Synchronizing Teams
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Synchronizing teams Musicological case study in the social gaming context Bárbara Sarmentero Promotor: Prof. dr. Marc Leman Universiteit Gent Faculteit der Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Studiegebied Kunstwetenschappen. Optie: Musicologie Masterproef voor het behalen van de graad van Master in de Kunstwetenschappen “I will never make a single player game again. I personally believe that the days of single player games are numbered.” (Callaham, 2009, p.1) ”The majority of rhythm production studies on sensorimotor synchronization and entrainment have so far focused on the cognitive abilities of individuals and have not taken into account the nature of music as a social activity.” (Himberg, 2006, p.1) 2 Table of content TABLE OF CONTENT........................................................................................................... 3 PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. 5 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... 6 MUSIC-GAMING AND THE EMBODIED APPROACH.................................................. 8 1. THE GAMING PHENOMENON..................................................................................... 11 1.1G AMING HISTORY ............................................................................................................... 11 1.2 G AMING AS AN INFLUENTIAL ACTIVITY ............................................................................ 13 1.3 T HE SOCIAL GAMING PHENOMENON ................................................................................. 15 1.3.1 M ASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE -PLAYING GAMES ............................................ 15 1.3.2 S OCIAL CONSOLE GAMES .................................................................................................. 16 2. MUSIC IN THE SOCIAL-GAMING CONTEXT.......................................................... 18 2.1. C ROSSROADS BETWEEN MUSIC AND GAMING .................................................................. 18 2.2 G ENERAL TRENDS IN THE MUSIC -GAMING WORLD ........................................................... 19 2.2.1 A CCESSIBILITY : WHEN ANYBODY CAN PLAY .................................................................... 19 2.2.2 C OLLABORATIVE GAME PLAY : IT ’S MORE FUN TO PLAY TOGETHER .................................. 21 2.2.3 P HYSICAL MOVEMENTS .................................................................................................... 23 2.2.4 M OBILITY AND INTEGRATIONS OF FORMATS .................................................................... 25 2.2.5 O FFERING DIRECT EXPERIENCES WITH MUSIC ................................................................... 27 2.3 F AMOUS MUSIC -GAMES ..................................................................................................... 28 2.3.1 D ANCE DANCE REVOLUTION ........................................................................................... 28 2.3.2 S INGSTAR ......................................................................................................................... 29 2.3.3R OCK BAND ...................................................................................................................... 30 2.3.4 W II MUSIC ....................................................................................................................... 31 3. MUSICOLOGICAL CASE STUDIES IN THE GAMING CONTEXT....................... 33 3.1 T HE ‘S YNC IN TEAM ’ GAME .............................................................................................. 33 3.2.E XPERIMENT 1: R ESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL ASPECTS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF ‘S YNC IN TEAM ’ PLAYERS ................................................................................................. 35 3.2.1 L ITERATURE : W HAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT INTERPERSONAL ENTRAINMENT ?.......... 35 3.2.2 H YPOTHESIS ..................................................................................................................... 48 3.2.3 M ETHODS ......................................................................................................................... 49 3.2.4 A NALYSIS AND RESULTS .................................................................................................. 52 3.2.5 D ISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................... 67 3.2.6 C ONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 69 3.3 E XPERIMENT 2: H OW THE PUBLIC REACTED TO THE SYNC IN TEAM GAME ................... 70 3 3.3.1 G ENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE EVENTS ........................................................................ 70 3.3.2 A NALYSIS AND RESULTS .................................................................................................. 73 3.3.3 C ONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 83 4. H OW TO IMPROVE THE GAME .............................................................................................. 84 5. G ENERAL CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 86 6. R EFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 88 4 Preface The creation and development of the Sync in Team game would not have been possible without the support of the whole Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music. I would specially like to thank Prof. Dr. Marc Leman for bringing perspective, inspiration and structure into the work; Dr. Michiel Demey and Pieter Coussement for conducting its practical realization; Ivan Schepers for the installation of the game on different locations, and Dr. Micheline Lesaffre and Alexander Deweppe for the assistance on the survey. The data analysis would not have been possible without the magnificent guidance of Leen De Bruyn. I would also like to thank Dries Demoen, who not only helped me selecting the musical fragments; but also supervised and corrected the work with great patience. I will never forget the enthusiasm of the participants of the experiments, nor the support of friends and family. Thank you. 5 Introduction Games that deal explicitly with music have become very popular. Almost everything, from improving your dancing skills to directing a virtual orchestra, has become possible thanks to the formats like Wii-Music, Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution. This kind of gaming is crucial to the industry. It is offering new ways to engage with music that catches the attention of a large amount of public. What is the role of musicology in this field? Can we learn something from gaming? This work is meant to suggest several possibilities of this conjunction. Music-related games are important to us for two main reasons: One, because they bring a refreshing perspective in the complex ways humans deal with music; and two, because they can offer a playful platform for research of social and musical interaction. According to Lefford (2007, p.129) games are ideal platforms for musicological research; because they provide a set of explicit constrains that - somewhat like rules of grammar- make generated patterns and reactions to music more comprehensible and comparable. As musicologist interested in the value and true nature of the musical experience, games are important to us. They can bring research closer to real forms of encountering, far from cold laboratory research. The playful nature of music engagement can be closely observed. This will not only help us to understand it better, but will also help to create new devices that favour truly immersive experiences and feel more natural. What tools and methods are available to observe and research this phenomenon? Are objective measurements of the subject’s movements sufficient, or do we need to relate them to subjective descriptions? What alternatives can we think of? 6 To answer these questions, a tram of experts at IPEM created and developed a new game, the ‘Sync’ in Team’. This is an interactive interface, which focuses on beat-synchronization and team play, and was tested by more than 150 subjects. The goals were two: 1) Using this game as a platform to conduct research regarding synchronization skills and interpersonal entrainment. The focus laid on the influence of social aspects on music encountering. 2) To develop and improve the playability and naturalness of the format, making it as consumer-oriented as possible. The first one explored the hypothesis that personality and interconnection between players do have an influence on the development of a game experience. Questions asked were: May the relationship between the players affect their synchronization? Do partners that know each other for a long time synchronize better with each other than teams of complete strangers? To resume: Do social factors have an effect on the way people deal with music games? And can these factors be measured? The second experiment was held in public science fairs. The reactions of more than 150 players were observed, within several musical genres. Questions asked were: How did people of all ages respond to the game? To what kind of music genre did teams synchronize the best? What was the most chosen genre? This helped