Articles

GameSound.org Hosted Articles
If you [big pointy finger reaches out of the screen] have written a piece on game sound which you'd like to see published on gamesound.org then send it in for review.


  • Recreating Reality

    • by Kenneth Young, 9th September 2006

    A writeup of Young's Recreating Reality presentaion given at the 2006 Develop conference in Brighton, looking at the differences between sound in the real and virtual worlds.


External Articles
Many of these articles are hosted by Gamasutra - in order to view them you will need to complete the free registration process. Gamasutra is a great resource, and they won’t send you vast quantities of spam unless you ask them to - so sign up now!

Presentations from the Game Developers Conference archives may require Microsoft PowerPoint. A free PowerPoint viewer is available for PC and Mac.

If you know of any relevant articles that I don't link to then, for the love of all things shiny, please let me know.

Some of these articles are rather out of date in their thinking and applicability to current practices, but they offer interesting historical insights. Contemporary articles will no doubt age equally as fast!

Articles at the top of the list are the most recent.



  • Automatic Audio in Frostbite

    • David Mollerstedt & Stefan Strandberg, GDC Archives, 22nd February 2008

    It's always fun trying to decipher a cryptic slideshow, but you get the gist of what was said about the Frostbite engine's automated mixing and its culling of masked sounds ('HDR Audio').

  • Designing A Next-Gen Game For Sound

    • By Rob Bridgett, Gamasutra, 22nd November 2007

    Lessons to be learned from the production process of “sound designed” films and how the production process in games actually lends itself to more involvement between audio and the other crafts.

  • The acoustic ecology of the first-person shooter

    • By Dr Mark Grimshaw, Australasian Digital Theses Project, May 2007

    Grimshaw's PhD thesis on the relationships between the soundscapes of games in the 1st person shooter genre and their players.



  • Bigger Than Big: The Game Audio Explosion

    • by Steve Kutay, gamedev.net, March 2007

    Kutay imparts his take on how to achieve great game audio, covering areas such as the audio team, pre-production, sound design, music, cinematics, budget and marketing opportunities.


  • Audio Postmortem: Scarface: The World is Yours

    • by Rob Bridgett, Gamasutra, 22nd March 2007

    Bridgett spills the beans on the audio for Radical's Scarface: The World Is Yours. Of particular interest is his discussion of the game's unique audio post production period.




  • From Scarface to Simlish

    • by Blair Jackson, Mix Magazine, 1st October 2006

    A look at the people and practices behind three games which had significant parts of their sound crafted in the San Francisco Bay Area – Scarface's in-game sound effects and mix at Skywalker Sound, Sam & Max's dialogue recording at Studio Jory and The Sims 2's fictitious Simlish language crafted at Maxis.

  • Updating the State of Critical Writing in Game Sound

    • by Rob Bridgett, Gamasutra, 31st August 2006

    Academic writing on game audio is often out of date due to the lightning fast evolution of the medium. Here, Bridgett refutes some common academic assertions and suggests ways that the accuracy of theoretical writing can be improved.



  • Ubisoft

    • by Zenon Schoepe, Resolution Magazine, July 2005

    Schoepe takes a look at Ubi's mxing facilities at their Paris HQ.

  • Audio Production for Halo 2

    • by Eric-Jon Waugh, Gamasutra, 14th March 2005

    Jay Weinland and Marty O'Donnell discuss their ‘Guerrilla’ proprietary audio system developed for the interactive audio in Halo 2.


  • Evil Genius Designer Diary

    • By Richard Joseph, Gamespot.com, 10th August 2004

    Elixir's audio director Richard Joseph discusses the challenges in figuring out what an evil genius should sound like.

  • Julian Kwasneski Interview

    • By MEDIEVALDRAGON, blizzplanet.com, 14th May 2004

    Blizzard fans ask Julian Kwasneski all about his work on Starcrat: Ghost and how he got in to the industry.

  • Audio Asset Management for Large Projects

    • by David Chan, GDC Archives, March 2004

    Chan explores how to avoid getting in a mess when working on a large project, covering topics such as naming conventions, the tracking of assets and implementation.

  • Audio Director to the Rescue

    • by Andrew Boyd, GDC Archives, March 2004

    The critical role played by an Audio Director in creating good game audio.





  • Subtlety and Silence

    • by Rob Bridget, Develop Magazine, October 2002

    Bridget discusses the lack of dynamic range in game audio.

  • Producing Audio for Halo

    • by Marty O’Donnell, Gamasutra, 20th May 2002

    A post-mortem analysis of the music, sound and dialogue in Bungie’s Halo.

  • Audio In/Audio Out

    • by Darryl Duncan, IGDA, March 2002

    The pros & cons of being an in-house audio developer vs a freelance contractor, and how to make the transition between the two.

  • Sound for Playstation2

    • by Philip De Lancie, Mix Magazine, 1st February 2001

    A nice introduction to implementing audio on the PS2, looking at the technical limitations and production process.