Music in Games, and its effects on immersion and emotions. (research project)

... Through the Fire and Flames !

Beatbuddy.

Single player games wouldn't be good without music. But I always play multiplayer games without music (CS, CoD S&D) because I want to know where the opponent is without SKIPPYDADADADOPUWEIORMAMADFKH IM SCAAAAAAATMAAAAAAAAAN interrupting everything I do.

My recently played game electronic super joy.

Will complete later, busy at the moment, good luck with your survey though :)

For #6 you could also have tv/radio/noise source in the background

I personally always turn off game music. I find its usually too annoying/distracting while playing single or multi player games. I usually have a TV on in the background, but if I want music I will start up winamp and play it in the background where I can pause it or turn it off any time I want to even in the middle of a battle or driving.

In fact its the first thing I do when I install a new game, go into the options and turn off the music.

It's like i can imagine Bioshock without THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqb7aixNTMo it's one of best game moments i ever experienced in my whole life.

Completed. Just my 2 cents about music in games: I play all of them with music, what chenges is source of it. Some games, like Bastion, have awesome soundtrack that I use. But if soundtrack isn't good enough, or there's actually none(CS or other online games, for example), i just turn online radio or music player.

Done! An option to specify on Q3 would have been nice tho.^^

Opinion on music in games:
When it sounds like generic muzak it rather bothers me, I tend to put it on a lower volume. On the other hand more and more games, usually indie titles, really surprise me with their wonderful music. Everything's done with a great attention for detail and quality. There are even some absolute gems to discover, something i couldn't have imagined earlier as a gamer. I hope this trend continues.

I love these surveys! :D

I don't know if it's only me, but in Shadow of the Colossus, the music had an amazing effect on me. It's this really heroic neoclassical epic soundtrack that sounds just right enough to make you want to go out and bring down the beasts. After a few colossi, I started feeling bad about killing them and a rather heavy guilt took over me while I was riding to their location, but after encountering them and hearing the music I shifted into "I'm an adventurer, motherfucker!" mode and went along with killing them. Then they fell to the ground, the music stopped, and I never felt so god damn shitty about a murder in any other game that I have committed. The last battle is also notable for having a rather brooding soundtrack as opposed to the others, and it creates one of the most depressing fights that you just don't want to fight. The music manipulated me throughout, and it may be only me, but there must be other people who react the same way in other games. I'm pretty sure if you'd put Baraka's soundtrack in DayZ, a lot less Kill-On-Sight incidents would happen, whereas putting Slayer on would grant for an almost PvP (yes, even more PvP) experience.

HotLine Miami, Mafia 1, Fallout 3 and LA Noire... i loved music in these games (GTA soundtracks are also good, but that is not what you look for i recon)

I loved many of the soundtracks in the games I've played thus far, such as Bastion, Electronic Super Joy, Stealth Bastard Deluxe, Super Meat Boy, Awesomenauts, VVVVVV, and many others. I personally loved Skullgirls' soundtrack the most, so far. I find a good soundtrack to be a really important point in videogames in general, since music does instill certain feelings which may not reach you if you played it without the sound on. Pretty much the same goes for voice acting, although to a lesser extent, in my opinion.

I am a musician myself, and I also made music for some (smaller) games already. From my point of view, music can enhance the overall experience greatly. I really dislike watching a Let's Play with a game which has my music in it when I see the LPer muting it completely instead of turning it down. :( It always breaks my heart.

However, in many casual games, the overly happy, joyful tunes get annoying quickly. Also, I think with the very cinematic tracks in newer games, especially in AAA titles, the melodies are a lot less memorable. The music in the example of the survey is a great tension builder, but I wouldn't remember it even 5 minutes later. I think it focusses more on the effect (tension) than on being memorable. If I compare this to old games on the NES, SNES and so on, it's an interesting development: The music sounds far more impressive, yet it's just in the background. Melodies were very important when you had only a few channels, often not even polyphony, and some 8bit beeping and noise. I am still not annoyed by the Tetris themes and I've listened to those short loops for many, many hours. Same with Super Mario, Megaman, Sonic and so on. In fact, Nintendo uses the same Mario themes (in slight variation) over and over again. Maybe the music back then had less effect on the overall mood of the player - Epic sounding orchestra soundtracks with tons of instruments are probably better for that - but I think it was better overall. Personally, I'd say that the Final Fantasy series is a good example for "good" music - Highly emotional and still memorable.

But from personal experience, I also know that many players don't really care for the music or notice it too much. Out of ~100 player reviews, it's already awesome if only 20 mention the soundtrack, be it positively or negatively. Graphics seem to be far more important for many.

In conclusion, I'd say music is one of the least important parts of a game for most players. Great music can't make a game with shitty gameplay any better (graphics can do that to some extent), but a already good game can become really awesome with the right soundtrack. Especially AAA titles often just use impressive, but very generic music.

Done.

For me, much like many things in video games, producers and devs are still 2nd tier to movies/television in being able to use music powerfully to their advantage. Certainly there are some games that do it right. Bastion, as mentioned above. I also thought the Batman series, and Mafia II did a pretty good job.

But many times, the cool factor seems to override the judicious use of a score.

I find my self irritated with video game music much of the time, though.

The next survey might also have questions reflecting a drill down on background music use and demographics (one of the options being "no" or multiple negative options, instead of the more ambiguous leaving blank - hard to know why left blank - genre of music not represented? Doesn't listen to music while gaming? something else?), as well as, perhaps, another video with a completely different genre of music to evoke another emotion. The kind of metal/whatever in the clip just makes my head hurt, so there's no added value whatsoever for me there.

I'm also "old" by this community's standards, I suspect (yes, I know there are other old men around here, but as a percentage).

Either way, good luck on the survey, compilation of results, and can't wait to see the data.

I still say producers can do better with music in games. :)

If it wasn't the music of Hotline Miami, the game wouldn't be what it is in the end. I am a "musician" so if the game doesn't have a nice OST, BG and sound effects my experience will decrease and be over quickly.

But, there is games without much music or sounds that do it really well like Papers, Please, they doesn't use much sound but the trivial to make the experience enjoyable and immersive.

we are in an era of really awesome music in games, and i think it greatly enhances gameplay, for example the music in hotline miami makes you feel like some manic coke fuel'd lunatic, and the orchestral music of skyrim when you absorb a dragons soul really makes you feel like you are the dragonborn, and bastion man...so original, never would of thought id like music like that, music with lyrics in a video game, crazy, but i loved it.

Another example of good fitting music:Spec Ops.

Music adds a lot to many games.
For example I couldn't even imagine the Painkiller series or the Devil May Cry series without the music. That's even one of my complaints about DmC: Devil May Cry- the boss music was often just as slow and monotone as the bosses themselves and it increased the boredom effect (the only exception was the one boss who actually had good music with him). The game also has a thing called "Bloody Palace Mode" where you can fight waves of enemies and eventually the bosses but it was entirely music-less which made it pretty awful and forced.
Another game series off the top of my head would be the Serious Sam series. In 3, for most of the fighting you have either generic battle music or "area" music. But when a boss pops up and one of the rockin' soundtracks start it really boosts the adrenaline.
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams does a thing where when you switch the character and "warp" the world the music changes accordingly. This adds a LOT of atmosphere and since you're constantly switching keeps all the amazing soundtracks fresh even after dozens of hours played. :D

That said, there are some longer games where the music eventually starts to get repetitive and annoying. I recently started turning off FTL: Faster That Light's music because it's the same thing over and over and over (and over) again. When playing King's Bounty: Warriors of the North (a game that drags on FOREVER) the battle music became so repetitive that even hearing a little of it pissed me off (it didn't help that it was pretty rubbish or they reused the music from previous games).

I usually associate a soundtrack with whatever happens in-game when it plays, so it also has the opposite effect of just listening to soundtracks that normally play during combat increasing the adrenaline, regardless of what I'm doing at the time.

So, yeah, that's the feedback I can give. :)

Some games have "music" and it doesn't really change much if you play with or without it...
but then there are games with MUSIC and turning it off would just hurt gameplay badly!

(Few examples:
Payday: The Heist - See You At The Safe House
Hotline Miami - M.O.O.N - Hydrogen
Assassin's Creed II - Venice Rooftops )

Completed survey.
Some games have such amazing soundtracks... Dragon Quest 8 The game had music nearly all the way through then near the end it stops playing and holy crap, it's terrifying when it does, so that might be something to note.

The FTL soundtrack is great because it isn't a first person game, removing that sort of simulation immersion but instead adds mood while complimenting the sound effects.

done