Introduction The purpose of this research arose from personal interest in how music is implemented in video games and how it may impact the player’s judgment and opinions on the gameplay. Through my years of experience and exposure to video games I have become to realize that music is an essential aspect that affects the listener’s experience. I personally have come to enjoy listening to the music within games like Kingdom of Hearts (2002) and the Final Fantasy series (1987-Current). Music within games has changed over the years, noticing that the first video games like Tennis for Two (1958) and Spacewar! (1962) had no sound or music to accompany them. Collins identifies the video game Pong (Atari, 1972) as the first game to have a “bip” …show more content…
Therefore, the ability and quality of composition reached higher limits, and so music started to form its own identity (Fritsch, 2016). In 1985, a sound chip entitled “Paula” was released in a Commodores new system Amiga. This was the first home computer that utilized DSP, Digital Signal Processing, in the form of sampling (Collins, 2008). This technique allowed pre-recorded sound waves to be played back from the sound chip in the computer from memory. This allowed the composer to use samples of real instruments or other sounds at a higher fidelity and quality. Another important process during the 16-bit era was Frequency Modulation Synthesis (FM). FM chips allowed wider ranges of timbre and sound, that which generated better and more “realistic” sound effects (Collins, …show more content…
Concerning audio, the most technological advancement in the 1990’s is the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM allowed composers to use live instruments, vocals and dialogues, and it allowed for the composers to be sure how their music may sound on consumer’s computer hardware (Fritsch, 2016). Yet again a main disadvantage like to all systems, the music in the CD had to struggle for space. Luckily, in 1993 the MP3 format was released and this was able to diminish the CD problem. However, looping was still an issue, when reading the audio the laser must move back to start a new loop (Fritsch, 2016). In doing such there would be a musical gap between the end and beginning of the loop. Continuing through 1995, audio started to gain more advancement that included spatialized 3D or surround sounds. At the same time Microsoft came out with DirectX that which allowed MIDI to have higher-fidelity wavetable synthesis and sampling (Collins