Every journey has a first step, unfortunately the first step of this journey must start with some bad news. It's not an easy process to get into the game industry... in fact attempting to get into the game industry as a composer is, unfortunately, extremely difficult if not almost impossible. EVERYONE wants to be a famous game composer, the thing is.. game companies won't even really look at you unless you've had previous experience scoring several shipped titles on notable systems like the Xbox 360, DS, or PS3.
So in essence, it's a bit of a paradox. You can't work without experience, and you have to get damn lucky to get said experience. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it takes a lot more luck than skill to break in to this industry. I went to the game developers conference 5 years ago before I had any game experience (and again recently just this last year, more on that in a future post). While waiting in line to give my demo CD and info to THQ I noticed all 15 people in front of me were all prospective composers doing the same thing. The market is saturated folks... there's just no nice way to put it.
Now, on the positive side of things.. there are some steps you can take... which I'll go into nauseating detail about in future posts. Not all is lost if you're willing to fight a small... well I should be honest here... a fairly sizable uphill battle, in the snow, barefoot, with a dull butter knife. Said battle will last no less than two years as it takes time to get your name out there and pester game companies enough to get a job as a freelance composer. Be vigilant my fellow composers, as that is the one thing that seems to pay off when wanting to be freelance in the game audio world!
I plan on doing posting a lesson once every week or two so stay tuned for future tidbits about breaking into the industry.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
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