Interactivity

"Interactivity" is both the most overused and misused term in game audio. Often, when someone speaks of interactive audio, he is referring either to adaptive audio (audio that changes characteristics, such as pitch, tempo, instrumentation, etc., in reaction to changes in game conditions) or to the art and science of game audio in general. A better definition for interactive audio is any sound event resulting from action taken by the audience (or a player in the case of a game or a surfer in the case of a web page, etc.). When a game player presses the "fire" button, his weapon sounds off. The sound of the gun firing is interactive. If a player rings a doorbell in a game world, the ringing of the bell is also an interactive sound. If someone rolls the mouse over an object on a web site and triggers a sound, that sound is interactive. Basically, any sound event, whether it be a one-off, a musical event, or even an ambient pad change, if it comes into play because of something the audience does (directly or indirectly), it is classified as interactive audio.