Pre-Production, Don't take the P, drop the re!

Moving on a little from playing actual games, I want to talk a little about making them, in an audio context.

Audio is a much overlooked element in many forms of media, noticed when exceptional, or in fact more often, underwhelming. Games are no different, and in many respects, especially the underwhelming ones, are often lagging a little behind the film and TV world.

Audio is often seen in games as aural 'paint' to be applied after the process of game making is complete. Do the basics, make the guns go bang, make the footsteps echo, and make the characters talk a bit. Well audio can do a lot more. Audio is inherent in our lives, providing feedback and verification of what our eyes can see. "I don't like it, it doesn't sound /feel right!"
Let's not forget that while our eyes can look forwards, its our ears that are the true 360 degree sensors. Also can you see in the dark? No, but you can hear even better. These 2 situations are common in games, and could be used even better if audio was part of the creative process.

Its easy to be thrown into the uncanny valley by poor audio, either by missing or misusing a layer of environmental sound, or by the fact a character sounds just plain ridiculous!
How many poor scripts and voice recordings have spoiled games you played?
Just the awful voice-overs stopped me playing a game I had actually been looking forwards too a long time, Jade Empire, for one example.

My exposure to some game industry work has left me a little surprised at the lack of involvement of audio in the pre-production process of game creation.

Often studios lack an audio lead, or audio director, who can link the audio team to the creative leads of the title, leaving the audio team in the dark, and leaving the creative team with no input early on from the audio team as to what the soundguys (and girls if there are any out there!) can offer.

Integrating audio at stage one is essential in my opinion, and can offer a wealth of creativity and originality to a title, as well as saving on production costs or possible dead ends later on.
Now games aren't the only media guilty of the "we'll do the audio afterwards..." methodology by any means, but it seems to be the dominant approach in the games industry, with some notable exceptions.

Modern consoles can now pack the processing power and storage capacity to enable top quality 5.1 sound, and a variety of teams have shown what great sound experiences can be delivered.
It's up to the industry at large to try and integrate audio more closely into the creative evolution of a title.

Not much humour here I'm afraid, but as my title so confusingly puts it, investing in audio as part of pre-production can save a lot of wastage and re-production at a later date. Not only that practical enhancement, but the overall quality fo a title can be much improved with an original and coherent sound scape, rather than the same old last minute bangs.