarising the current state of games audio research, emphasising the importance of developing dynamic compositional tools, which will keep abreast of the rapid technological advances in the games industry.

The multiplicity of perspectives in the collection begins with Holly Tessler’s probing look at the growing synergy between the video game and pop music industries. Her chapter opens with the voice of Steve Schnur, EA worldwide executive of music, promoting video games as the new MTV, replacing the latter as the primary form of exposure for new music. Rather than immediately voicing her own conclusion on Schnur’s rather sensational claim, Tessler speculates on his argument, discussing how video games are indeed the new cultural and industrial intermediaries of the twenty-first century. Her objective stance works well as it allows readers to form their own opinions on Schnur’s purposely provocative pitch. Throughout the article, I found myself rallying against it, seeing both video games and MTV as mediums of exposure, yes, but not as equals in the competitive industry of new music transmission. Tessler does indeed provide compelling proof of the inextricable ties between the industries in her overview of the production, promotion and distribution of popular music in video games. Yet, in the end, she too agrees that video games are a new type of MTV but not necessarily the new MTV. Rather than replacement, her article shows that, despite the important shared benefits and mutual promotion available to both industries, music is not the core product essential to video games. What is important, then, are the creative and commercial implications this has for music-makers in...