richard STevens

The first Game Audio Symposium took place last Saturday 27th May and was a huge success! We had 160 attendees including students, industry representatives and academics from all of the UK and Europe. (https://gameaudiosymposium.com/)  

 

“The Game Audio Symposium examines the process and practice of creating audio for video games, bringing together industry practitioners, academics, and aspiring audio designers in a 1-day symposium that aims to inform, develop, and inspire the next generation.” 

 

A key aim of the event was to provide and opportunity for an interface between academia and industry, identifying and pursuing practical areas of research within video game audio. Judging by some of the feedback I’d say we made great strides in this area: “I really appreciated the academic setting and educational angle tying every talk and panel together into a day of learning. Talks focused on information and sharing thoughts, and the setting provided fertile ground for conversation during the various breaks. Would like to come back for many more! The price point also made it accessible for people who are looking for resources like this. If I could help in any other capacity in the future (educational, symposium) let’s talk.” Matthew Florianz, Frontier Developments.  

 

“This gathering did more than just bring together a group of game audio enthusiasts; it fostered an environment for us to learn, grow, and connect on a new level." Dara Crawford, Black Box VR. 

 

It was great to hear how many of our industry guests had been inspired and helped on their journey by our book, ‘Game Audio Implementation’ (Routledge), and our more recent learning materials devised in collaboration with Epic Games, both arising out of our years of research in the field of video game audio.  

 

The event was also an opportunity celebrate 15 years of the MSc Sound & Music for Interactive Games course by inviting back some of our original alumni. Will Augar (Head of Audio Tech at Frontier Developments) presented a fascinating look are how the team’s research into the audio of motorsports for this year’s F1 Manager game led to a completely new process and pipeline for game audio. Using only the original broadcast recordings from last year’s Formula 1 seasons, they were able to embed metadata and track race and camera positions to generate the soundtrack from the game out of tens of thousands of hours of material.  

 

Overall, the event gave students and academics fascinating insights into practices within the medium, and helped forge relationships that will hopefully lead to future research partnerships.  

During the conference I got the opportunity again to talk with Ben Minto who joined a discussion panel on the process of sound design. Ben is a very experienced game audio designer and director who worked for many years at EA DICE on the Battlefield games before moving to his current position of Director at Sweet Justice Sound. Ben and I worked closely in the past on a paper ‘The reality paradox: Authenticity, fidelity and the real in Battlefield 4’, The Soundtrack (Volume 8) and I think it holds up as a great example of how industry and academia can come together and share insights that benefit both.  

Working with my colleague Dave Raybould our immediate goal is to prepare for an invited talk on the acoustic ecology of video games for the 2023 Game Audio Conference in Oslo. In the longer term I’d like to build on the ideas coming out of the Symposium discussion panel to start to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the practice and process of sound design, with a view towards publication of a monograph on the subject.  

The Game Audio Symposium! 

 

The Game Audio Symposium! 

 

The industry practitioners that I met during the symposium have offered to collaborate in future and will be a great resource for developing the theoretical framework around game audio.

‘Acoustic ecology revisited’ GACO ’23 (Game Audio Conference Oslo) 21st September.