INTRODUCTION
This article serie is about Mark Grimshaw’s PhD thesis on acoustic ecology in First-Person Shooters. The article serie is divided into three parts: Introduction, Acoustic Spaces and Diegesis & Immersion.

As an audio designer I work with technical limitations of the game engines, platforms and budgets, BUT sometimes it is important to ‘think outside the box’; To step out of the ‘game engine’ and have a closer look at player’s actual audio perception in visual 3D game worlds. This is why I believe Mark Grimshaw’s thesis is of great importance in the improvement of players audio experience in games.

Some of the central questions that Mark Grimshaw attempts to answer in his thesis The Acoustic Ecology Of The First-Person Shooter are: How is player aurally interacting within the 3D gaming environment? And how does s/he establish a relationship with the soundscape in which s/he explores a variety of acoustic spaces? His material of analysis is based on examples from the FPS games Quake III Arena (iD Software) and Urban Terror (Silicon Ice).

THE ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY OF THE FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER
The role of an audio designer is to build aural environments to an imitated 3D virtual gaming world, where player can navigate and interact. The focus of audio design is the player, players game play and how s/he is immersed into the 3D gaming world. The question is:

- How does player interact with gaming environment using audio and how does this have an impact on the immersion into the 3D game world?

The main subject for Mark Grimshaw’s thesis is the use of sound design and soundscapes in the game genre of First-Person Shooters. He introduces the term ‘acoustic ecology’ exploring the idea of a relationship between player’s sonic experience and the soundscape executed by the game engine and how these two components form a variety of acoustic spaces in the visual media.

The thesis builds up a thorough conceptual framework in which the acoustic ecology in FPS games can be put into context and analysed. The conceptual framework is partly based on filmsound theories and partly on existing works on digital game sound published to this date. Grimshaw builds further on the existing theories to give a more clear perspective of player’s acoustic perception and interaction in FPS games.

As an attempt to summarize some of the main points of the teminology of acoustic ecology in FPS games I will highlight some of the main terminologies that he discusses.

Listening modes
If we look at a game player – sitting in front of a TV screen and performing haptic inputs on a controller – the first point of analysis is player’s listening mode: How s/he listens to the sound source from headphones or loudspeakers.

According to Grimshaw, player’s interaction within the acoustic ecology happens by using four distinct listening modes:

• Casual listening – where focus of listening is to obtain information about the cause of the sound
• Reduced listening – where player listens to the quality of sound, abstracting from the meaning or cause of sound
• Semantic listening - where player listens analytically and use semiotic code to extract a message and interpret the meaning of sound
• Navigational listening – Grimshaw’s addition to the listening modes, where focus is to use sound as a signal that guides the player towards the sound source

Looking at the above listening modes, he points out that the casual, semantic and navigational listening modes have the highest priorities. But these listening modes are also based on player’s prior gaming experience. If player is an experienced FPS game player, s/he might quickly adapt to the acoustic ecology and game play, in contrast to an unexperienced player who will need some prior training to understand the game play and the meaning of sounds. If game player is not very experienced s/he might play through the same levels many times in order to grasp the game play by organising the sounds in ‘important’ and ‘not important’ categories and into different listening modes in order to co-ordinate her/his actions with the game play.

Affordances
Grimshaw also points out that the acoustic ecology in a game world should be interpreted as a set of ‘affordances’ or one main ‘affordance’. With this term he means that all sounds that are executed in game are subject to opportunities offered to player – meaning that all assets in a game can be understood by player as ‘action possibilities’ or ‘perceived action possibilities’, which are designed to draw player into the virtual game world.

How player choose to prioritize the sounds are again based on prior experience with game and genre. If player is new to the game, s/he will pay attention to all sounds and prioritize them equally in order to obtain a meaning, whereas an experienced player will pay attention to some sounds and less attention to others, because s/he already knows the meaning or functions of sounds and therefore knows when or where certain sounds are important according to game play.

Auditory Icons
Grimshaw points out that prior works and theories on digital game sound are too dependent on how sounds are categorized in the actual game engine such as, UI sounds, feedback, weapons, character, ambience and etc.

He expands the taxonomy of sounds and their functions and classifies them as symbolic or nomic auditory icons that can be assigned according to their functions – meaning that sounds can have a strong causal relationship to the object or action it represents. He also points out that all sounds can be interpreted differently and have different meanings according to the context of game play or environment.

The categories that Grimshaw adds are:

• Deictic – The meaning of sound is dependent on the context in which it is used
• Exclamatory – The meaning of sound is a sudden remark
• Simile – The meaning of sound is related to another thing of a different kind, to make the description more vivid or literal
• Metaphoric – The meaning of sound is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable
• Onomatopoeic – The meaning of sound is a formation of a sound that is associated with the given action or object

The categories above helps understanding the quality and function of sounds in a game play, but it also points out how their meanings can change according to game play. Imagine the following situation in a multi player game: A player takes the enemies flag and hears a metaphoric sound. But for the other players the sound is deictic, as it means that they have to change their missions and actions in order to recapture the flag.

Summary
This article is an introduction to some of the terminologies that Grimshaw discusses when explaining the acoustic ecology of FPS games. He makes distinctions between four listening modes and highlights how a game player catagorize the ‘chaos’ of sounds into different listening modes in order to co-ordinate her/his actions within the game play. The game world should also be perceived as a set of ‘affordances’ or one main ‘affordance’. Using this terminology Grimshaw suggests that the soundscape in combination with the graphic interface is designed to draw player into the game play offering her/him ‘action possibilities’ or ‘perceived action possibilities’. The use and functions of sounds also have an impact on how player is interpreting the affordances offered to her/him. But in the context of multi player games it also means that the meaning of sounds will change according to the actions performed during game play.

My next post will be on acoustic spaces in the acoustic ecology of FPS games – so stay close!