I am looking for arguments! Boost welcomed. For #accessibility I added sound settings to a project, in which you can adjust sound and music separately. Now I am told it should be removed and players don't need it, they can control the volume at their device and turn all sounds off when they don't like it. I think its doing the players a disservice, but am lacking proper arguments besides being pissed.

@JohannaMakesGames Please point to Minecraft sound settings.

@JohannaMakesGames Some people enjoy games with ingame sounds and don't want any music at all. Others react sensitive to certain sounds and may want to turn them down.

And technically: not every line of dialogue will be at the exact same loudness level. Some people may have trouble to hear it over music, but still want to HAVE music.

@JohannaMakesGames Many games have separate sound settings and I never thought that weird.

I like to tune UI sounds down, dialogue to max, music a tad lower, so that it’s easier to focus on the important bits. I wouldn’t (couldn’t?) do this in device system settings.

Also, why would they remove this feature now that it’s been implemented?

@JohannaMakesGames you're correct! Many games have this feature, it can be helpful for some people to turn the music down so they can hear important sounds more clearly (especially vocals), or maybe they just don't like the music! Personally I sometimes turn music off and play my own.

@JohannaMakesGames I can offer no quantitive arguments except that I used this affordance in a game just yesterday and I’d be very angry at the Game if this affordance would not exist.

@JohannaMakesGames huh? Sometimes I want to listen to my own music rather than the game music, having to turn sounds off entirely would be weird. Most games I know have separate settings for this.

@JohannaMakesGames God, how dumb is that? Erm, form THEIR side, not yours!

Music can be distracting, or too loud compared to sounds.
SFX can be in a tone range that is unpleasant to people, especially when high-pitched which is often the case in games without voice acting where the "beeping" is used to indicate different tones for different characters.

And I can't adjust SFX and music seperately "on my devices", I can only turn the full game to mute.

Also:

@JohannaMakesGames it's so ubiquitous it's referred to as a basic setting, like a fullscreen toggle.
Having to adjust all background audio around the one program that refuses to have internal volume controls is also super annoying

@JohannaMakesGames saw a discussion on reddit recently that in the game Deep Rock Galactic, you can turn off certain effects sounds bc they trigger tinnitus in people. Lots of disabled veterans were expressing their gratitude toward this feature.

@JohannaMakesGames being able to adjust the mix is good actually. some scenarios in which this is useful:

• the music or sound effects are overwhelming to me but i'm okay with one or the other.
• a sound effect triggers misophonia for me.
• i dont like the music, so i want to play my own music but still have the sound effects.
• i just want to hear the music or sound effects better bc devs don't always get the mix right for everyone.

@JohannaMakesGames I'm autistic with ME/CFS which both come with difficulties processing sound and getting pain from sound on bad days.

When processing is the issue I might want to make the voice louder so harder to hear what's said better but if that would also make the music louder it might became overwhelming and i'll just feel ill without understanding what's been said. At that point I will likely just leave your game/podcast/website because I cannot engage with it.

Of course you said I have the option to turn the sound completely off which imply your thing still works without sounds. But I'm an auditory processor and very brainfog. Visual clues will hardly ever lead to me understanding how a thing works or to understand a thing. Even if your thing is useable without sound I would probably not like it that way.

While making both volumes adjustable I can add or remove music as much as I can handle it depending on how tough my sensory overload is that day.