The apparent drivers of the development of games and their marketing-such as the fidelity of graphics and audio, or as the popular press would have us imagine, the degree of violence-are far less significant factors than the drive to increase our sense of well-being through meeting the basic needs of competence (or mastery), autonomy (or volition) and relatedness (social connection) (Przblinkski, 2009) or the desire to become immersed in narrative worlds (Cairns, 2006). One of the most compelling explanations for the huge popularity of video games is that they meet people's intrinsic psychological needs quickly, with consistency, and with great frequency (Rigby, 2010). The question of how interactive music should function in games is perhaps a misleading one, as there are many different types of games and many different types of players. To substantiate the discussion, we combine some preliminary observations from two different datasets gathered within the ongoing project: (D1) personal narratives of fond game music memories (N = 183), and (D2) survey-data on favourite game music (N = 785). As a conceptual thematization, four approaches for identifying the broader musical impact of games are suggested and discussed. On the other hand, we consider the ways game music and a person’s attachment to the music are involved in gameplay motivation and potential game retention. We consider how the functions and uses of game music potentially extend to people’s everyday life, thus constituting a personally and culturally meaningful relationship with music that is not immediately connected to gameplay. The analysis is based both on the current literature as well as on preliminary (work-in-progress) observations of our research project Game Music Everyday Memories. This paper presents an overview of and a brief critical reflection on game music’s impact on players both within and beyond the context of gameplay.
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