Music for Games, Films, and other Visuals

The Game Developer Magazine has been doing a salary and other compensation survey for several years now. They recently released the 7th annual report. If you are thinking about working in the Video Game Industry it is well worth the cost of the digital download (or the magazine if you can find it!)

A few tidbits for audio professionals from the report…. 92% of audio professionals reported having some college-level coursework, predominantly a Bachelor’s degree or higher. I know there is an increasing trend in the U.S. for college level coursework regardless of profession but this seems indicative of the necessity to get some training/education before you start looking for a job working on game audio.

Salaries continued to increase, even for people with three years experience or less. That is great news! We’re still lacking on representation of women in game audio at just 8%. Not that the industry in general is doing much better…

All in all, salaries and bonuses were up in the game audio departments. It should be noted that the industry still continues to hire contract audio professionals more often than full-time employees although from my discussions with audio directors, more positions seem to be opening up each year.

With entry-level positions averaged at over $60k the video game industry should be a goal for many of you aspiring sound designers and composers, but only if you really want to work on video games!