What drives developers to not allow controlling music volume for the game?

A lot of things are easy. It's easy to change a character's hair color in Unity, but you don't expect every game to have the ability to change hair color.

OP's problem is that he can't hear dialog over the music ... but that sounds like a job for sound designers and composers. Important dialog should always be heard, not just when the volume sliders are in the right place. Sure, if a game offers the the option to change music/dialog volume, that's great. Just don't think it's something you would expect from all games ... like it's crazy that a game doesn't have that.

 

To discourage "lets plays" via music copyright strikes?

I'm sure they were just lazy or incompetent, though. That would be the reason 95% of the time.

 

It is crazy [not to have it], because it's a major tool to aid player enjoyment that fits regardless of the design of the game (unlike your hair color example). It's less a question of design impacting your player, and more an issue of the player interfacing with your game. The more you restrict their ability to interface with it sensually, the more exclusive you make it.

Look, I get the desire for more authored experiences. Heck, I have a 2D platformer prototype with secrets hidden which can only be discovered through sound, so I understand the need in some cases for the player to listen to your game. But if the player didn't want a customized experience they'd be watching a movie, not playing a game. There are certain things which can impact player enjoyment like customizable controls, subtitles, unlocked framerate, screen brightness, etc...and semi-precise sound control is one of them.

 

I have the Sennheiser headphones that cup over the ears. They're great but even those do get uncomfortable for me after an hour because they are applying constant pressure to the side of my head in order to stay on. This restricts blood flow in the veins slightly. Over time causing me a headache.

Agreed. I have a gaming chair with built-in subwoofer. I can feel the FX. Even firing a weapon causes a slight jolt throughout the body, simulating a gun recoil. It greatly increases the experience. Once you get used to this, then turning this off suddenly 25% of the experience is lost.

 

I've found Bose QuietComfort 25s to be really great. I used to have these and they got kind of painful within 30-60 minutes, but I can wear the QC 25s all day with no issues.

 

The problem is, as mentioned before, that everyone has different audio setups, which leads to different acoustic environments. For instance, when I'm using my speakers? I have the exact problem the OP mentions. When I wear my headphones? No problem. When I use my Macbook's speaker's? Everything goes out the window. When you design your game's audio for one thing you do end up basically excluding all other things because audio balance is going to be different across them all.

 

Actually, you accidentally hit specific volume sliders Achilles' heel by suggesting movies wouldn't benefit from them. Aren't movies audiovisual as well?

I'm also reading Murgilod's points right now, and every single one could also apply to movies. I could watch a movie with headphones or speakers, or surround ... same deal.

What you REALLY want are equalizing sliders. Which generally you already do: Windows options, TV options, etc.

All in all, I still think having several volume sliders are a GOOD thing, if a game has it all the better... just don't see why all games must have it, and that it's crazy that a some may not have it.

 

That part you quoted is kinda why it doesn't apply in the same way for a movie...a movie is a completely directed experience. I realize we have a few (VERY few) games like Uncharted or the Tomb Raider reboot which basically function as movies, but most games aren't such directed experiences.

Games are all about interaction. And I'd argue that interaction is a far more customized experience that a passive one like simply viewing something.

 

@EternalAmbiguity
Yeah, but interaction with the game elements ... not with volume sliders.

 

Interaction with the game elements is defined by sensory interaction. Which is volume sliders (and customizable controls, and unlocked framerate, etc.).

 

My amp has a night mode feature which basically compresses the audio for a lower dynamic range and boosts the midrange frequencies that are most responsible for voice. Only one I've ever had with this feature but I will look for it on future purchases.

 

But people complain about this in movies as well. The problem isn't specific to games. Games can provide a solution, though, since stuff is mixed real-time, where film can't because everything is pre-mixed. (Though maybe with object-based mixing tech that'll change?)

Yes, that should be the case, but there's so many variables outside of a sound designer's control that it's wishful thinking to just assume they can handle everything.

In the case of speakers, consider the range of things between a single 50 cent thing in a cheap tablet all the way up to a full cinema sound suite. You can not make something sound "right" on all of those things. You're going to have to pick a few reference points at places on the spectrum relevant to your project and then make compromises to get decent results across those.

And that's not even considering headphones, which are a whole other kettle of fish unto themselves.

So sure, the sound designer is going to pick a few sets of speakers and a few sets of headphones, hopefully with some representation of what's common among their audience. They're going to mix so that things sound great across those, and for most people it's going to sound great. But someone's going to be playing it with a pair of $5 earbuds, and someone's going to be playing it through a pair of old "multimedia speakers" that came with their first PC, and someone's going to be playing it on a laptop where speakers weren't a priority, and someone's going to be playing it with a hi-fi set up for doof-doof music, and so on and so forth.

To put this in context, a reasonable number of games these days have a colour calibration screen at the start. Do we think that's a good idea for games where brightness/contrast are important, or do we think that it should have been a job for the art department to make sure that wasn't needed?

 

I see ... although ... brightness calibration would correlate to master volume, right? And if you're picky, you can say gamma, or white balance, correlates to having different EQ presets.
But what would music/sfx/voice volume sliders correlate to here? ... maybe having brightness sliders for GUI and gameplay art separately?

The way I'm seeing this is ... If the speakers are messing with the audio, it will mess everything equally. It wont bring down JUST the music or just the voice. So what you seem to want all along is to adjust EQ bands to compensate for whatever speaker's doing with the audio.

Having said that, being able to disable music altogether in realistic games/simulators, that should really be a standard hands down. Because RL doesn't have background music, as sad as that is.

 

There's no real correlations. That said, I have seen games that give you size and/or transparency sliders for the HUD, along with other options. (Fairly common in MMOs?) Also things like bloom and motion blur options are pretty common. And some games give you options about other post processing modes, and "colourblind mode" is a thing. So yes, where it can solve a problem relevant to a game, equivalent options often are made available for the visual side of things.

The very existence of EQs demonstrates that this isn't the case, though. Otherwise the "EQ" would in fact be the master volume control.

If you read reviews of speakers aimed at audio enthusiasts you'll quickly realise that different speakers/headphones don't at all mess with things equally across the spectrum. I've got a pair of over-ear 'phones that's fairly neutral sounding, another pair that emphasises the high end a little, an older set of IEMs that's quite dark and bassy.

 

Agree - one in about 3 years.

 

An eq is for adjusting the volume of individual frequencies to compensate for different room accoustics and speakers with different response curves. The goal is to have your sound system produce all of the frequencies in it's range at an equal amount. The equalizer and even the bass mid treble knobs are usually the least understood and most abused knob on a sound system. Its not there so u can make the bass bump. The problem is compunded by poor excuses for eq presets being named things like rock, classical, vocal and so on implying that different music gets different eq settings. With a properly tuned system any style of music will sound as close to what the audio engineers heard as is possible from your hardware without readjustment. In an ideal world you can use a tone generator to play specific frequencies and a decibel meter to measure the volume of each one. A correctly tuned or equalized sound system will produce each frequency at the same level or volume. When this occurs you hear it the way it was recorded, not with extra bass, not with the midrange spiked so you can hear vocals better but the mix of frequecies at the levels intended by the one who designed it. My setup is tuned properly and I can tell you that equalization is not the culprit when looking for what buried the vocals of your favorite actor behind the overly intense boom of tympani drums. It was the audio engineer that set the levels when he mixed it. When I watch the same film on a tiny old crt tv with speakers so small you can barely see them I have the same problem, turn it up loud enough to hear the quiet dialog and the intense sounds are obnoxious. It dosent make the walls shake like the big rig in the living room but the plastic frame of the tv will buzz and the lil tiny speakers distort like they want to die. Its an issue with dynamic range or the amount of volume difference between quiet and loud. This is only a problem when I am wanting to quietly watch something. The large dynamic range is actually a good thing and more accurate than the other way around. The contrast between a whisper and a gunshot is immense in real life so why wouldn't you want it that way in a movie or game. Only because the kids still asleep, when everyone is awake and we are in full theater mode I enjoy the fact that I can hear myself breathing when things are quiet but an explosion is intense enough that you feel it and everyone jumps. So its not an eq problem or even always a problem. It's almost like we need a contrast setting or a compressor that brings the high volumes down and the low volumes up so there isn't such a large difference between the two and a reasonable volume for average dialog wouldn't disturb the neighborhood when something went boom. My current reciever has a button that does this called night mode. I think hardware manufacturers are seeing the same problem thats not always a problem and coming up with solutions. I will look for this feature on my next reciever when that day comes. I hope it wasn't just a one time fluke and the feature sticks around. Until I bought this unit a year ago I had not seen it before.

 

Not the spectrum. I said music, voice, and sfx.

Say for example, if low frequency sounds are suffering ... it affects any sound using low frequency ranges... not specifically the voice, or the music. So what you want to compensate was never music or voice, but frequency ranges that you aren't hearing well due to speaker limitation.

Me too, but I wouldn't be shocked if I find a game without these options.