Editor's Letter: The Sound Issue
Games have more in common with music than with movies, and the Sound Issue makes the case for listening closer.
All apologies to those who think videogames have grown more and more like the movies, but no matter how cinematic they become, the form with which they have the most in common is music. Both forms marry performance and production, gut and theory, and repetition and spontaneity. Neither one is complete until the work gets a player, and a classic will endure a million renditions, as the performers move from practice, to mastery, to reinvention. Music, like games, is also one of the most soul-cleansing, body-rocking, and mind-blowing creations of man. Life without either is unthinkable.
Yet if you’re a fan of both, you may sense a certain sibling rivalry. Music is the older, hormonal one that breaks in through the window after a party; videogames are still sitting on the couch in their underoos. One form is new, while the other was embraced by all of our ancestors when they needed to get down. Videogames give us fun, revelation, and satisfaction; music is rebellious, joyous, and sad, and it’s sexy, often very sexy, something that games have yet to learn to be.
