A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Identifying the Impact of Game Music both Within and Beyond Gameplay
Authors: Tuuri Kai, Koskela Oskari, Vahlo Jukka, Tissari Heli
Editors: Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge, Jorge C. S. Cardoso, Licínio Roque, Pedro A. Gonzalez-Calero
Conference name: International Conference on Entertainment Computing
Publishing place: Cham
Publication year: 2021
Journal: International Conference on Entertainment Computing
Book title : Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2021: 20th IFIP TC 14 International Conference, ICEC 2021, Coimbra, Portugal, November 2–5, 2021, Proceedings
Series title: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume: 13056
First page : 411
Last page: 418
ISBN: 978-3-030-89393-4
eISBN: 978-3-030-89394-1
ISSN: 0302-9743
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89394-1_33
This paper presents an overview of and a brief critical reflection on game music’s impact on players both within and beyond the context of gameplay. The analysis is based both on the current literature as well as on preliminary (work-in-progress) observations of our research project Game Music Everyday Memories. We consider how the functions and uses of game music potentially extend to people’s everyday life, thus constituting a personally and culturally meaningful relationship with music that is not immediately connected to gameplay. On the other hand, we consider the ways game music and a person’s attachment to the music are involved in gameplay motivation and potential game retention. As a conceptual thematization, four approaches for identifying the broader musical impact of games are suggested and discussed. To substantiate the discussion, we combine some preliminary observations from two different datasets gathered within the ongoing project: (D1) personal narratives of fond game music memories (N = 183), and (D2) survey-data on favourite game music (N = 785)