Austin GDC: No excuses for game audio

Microsoftâs Brian Schmidt says there are no more excuses when it comes to great game audio.

Speaking at the Austin Game Developers Conference, Schmidt, program manager for Xbox audio and media, compared the current level of audio technology with the technology that was available during the past three decades.

From 24-track tape and analog studios through MIDI and FM synthesis to pure digital, as the technology has progressed there has been a huge jump in tool sophistication and greater integration with gameplay.

In particular, the storage explosion started by CDs and DVDs has dramatically changed game audio.

âThere really shouldnât be anything right now thatâs keeping us from doing great stuff,â Schmidt said.

Unlike visuals, the bottleneck with audio is no longer the technological capabilities of what sound designers can do.

âWeâre not about realism in audio the way they are in graphics. We are about emotion. And it is harder to create emotion than realism, in an interactive way,â he said.

If all the raw materials are there for designers to use, why isnât it easy to do? For starters, Schmidt says that sound designers need to expand their scope of influence.

âIf all we ever do as sound designers is sort of sit in our space, look at the spreadsheet, FTP the files over, and download the games, we are going to hit a wall in terms of how good we can make things.â

Sound designers need to empower themselves to take control and get more involved in the design process.

But even when sound designers have great working relationships with the programmers and producers, the game still needs âkick-ass content.â Sound designers can and should be more involved in creating emotional content, according to Schmidt.

âAudio has this power to create emotion like visuals donât,â he said, noting that visuals are fleeting and donât have the ability to keep players engaged the way audio does.

Although game audio frequently aspires to sound like a film score, Schmidt has a different goal in mind. âI donât want to sound like the movies. I want to feel like the movies,â he explained.

Schmidt spoke at length of the untapped potential of game audio, and the desire to âmove from Saturday Morning Cartoons into real pieces of art.â

âIt is really an amazingly exciting time. All the pieces are sitting down there on the floorâ¦The groundwork is there. There are all these pieces are ready to go. We just havenât figured out how to put them all together yet.

âGreat game audio is out there waiting to be doneâ¦just go find it. There are no excuses any more.â