Paper Session 4: Gustatory and Other Sensations CHI PLAY'19, October 22–25, 2019, Barcelona, Spain Unpacking the Audio Game Experience: Lessons Learned from Game Veterans Michael Urbanek Florian Güldenpfennig TU Wien New Design University Vienna, Austria St. Pölten, Austria
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[email protected] ABSTRACT “Audio Games, as opposed to video games are com- People with or without visual impairments play and enjoy au- puter games who’s [sic] main output is sound rather than dio games. While this genre of computer games has attracted graphics. Using sound, games can have dimensions of a strong fan base and some attention in HCI, little research has atmosphere, and possibilities for gameplay that don’t been dedicated to the people who actually play audio games exist with visuals alone, as well as providing games far in their daily life. There is a pressing need to capture the more accessible to people with all levels of sight.” viewpoints of authentic or expert players, designers and de- From a design and development perspective, audio games velopers to advance audio game design. Thus, we give voice clearly lack sophistication compared to conventional video to seven game veterans of sound-based gaming, i.e., people games1, which turned into a billion dollar industry. For this rea- who each have more than a decade of profound experience in son, audiogames.net also serves as a meeting point for gamers, playing or designing audio games. We conducted a total of 14 amateur developers, and (semi-)professionals, who are not just interviews and employed grounded theory methods to unpack interested in playing, but also in advancing audio games as a their experiences.