Music in Games, and its effects on immersion and emotions. (research project)

Glad to help

I prefer to disable music and only use sound effects, voices, and ambient sound effects.

Music does matter - I find games without soundtracks to have more immersion(e.g. you can hear sometimes actual background noises and the sounds of your actions are much clearer),and game with soundtracks to affect your playstyle(e.g. some music lets you know that something important is going to happen,that you should be cautious,or that the boss is going to appear). There's also the subject of misc sounds that effect immersion,like does it sound different when you shoot through wood than when your bullets get stuck in a wall? There are also types of games where music can play a much bigger part,for example in visual novels it can actually amplify emotion when used right or completely break the game when used wrong.

Only time I turn down volume on music in a game is when I'm playing while working (which I can do when it's slow but have to pick a game that can be paused easily so I use this for grinding for levels and idling for trading cards) or if I'm going to have to do a lot of grinding in an area.

For example Oath in Felghana's Searing Struggle is commonly thought by fans to be one of the better songs in the soundtrack. Well, the area it plays in also has one of the best end game grinding zones for when you are getting your butt kicked on nightmare and inferno difficulty and nothing is giving more than one experience point. So listening to that song for a long time on repeat does make it tedious, so I'll turn the music off and put on my mp3 playlist and jam away to other music from Falcom games. I definitely prefer having music when playing a game, but I'll switch it up if I'm going to hear one track for too long because I don't want to get sick of it.

hmm, audiosurf without music? nope

Done.

Didn't find any differences between video with music or without. But that's only case with this particular video. While listening to this I was thinking "meh. music like ten thousand identical other pieces". For me it was kinda generic, typical for this kind of games… that's why my mind wasn't even registering it. I didn't notice any differences because I was thinking that it wasn't anything special or worth listening.

There are games with music done so poorly that you won't even notice there were any songs in this.

But there are masterpieces like Bastion or Limbo that you can't imagine without music.

oh man cant even imagine how The last Of us would be without its great music....

also Beyond:Two souls music was something that i cant talk about ,it was really really emotional and really immerses me on the game and how jodie(main character)feels...still when ever listening to its OST i feel the same.......

also in Cod MW2 i experienced a really great music it was what it should and yeah it was great...(never happend in any other cod series(except one sound track(adrenalin) in CoD:BO2 OST)

When playing with friends I'm usually voice chatting and have all music off. However, I always have the game music on when I'm playing a SP game. There are some games where I pop on my iTunes, but in most I love listening to the soundtrack.

Done.

As for my opinions on game music, what makes it better or worse depends on a number of things, the main one being how well the soundtrack fits in with the game's theme. Music should add to the atmosphere. Two good examples of this are Advent Rising and the original Tomb Raider. The soundtracks made both games so much better.
It would have been such a chore playing both if they had buttrock or dubstep shoehorned into 'em.

Placement is also key. Put them into a memorable scene, and the song will often end up deeply tied to your first experiences with it.