So... You Want to Make Music for Games?

I get a lot of people asking me for advice on how to get into the games industry. Sometimes they have a degree or higher, sometimes not. They all find it hard to break into the industry, despite there being apparently thousands of vacancies. This seems especially true for musicians that would like to take their passion and skills into the audio landscape for games. Audio is a critical component for all games, and the work is there, but game teams need fewer audio people (than, say, programmers, artists or designers) and so it is also highly competitive. If this is the position you find yourself in, please read on.

INDUSTRY BASICS

The truth is, there are no magic shortcuts I can show you.  Not knowing how familiar you are with the industry, perhaps so at the risk of telling you things you may know, here are some basics; these are important because they affect your ability to get employed:

 Videogame companies can be very large operations employing tens of thousands of people and operated on a global scale – companies like Tencent, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, names I am sure you are familiar with.  Most videogame studios are smaller, employing hundreds or maybe tens of people.

 Game publishers – the companies that fund development and manage the process of game distribution, physical or digital; larger publishers own one or more game studios;

Game studios – these are the organizations that make the actual games, managing the production process including design, programming, artwork, audio, QA and project management – these are what you need to target; larger game studios can have multiple offices in different locations; studios often manage one or more franchises;

Game team – a group of people – designers, producers, artists, programmers, project managers etc. - working cross-discipline to create a specific game project within a game studio;

Franchise – a series of games that share a common there, storyline, characters etc. (such as FIFA, Mario Kart, Candy Crush etc.)

Game project – a game within a franchise (such as FIFA 21, Mario Kart 8, Candy Crush Saga etc.)

Platforms – these are the devices that consumers use to experience the games developed – PC, console, handheld, mobile, streaming, VR. The technology of the device directly impacts the nature of the teams – for example, next-gen consoles typically feature bleeding edge graphic and processor technologies and team sizes tend to be big – dozens of programmers, artists, designers and producers.  Console games are designed for at least 80 hours of play and so there is a lot of content and functionality to be created, and making a game can take 2 or more years  Whereas a mobile game has far more established technology and games are smaller in scope and play time; most mobile games are played in short sessions of a couple of minutes to ten minute cycles, so less content and functionality -  mobile games can be made in 6 months to a year.  So it follows that mobile game teams tend to be smaller in size.  Thus, a game team will typically work on a game project targeted at a platform (such as FIFA 21 on PlayStation 5, or Mario Kart 8 for Switch). Other teams in the same studio may work on versions of the same game project but targeted at other platforms. So certain elements may be common or shared across the projects.

Tools - making a videogame is enormously complicated, and has been made somewhat more streamlined in recent years thanks to the creation of game “engines” – this is middleware technology that sits between the platform and the game content, providing a suite of production tools that help consistency and process.  The two most commonly used engines are Unity (from Unity) and Unreal (from Epic).  

Putting that all together: a game project is targeted at platform; a game team builds the game specifically for that platform often using a game engine; the game team exists within a game studio; the project is funded by a publisher and the project may be part of a wider franchise.

OK, why is all the above important for you?

THE ROLE OF AUDIO IN A GAME TEAM

Game development is so labor intensive, it is expensive.  People that can make high quality game content on time are in demand, so that pushes the price for experience and talent up.  Studios will pay good money for experience.  As you have discovered already, there are thousands of people trying to get entry-level jobs in the games industry and these people tend to have no experience – i.e. have never worked as part of a game team, never used a game development process (such as scrum), no experience of creating assets in a game engine.

Because of the cost, studios only hire the smallest number of people they actually need.  Game projects rarely need someone working on game audio throughout the project.  Some studios have one or two generalist audio staff (i.e. can do composition, sound effect design and perhaps some programming or scripting to be able to implement the audio assets in engine) supporting all of their projects across all platforms. Larger studios may have their own audio department with perhaps a dozen people supporting multiple studios across multiple locations.  But most studios hire freelancers for audio, i.e. people who are not employed by a studio but who work for themselves, and pay them on a per contract basis.  And high quality, experienced audio freelancers from all around the world are available to game studios at crazy low prices.

Where does this leave you?  I don’t know what your experience level is relative to what I have outlined above, and I am not trying to dissuade you, but I hope this will help you prepare yourself for what you will need to do to improve your chances of getting employed. 

HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE INDUSTRY 

Think about the services you can offer.  Are you a composer? Have you ever done any sound design (i.e. sound effects)?  Have you ever created or deployed any services in an engine?  Have you ever delivered work to a deadline? Worked as part of a cross-discipline team?

 Where this is leading is – you need to get experience.  Suggest you find a local university that has a videogame program.  Or find out where local videogame developers meet for social or professional purposes.  Ideally you are looking for a small team that needs some game audio.  They may not pay you, but working with them on their project part-time will start to give you experience.  Do as many projects as you can and as many different types of work as you can.  Keep a record of all the projects you work on. Read my related blog about Getting into the Games Industry. A lot of that applies to you.

Next, how to get a job.  Once you have experience, you improve your chances of getting freelance work. You might not want freelance work, but it can pay some bills.  Showcase the experience on a website (suggest a section dedicated to your videogame credentials).  You’ll need to network to get freelance work, which means attending game conventions where game developers go (as opposed to consumer shows).  Find out which game studios are exhibiting and try to make appointments to see them.  Have samples of your work handy and be ready to talk about the services you offer and the experience you have.  Some of these studios may be hiring full-time positions, which would be great, but honestly those openings are pretty rare and they will go to the most experienced candidates.

Who are your local game studios?  Find them, see if you can go meet with them, get some connections. But also figure out what type of studio they are, what platforms they work on, whether they have full-time audio positions or use freelancers, how big their teams are.  The better your experience fits with what they already do and need, the more you increase your chances of getting taken on.

Finally,  Google is your friend.  There is so much you can learn about the companies you can target, about the industry, downloading tools for free – it’s all there is you put the time in.   

Given the services you will be offering, I would suggest you also target film and television gigs.  The successful freelance composers I know move easily between games, film and TV work (for example, my friend Chance Thomas – you should follow him).  Similar process there – it’s all about knowing who you are targeting, what they need and how you have the experience to deliver those needs.

Good luck! Do share your experience in the comments below to help others taking the same journey as you!

So.. You Want To Be a Game Producer?

I'm often asked how to get into the games business, but what if you want to become a successful games producer like me?  The following is a typical reply that I give in response to such inquiries in email or at talks I give; note that I reference organizations - these are in Utah, so if you have any suggestions for ones in other parts of the world that you have found useful, please do send them my way and I will add them.

Before thinking qualification, get some experience; it frankly matters more and will help you decide if you really want to do this. 

First – grab the materials from my website that I reference in my talks -- https://www.guv1.com/professional-1/handouts -- these will serve not only as a reminder but also the ‘references’ doc includes organizations, books you should read, etc. 

Second -- using that material, attend meetings of the local groups and any others you can find; good for networking but in particular, you’re looking for collaborators: most universities have groups of would-be-game developers, for example.  Get involved with a team and begin to practice.

Third -- read the books I listed as I found them all really useful.  Perhaps start with the Game Production Handbook https://www.amazon.com/Production-Handbook-Heather-Maxwell-Chandler/dp/1449688098/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518134665&sr=1-1&keywords=the+game+production+handbook&dpID=518Hqak6ItL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch  -- I don’t agree with everything Heather writes, but different studios do things differently (you say tomatoes, I say tomatoes…ok, that doesn’t work when written down but you get the idea) – and this is a pretty comprehensive study guide for everything you’ll need to be familiar with to be an effective producer.

Fourth – should you get a qualification? Know that hands-on experience matters a TON for would-be employers; getting a qualification in games production doesn’t have quite the value it should, mostly because so few of the courses are actually taught by… experienced games producers (so the piece of paper isn't much of a guarantee of anything for a would-be employer).  So should you decide to ratchet up student loans for such a qualification, check out the faculty that will be teaching you, especially how many commercial games they have shipped, size of teams they managed, platforms worked on… you know, experience (more than student games, titles you might have heard of).  A program that offers would-be producers the chance to actually work with a live student team and publish one or more actual games before graduation is preferable (such as the University of Utah's EAE program).  Noting that some of the larger game studios prefer someone with a degree, remember that because there are so few useful ones for production, in reality, they’re saying they want people who have attained a certain educational standard – as such, it doesn’t really matter what, but I would suggest a degree involving technology in some way is helpful.  If you have production experience (say through smaller studios) then they won’t really care if you don’t have a degree.

Fifth – can you become a producer through another game dev discipline? Yes, of course. Many get there by starting out in a QA role and demonstrating their value to a  studio through offering ideas, suggestions, organizational skills and generally a comfort level with game teams.  In my experience artists sometimes become producers, programmers rarely: the reason is, I suspect (huge generalization coming up), that artists and producers prefer to focus on one thing at a time, obsessing over the detail with that one thing until it is done (which they need to and is what makes them great at what they do). Producers have to manage a wider spectrum of tasks simultaneously - think of the plate-spinning trick, running between each of them as needs be (don’t let any plates fall!), giving them all attention. Still detail oriented but adaptable and OK with multitasking. I find people are hard wired to be one or the other.

Do please share your additional thoughts and experiences!