Now that you have a clear understanding of the skills and process of creating and implementing audio for games, we will move on to an equally important topic: building your career in the game industry. In this chapter we will offer our philosophy on career development as a game audio professional and impart some helpful tips on sourcing and maintaining work. The information in this chapter should help you make a number of decisions regarding your career. The topics covered here – like choosing your career goals, finding and sustaining work, and building your network – are all essential elements of a healthy and sustainable career.
It’s a good idea to keep abreast of the latest industry trends as they are always evolving. Head over to the Sound Lab for resources on the state of the industry.
Career Development: Overview and Philosophy
Students very commonly ask what it takes to be successful in the field of game audio. Our answer is usually something along the lines of “How do you measure ‘success’?” It may seem trivial, but defining specifically what “success” means to you is a very important first step toward a career in game audio. Everybody wants to be “successful,” but success means different things to different people. In effect, highly talented people can end up working hard to be successful without actually feeling like they have achieved much simply for the reason that “success” is subjective. Not only that, but its definition can (and will) change for you as you progress in your career.
A better way to frame this pursuit is to select tangible and specific goals, and then strive for sustainability rather than success. Goals take time to achieve, and if your career is sustainable you will have a better chance of accomplishing them. In our view the focus on sustainability yields better long-term career decisions, and a much happier, healthier work–life balance. Similar to the “spark of inspiration” cliché that we discussed in Chapter 5, the “starving artist” cliché is of little use when it comes to career development.
Selecting Tangible Goals
One of the first things that should be considered when planning for your career is choosing tangible goals. By tangible we mean that these goals must be both specific, and grounded in reality. For example, a goal such as “compose the best game soundtrack” is not a tangible goal because it is not specific. How can you tell when you have composed the “best” game soundtrack? There is no way to measure such a goal, so it is essentially a lost cause. Likewise “getting paid one million dollars per minute of music” is also a poor choice of goals because it isn’t exactly grounded in reality. There are thousands of games whose entire budget doesn’t even reach one million dollars, so how can you reasonably expect to make that much for one minute of music? These are exaggerated examples, but they demonstrate why many of the goals we sometimes choose are not beneficial to us in the long run.
For a qualified, experienced game composer a goal like “getting paid $1,200 per minute of music” would actually be a tangible choice of goals. For someone with steady work coming in it is reasonable to take steps to increase your rates through the $1,200 per minute mark. Another tangible goal might be to compose music for “X” number of games in a given year because it is reasonable to assume that through vigilant networking and solicitations you can boost your yearly project output. For someone just starting out in the industry a great goal to set is something like “work with one or more live musicians on a project within the next year.” This is a well-crafted goal because it will result in some great experience working with a musician, and it is a stepping stone toward larger goals. For example, the long-term goal might be to work with a full orchestra. This would likely be out of the question for a first soundtrack due to budget restrictions, but it is perfectly reasonable to convince a developer to pay for a single musician to record.
Don’t take the idea of tangible goals to mean that you should not push yourself to achieve as much as you can. The point is to make sure you are being realistic about what is within your control. Hard work and effort are under your control, but often things like budget and market popularity aren’t. The best goals you can set are ones you can consistently work toward and easily measure your progress in. Most people make the mistake of choosing lofty goals early on, and then becoming jaded and unsatisfied. Don’t underestimate the power of achievable, tangible goals. When you reach them, be sure to celebrate the heck out of them! Then replace them with something new. This offers the added benefit of actually feeling a level of accomplishment each time you reach one of your goals. Using this framework to set goals will make your career sustainable and rewarding.
The Pyramid of Sustainability
The Pyramid of Sustainability is a learning tool that we like to use when students ask about career development. The purpose of the pyramid is to show the basic elements that go into building a career, and to help guide your focus. This pyramid is unique however, in that the higher you are on the pyramid the less control you have over that category.
As you can see in Figure 10.1, we have four components: personal health/happiness, technical kills, network, and luck. We’ll discuss each in detail below.
Figure 10.1 The Pyramid of Sustainability.
Personal Health/Happiness
We have set the health/happiness category as the foundation of the pyramid for good reason: your career will not be sustainable unless you are physically and mentally healthy enough to deliver your best work. This may seem radical, but it is worth restating: your health and happiness is a higher priority than your career development. You can be happy and healthy without a career, but your career will be short-lived if you are unhappy and in poor health.
If we haven’t made it clear enough, setting boundaries for a positive work–life balance is in our opinion the foundation of a sustainable career. The main things to consider here are 1) healthy sleep habits, 2) a nutritious diet and consistent exercise, and 3) an unconditional feeling of self-worth. It can be tempting to pull all-nighters to get the job done, especially as a freelancer. However, in our experience it is crucial to beware the culture of overworking. By this we mean the glorification of the philosophy of “work till you drop.” This philosophy seems noble in theory, but in practice it is demonstrably not sustainable and therefore detrimental to your career development.
The specifics of creating a routine that prioritizes physical and mental health are outside the scope of this book, but the basics are important for a sustainable career. Head over to the Sound Lab (companion site) where we’ve laid out a simple plan and included resources from the CDC to help guide you.
Technical Skills
The skills category is toward the bottom of the pyramid because we all have full control over the skills that we learn and practice. You might have a huge network of professionals and all the luck in the world, but without the hard skills to back it up your career will not be sustainable. Thus, a large amount of attention should be paid to this area of your career.
It’s important to note here that the skills you should be learning are informed by your goals. If your goal is to get hired as a full-time sound designer for an AAA studio, then you should read every job posting you can and look at the requirements and responsibilities of each position. Be brutally honest about where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Then take the time to diligently work toward building your skills so that you check off each and every box for your dream job. If your goal is to make your living as a freelance composer or sound designer then you’ll need to compare your work to the music and sound in the types of games you’d like to create for. Work on your music so that it is equally polished, and then build a reel that shows off these qualities.
When first starting out, a huge component of the skill-building category is working on your own projects. The importance of completing your own creative projects cannot be overstated. Any developer or audio director who wants to hire you will look at your past work. If you have none, it is highly unlikely that they will be interested in working with you due to the risk of inexperience. You need to have work that you can show potential clients whether it is previous professional work, school projects, or your own projects. Even if you have other work coming your way, it can still be immensely helpful to have your own skill-building side projects going on. Use these to improve on your weaknesses and hone your technical skills. They will very likely come in handy one day, and they may even give you the edge you need to secure a job or a project over some stiff competition.
One final note is that the importance of skill building does not go away, even after you have settled into the industry. Game audio is a field that requires hard technical skills as well as creativity. This necessitates a willingness to explore new skills, and a commitment to applying them in the real world.
Network
Networking is such a nebulous phrase that it can take on many meanings. For our purposes the term “network” simply refers to the people you know. This is surprisingly not limited to people in the game industry. It will be people in the game industry who eventually have the power to hire you, but a prospective job can come from anyone, and it is important to remember this. You never know who has a friend who happens to be an audio director, or who might secretly be a virtuoso cellist that could provide the exact sound you need for a project. To put it simply, networking skills are people skills.
We have placed “network” above “technical skills” on the pyramid because by their very nature the people you know are not under your control and therefore are not always predictable. For this reason “networking” is more about being yourself and building meaningful and trustworthy relationships than anything else. If you can earn someone’s trust on a personal level (and trust is earned not given, as we will see in the following sections), it is very likely that they will trust you on a professional level as well. In a very basic sense, “networking” occurs naturally if you are committed to immersing yourself in your industry in a variety of ways.
Luck
The last category is luck. We placed it at the top of the pyramid because it is an almost completely uncontrollable factor. Despite this, it can play a large role in your career. Being in the right place at the right time, or making the right comment on a game forum are all examples of how luck plays into our career development. This factor is a significant reason why we stress the focus on sustainability over short-term success. We can’t control how or when a lucky break will come our way, but the longer our career is in a stable place the more likely it is for luck to find us.
Because it is impossible to predict or control lucky breaks, there is little we can do about them. Yet it is still crucial to internalize the role that luck plays. It is a gentle reminder that every path is different, and that some factors are simply out of our hands. The most we can do to push our career forward is to be diligent in learning relevant skills and to make sure we take every opportunity to build meaningful relationships. Beyond that we simply have to trust that a lucky break will find us eventually.
Career Paths in Game Audio
Your goals and your focus in terms of skills and networking will largely inform your choice of career path. This is a tricky topic, however because career paths are not linear. Like game music, your career will not proceed sequentially and predictably from point A to point B and then point C. Career trajectories can be surprising, and they are much more flexible than you might think. Often one role will offer experience and knowledge that leads to a totally new role, which in turn shifts your trajectory in a new direction and so on. This is not something to be avoided; it is something to be embraced. Follow your curiosity and try to cultivate a hunger for learning. This will ensure that every position or project you take on will broaden your skills and teach you more about game development and audio creation.
The Sound Lab
Many novice audio creators have a habit of romanticizing the work, and then feel disappointed and lost when the reality is quite different. This is not a sustainable state, so it helps to have a concrete idea of what shape your daily life will take before you make any big career moves. Head over to the Sound Lab (companion site) for more information on career paths such as in-house and freelance roles, and AAA vs. indie roles. As you digest and process the information, think carefully about what feels right for you.