After reading Chapter 4 from “Game Sound” by Karen Collins, I only now realize the importance of music in video games and how it really affects the game-play experience. You know that the music is there in the background, but it is usually not always your primary focus while you play the game. If the music were to be taken away, playing the games would definitely not be the same and quite frankly boring. In the game Doom, I found it interesting where Collins describes how there are different sounds for each demon and the different volume levels depending on how far or close you are to the demons. This made me think of when I watch scary movies. When the creepy, eery music starts to play at a low volume and slowly starts to get louder, you know something is going to pop out and try to make you jump. This can be applied to video games, which lets the player predict when something is about to occur, and to know when you need to defend yourself or attack when an enemy is nearby.

Near the very end of Collins’ reading, I found the quote from Denis Dyack to be interesting. He states that the video game developers would rather focus on creating new games to produce rather than worry about the hardware and all the different platforms available. I think this poses an interesting topic of discussion: Do you agree with Dyack, to have just one hardware console out there so there can be more games produced? Or is it better the way things are now, with multiple different platforms and consoles for a well-rounded variety of gaming-experiences?