Tag Archives: Flow theory

Game Music and Psychological Attachment: How Game Composers Can Enhance Virtual Presence (Pt. 2)

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

Photo of video game music composer Winifred Phillips working in her music production studio on the musical score of the Shattered State VR game from Supermassive Games.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact |  Follow

So happy you’ve joined us!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips, and this is the continuation of our four-part discussion of how music can enhance presence in virtual reality.  These articles are based on the presentation I gave at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, entitled How Music Enhances Virtual Presence (I’ve included the official description of my talk at this end of this article). In my GDC talk, I discussed Virtual Presence in connection with seven of the virtual reality games and experiences that I’ve scored, which have either released within the past year or will be released within the coming months.  These include Audioshield (Audiosurf LLC), Bebylon Battle Royale (Kite & Lightning), Fail Factory (Armature Studio), The Haunted Graveyard (Holospark), Life Hutch VR (Next Stop Willoughby), Scraper: First Strike (Labrodex Inc), and Shattered State (Supermassive Games).  If you missed the first article exploring how Flow can support Virtual Presence in VR gaming, please go check that article out first.

Are you back?  Great!  Let’s continue!

Now that we’ve taken a look at how Flow can best enable Virtual Presence in VR, let’s look at the second mechanism by which music enables Virtual Presence:

Psychological Attachment

Image illustrating the three states contributing to the attainment of Virtual Presence (Engagement, Engrossment, and Empathy) -- from the article by video game composer Winifred Phillips.In a paper presented at the Computer-Human Interaction conference, a research team from Carnegie-Mellon defined Virtual Presence as “the extent to which a person’s Cognitive and perceptual systems are tricked into believing they are somewhere other than their physical location.” This assertion formed the jumping-off point for two researchers from University College London, who set out to define what specific circumstances could lead to Virtual Presence in gaming. They developed a model for how gamers developed the psychological attachment necessary to achieve Virtual Presence.  Their model consists of three stages:

  • Engagement
  • Engrossment
  • Empathy

So let’s start with the first stage.

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Game Music and The Theory of Flow: How Game Composers Can Enhance Virtual Presence (Pt. 1)

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

Video game music composer Winifred Phillips in her video game music production studio working on the music of "The Haunted Graveyard" VR game.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Hello there!  I’m video game composer Winifred Phillips.  At this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, I was pleased to give a presentation entitled How Music Enhances Virtual Presence (I’ve included the official description of my talk at the end of this article). The talk I delivered at GDC gave me the opportunity to pull a lot of ideas about virtual reality together and present a concentrated exploration of how music can increase a sensation of presence for VR gamers.  It occurred to me that such a discussion might be interesting to share in this forum as well. So, with that in mind, I’m excited to begin a four-part article series based on my GDC 2019 presentation!

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Video Game Composers: How Music Enhances Virtual Presence (GDC 2019)

Posted by Winifred Phillips on

In this article about Virtual Presence in VR written for video game composers, Winifred Phillips (video game composer) is here pictured working in her music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Delighted you’re here!  I’m very pleased to share that over the next two months I’ll be speaking at two fantastic events focusing on music in video games!  My two presentations will explore the unique structure and character of video game music, and how it helps to better envelop players in the worlds that game designers have created.  I thought that this article might be a good opportunity to delve into some of the ideas that form the basis of my two upcoming talks.  First, I’d like to share some details about the presentations I’ll be giving.

The Library of Congress logo, included in an article discussing popular game conferences, from the article for video game composers by Winifred Phillips (game music composer).The Library of Congress has invited me to speak this April as a part of their “Augmented Realities” video game music festival. My presentation, “The Interface Between Music Composition and Game Design,” will take place at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. I’m very excited to participate in this event, which will be the first of its kind hosted by the “Concerts from the Library” series at the Library of Congress! The “Augmented Realities” video game music festival will also include panels on video game music history and preservation presented by distinguished curators and archivists at the Library of Congress, a special documentary screening that explores the ChipTunes movement, and a live “game creation lab.” My presentation will be the concluding lecture of the festival, and I’m honored to speak at such an illustrious event!  If you find yourself in the Washington DC area on April 6th 2019, you’re very welcome to come to my lecture at the Library of Congress!  Tickets are free (first come, first served), and they’re available now via EventBrite.

The GDC logo, accompanying the discussion of networking at such famous game conferences, from the article for video game composers by Winifred Phillips (game music composer).But before my lecture at the Library of Congress, I’ll be making a trip to San Francisco for the famous Game Developers Conference that takes place this month. For the past few years I’ve been excited and honored to be selected as a Game Developers Conference speaker in the Game Audio track, and I’m happy to share that I’ll be speaking again this month in San Francisco at GDC 2019! My talk this year is entitled “How Music Enhances Virtual Presence.”

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