Now that we have gotten the logistics out of the way, let’s talk about game audio. What exactly is game audio? How is it different from film or television audio? How is game music different from what you hear every day on the radio? The answer to this will be covered in depth in the chapters to follow but, in short, game audio is nonlinear. To put it simply, linear audio is arranged sequentially from start to finish and will never change. The sound effects in a movie will all be heard in exactly the same order at exactly the same time every time you watch it. Games are different because players are different. One player might use a sword while another uses magic. These two approaches require different sets of sound effects. In fact, this is only scratching the surface of nonlinearity. A single player might play through the same game a thousand times and she will likely never hear the same exact audio performance twice.

In practice, game audio is the intersection of many different fields. For a sound designer, game audio is the overlap between sound-effects creation, audio production and post-production, recording, mixing, audio editing, programming, and game design. For a composer game audio is the overlap of music composition, orchestration/arranging, recording, mixing, programming, and game design. And these are only the broad categories. There are still more areas like dialogue recording/editing, voice direction, music supervision, audio direction, and many more areas that overlap into game audio. Our point is that because games are so multidimensional, game audio is multidimensional. There are many subfields within game audio and each of these fields plays an important role.

Finally (and this is our own personal standpoint derived from years of game audio research and experience), game audio is fun! We are creating audio that is unpredictable and tied to a product that you can actually play. We aren’t just designing sounds and writing music, we are designing interactive audio systems for the enjoyment of players. Don’t be fooled by this –game audio is technically demanding and takes years of experience to master. It is also a highly competitive industry, which is why we have included Part IV: Business and Networking. However, for those who are patient, and truly enjoy the challenge of designing playable systems of music and sound, this is the field for you.