I found a copy of Eric Pidkameny's essay, Sound in Video Games, in a larger collection of essays, The Video Game Explosion, edited by Mark J. P. Wolf. I also know Pidkameny has an earlier essay that's available online, Levels of Sound, and months ago when I found it, I made a note to finish reading it. That article is a little bit longer, while Sound in Video Games is a short, largely a historic article that briefly charts the aural and technological progress of game sound, and then turns to the idea of Adaptive Audio and synergy between game music and other fields. This is an excellent, concise game audio history that whets the appetite for more information in a variety of game audio areas. A great place to start if you're wanting to learn more.
I'm not able to find much information about Eric Pidkameny online. If he has a website or a bio somewhere online, I'd like to know the link. One of the cool things about this project is not just that I'm learning more about the audio in games I've played and where scholarship is with game audio, but I'm also learning about who is interested in this kind of study. It's really becoming cool to connect virtually with these like minds! I've got a meeting next week to discuss some grants possible from UM that I could win to travel and investigate game music at some conferences. So hopefully some of these virtual connections I'm making will soon turn into vis-a-vis ones!
As a fan of Final Fantasy games, I was really struck that he takes time to mention the music in Final Fantasy 3 (I would say FF 6) as one of the most important games in terms of game music. He writes: "In FF3 (6), each hero and villain in the game had his or her own musical leitmotif, which played whenever that character became the focus of the story. The musical accompaniment was a form of wordless narration, giving insight to the game's characters and events in a way that text alone could not."
There wasn't so much here that was entirely new to me in terms of thought, although I did spend a little bit of time investigating some of the games that are mentioned whose audio I hadn't heard before. Therefore, in a similar thread with my list of the games Karen Collins mentions in Game Sound, here are the games that Eric lists in this article, in the order he lists them:
Games:
PONG -- first audio
Space Invaders -- first continuous music
Pac-Man -- musical interludes/cutscenes
Berzerk -- dialogue
Sinistar -- dialogue
Dragon's Lair -- digital audio
Super Mario Bros -- new era of game sound
Star Wars: X-Wing -- adaptive audio
Ocarina of Time -- adaptive audio, also highlighting Koji Kondo
Metroid -- these three are some of Nintendo's most popular franchises
Dr. Mario -- also highlighting Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka in these three
Earthbound -- these three are some of Nintendo's most popular franchises
Final Fantasy 3 (6) -- use of leitmotifs, Uematsu is one of the first internationally famous sound designers
Dance Dance Revolution -- music and rhythm based dancing as a part of gameplay
The Sims 2 -- user designated soundtracks blur the distinction of what is game audio
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -- user designated soundtracks blur the distinction of what is game audio
Defender -- these two serve as bookends to understand the progression of audio
Chrono Trigger -- these two serve as bookends to understand the progression of audio
Half-Life 2 -- almost all the soundtrack is diegetic music
Halo 2 -- video game music's first move onto the Billboard 200 chart
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