[ecrea] Call for Papers: Hear The Music, Play The Game // a special issue for GAME – Games as Art, Media, Entertainment

GAME – Games as Art, Media, Entertainment
www.gamejournal.it
Call for Papers – n. 6/2016

Hear The Music, Play The Game
Music And Game Design: Interplays And Perspectives

Edited by Hillegonda C. Rietveld and Marco Benoît Carbone

http://www.gamejournal.it/n-62016-hear-the-music-play-the-game-music-and-game-design-interplays-and-perspectives/#.VbCbv4cn91M

Music composition and sound design in video games are important
dimensions in the experience of play, gaining increased acknowledgement
and attention within the game industry. The growing relevance and
success of several kinds of music-based games, and their codification in
novel genres and sub-genres, illustrates one tendency in this shift of
focus towards the aural in relation to the usually visual dominance of
the medium. This calls for an attempt to reconsider the often-overlooked
impact of music and its role in defining games. Arguably, a distinction
can be made between games in which music functions in the background,
and games in which music is an integral part of the game mechanics. For
example, attention to game music demands a reconsideration of the
importance of sonic content in past productions, and to look at
practices like the revival of chip music, associated with early arcade,
console, and home computer games. Meanwhile, the music industry has
recognized the importance of game music, as demonstrated by the growing
amount of releases of game sound tracks as well as occasional in-game
music sales in and across new and different markets. Composers and sound
designers have too often been regarded as contributors to the final
phases of game development, despite the central affective power of music
production in game design and the experience of play.

So far, academic research has focused mostly on general aspects of sound
design. There seems to exist a vastly unexplored area of analysis for
thinking about how technological change, market differentiations, and
evolving social contexts of media consumption have affected game-music
interactions over the past decades. With this call for papers, we
encourage research on music as a multi-faceted creative and professional
practice, of importance to the development and understanding of video
games. Through a focus on music in relation to the overall game
architecture we wish to emphasize the aural as a crucial dimension.
Encouraging contributions from video game and music scholars, including
musicologists, semioticians and media researchers, we are interested in
papers exploring the intersections, interaction, and growing reciprocal
influences between these fields.

We are particularly interested in analyses that focus on aspects and
issues at the intersection of game and music studies that include, but
not are limited to, the following themes:

• The general impact of music in game experience, on the acoustic space
of games and on how a game is played within its sonic architecture.

• Non-linear approaches to music in game making: interactive
sonicscapes, audio environments, immersive experiences.

• The impact of technologies in music creation: audio chips, storage
devices, gaming systems and their relation with music design and musicians.

• Music game genres, streams, prototypes and innovative programming
and/or performance, seen in professional, audience, and cultural context.

• Composers and music makers within game production teams or as game
makers, seen through their specific background and contexts as
composers, DJs, singers, voice actors, from different disciplinary
perspectives.

• Game musicians as game personalities and their impact on defining
leading franchises, brands, and gaming universes.

Authors are encouraged to submit an initial proposal of 500 words (excl.
bibliography) by the 15th of October 2015 as a word document or PDF to
(rietvehc /at/ lsbu.ac.uk) and (marcobenoitcarbone /at/ gmail.com).

The proposal should describe the topic, outline the main aims and
question or argument, and provide relevant references.

Notification of acceptance to the issue will be communicated by the 5th
of November 2015. Authors of successful proposals will then be asked to
submit a full article of 7,000 words by the 25th of February 2016.

Papers will undergo a double-blind peer review process, and accepted
contributions will be published in a 2016 issue of GAME – Games as Art,
Media, Entertainment.

Contacts:
Marco Benoît Carbone (London College of Communication)
(marcobenoitcarbone /at/ gmail.com)

Prof Hillegonda C. Rietveld (London South Bank University)
(rietvehc /at/ lsbu.ac.uk)

http://www.gamejournal.it/n-62016-hear-the-music-play-the-game-music-and-game-design-interplays-and-perspectives/#.VbCbv4cn91M

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