Thanks so much Brian.

I'm very seriously considering coming over in November for both GameSoundCon and GDC Next. Tempted to do GDC in March as well to be honest, although I'll have to consider family needs and finances of course.

Yes, I know CD's are old-fashioned, but I've got some good looking ones that I can at least wave at people before I give them a business card!

Thanks again for all your help.

On another note, I tried following Leon Whittle's advice from the link in Frob's reply to try and find what games are in development. Unfortunately 2 of his links don't work and the other just has about 10 titles all released this year. Google doesn't seem to be helping me out either.

Has anyone got any advice about how I can find out what games are being released in 2014/15 and beyond?

You also keep mentioning that you don't play any games lately. That really isn't a problem. Making games and playing games are completely different things.

There are parallel industries for the game-makers and the game-players. For example, this site is aimed at game-makers.

To figure out what is coming out in the future, you need to look at BOTH. You need to look at who is hiring and what they're hiring for. Many big games are announced to players, so watch the player industry. Other games are not announced in advance, you learn about them by watching the product cycles of games from the studio; there is usually a pattern of when they hire and when they release. The Internet Archive can help with that. When you want to be hired by a specific company for a specific product you need to do some serious digging, NSA style.

Please, feel free to disagree with me. I've been wrong plenty of times.

You are right that it can make some difference. I wouldn't turn down a strong candidate who hasn't played any big games lately, but I suppose others might.

When he wrote that he hasn't played games for 10 years, my interpretation is that he hasn't played MMO/hardcore/etc games for that time. I don't know many people who actually abstain from ALL games. People who often say they don't play games end up actually playing games, they minimize their game playing since to many people social games and smart phone games seem to not really count in their minds. Even an answer like "I've been busy working so my games have been limited to Words With Friends during breaks," or "I love such-and-such on my phone", that is still playing games.

I don't believe that you need to be up to date on playing all of the latest games in order to be a good game developer. Designers can benefit from it so features stay competitive, but other disciplines, not so much. When someone says "I want an effect like such-and-such", it is easy enough to pull up a youtube video demonstrating it.

Thanks for the views. I think there's probably some truth in both your views - I'm sure I don't NEED to be a regular gamer to get a job. Especially if my music really speaks to a developer as perfect for their game, then they won't care in the least. I was hired for an iOS game last year with no questions about my gaming experience.

However I think for my purposes of approaching developers and needing to persuade them to hire me, or at least, I would benefit hugely from being a gamer as Brian states. At least being able to reel off a few examples of games I enjoy and game scores I like, at the very minimum.

But also in terms of my ability to do the job if/when I am hired - the way music is integrated is key to the result and I'm not going to get a deep understanding of that without playing the latest games. At the lower/simpler level (for instance the iOS game I composed for), you can watch a few videos and then write as if you're writing for TV or whatever, it's easy enough to do. But when we're talking about console games with interactive music involved then I'll need a deeper understanding about the way it feels to be immersed in that kind of world.

Hence my plan - I've just borrowed a friends Xbox 360 for a few days, and will invest in a PS4 or Xbox One as soon as they come out in the UK. Apart from anything, it'll be fun - I only ever stopped gaming because it took up too much time, it wasn't through lack of motivation!

Hi,

I had a listen to some of the stuff on your soundcloud and whilst very competent (and good, really liked a few themes and motif's) it felt rather TV/Film centric which I guess is to be expected. Of course game soundtracks often echo tv/film but there was something about yours that didn't always seem to fit with my expectations of a game soundtrack. Unfortunately I can't quite put my finger on it (maybe individual tracks were too long?), but I did feel that perhaps it would be beneficial for you to familiarise yourself with modern games and their soundtracks in order to write more game centric demo tracks to add to your showcase.

To this end it may well be worth either writing specifically game designed music to sell or even taking on some short, lower paid work for actual game music to broaden your show-reel. For example you could write some themes or several tracks based around a theme and sell them yourself or better through a virtual store like the Unity Asset Store. Indeed hanging out or posting in the Unity forums (and places like Unreal UDK or Crytek) might lead to some lower paid work to get greater recognition. Another positive, is by hanging out in the Unity forums (and other places) you'll absorb the culture for game production and that can only be a good thing in terms of breaking into writing music for games.

In my mind this would kill two birds with one stone, it both expands your showcase with actual game centric tracks and increases your exposure and recognition. Although Unity is clearly aimed at indie's it is increasingly being used by indies making larger projects and the cost/budget of indie company (as opposed to say indie bedroom coders) games is growing substantially. Indeed today indie games can easily have a decent budget for composing bespoke soundtracks, so I don't think its necessary to think about targeting AAA.

You should also consider that for lower paid work that you keep the rights to the music allowing you to sell the soundtrack independently on say iTunes. Several indie games seemed to do this such as Fez, Minecraft etc. It provides a second revenue stream for yourself (possibly making up the difference in excepting lower paid work) and again increasing general exposure.

At this stage I would strongly discourage getting a next gen game console, there simply aren't going to be many titles available for them for the next year or more. Far better to pick up a current gen cheap (360 or ps3) or use you Mac/Pc and join Steam to buy cheap (on sale) games (sometimes you get their soundtracks too), also might be worth checking out Humble Bundle as they often throw in soundtracks with the games.

Overall I feel like discovery and self-promotion are going to be large factors, sure you have soundcloud and a website, but I feel you should be doing more if you want to break into a new market. Get a YouTube channel up (at least a quick search didn't reveal one, though there are several Jamie Salisbury's and a couple of video's using your music), engage as much as possible with fans and commentators, networking is always good and you'll never know when it might give up a profitable lead.

One last comment which is rather critical, is that I didn't feel you had a signature style. I heard echo's of David Arnold/Joel Goldsmith (Stargate) and a few other modern composers in your work. This in itself is no bad thing, and i'm pretty sure producers would often ask for composers to write something in the vein of another, however it did leave me wanting to hear something more personal, more unique, to get a better understanding of you as a person and as a composer.

Anyway with the absent of direct information in this thread (though quite a few good suggestions), perhaps it would be worth discovering some of your favourite composers for games and researching them to see how they got into the business? For example Youtube is a good way of finding the OST's to games to judge the style and maybe get some hints to the composer, from there you can check wikipedia or the composers won websites. It will also point you to game developers that you feel more in tune with in terms of your musical style and who might be worth sending a showreel to.

e.g.

Lorne Balfe (Assassins Creed 3 OST) (Wiki)

Michiel van den Bos (Overlord 2 OST ) (Wiki)

Magnus Birgersson (Mirror's Edge OST) (Wiki)

Brian D’Oliveira (la hacienda creative) (Papa & Yo OST) (Papa & Yo Wiki)

Rich Vreeland (Fez OST) (Fez Wiki)

It may be worthwhile to subscribe to uk trade magazines (should be free, certainly don't pay for a subscription) so for games Intentmedia (Subscriptions - 01580 883 848) make two that might provide useful information and contacts

Develop: www.develop-online.net

dev.subscriptions@c-cms.com

Slightly marketing/advertising biased in my opinion, but at least gives you a bit of an inside track on companies making games in the uk.

MCV (The Market for Computer & Video Games)

www.mcvuk.com

mcv.subscriptions@c-cms.com

Focuses on the selling and marketing of games, so not directly related, but might still provide you with ideas, information and contacts.

Now one or maybe both of these also come with a yearly 'Source Book' that lists companies involved with gaming, though much is focused on services that have no relevance to you there is a small section for 'software development' as well as 'Creative & Promotional services' so maybe they might have some useful contacts to pursue.

Anyway good luck with your endeavour.

Thank you so much for checking out my soundcloud Noisecrime, and for the wealth of information - it's truly appreciated! This was clearly the right forum to come to :-)

I put together a new, very short showreel from "Endworlds" last night, which I was hoping would be my "go-to" demo showreel for games, particularly fantasy/sci-fi etc:

https://soundcloud.com/jamiesalisbury/endworlds-short-showreel

If anyone has time to listen and feedback I'd really appreciated it - it's only 3 minutes long.

I'm really interested as to why my music "doesn't sound like games music". I know you said you couldn't put your finger on it, but if anyone else has time to listen and can put their finger on it I'd love to know! I know structurally of course it will be different, but in terms of the tone and style I'd love to know peoples thoughts.

Re: style - I'm sure that's true, although I think it's something that is impossible to know from my point of view as I can't be objective about it. I'm definitely a jack of all trades (see "iPod shuffle" on my soundcloud for an extreme example!), which is both a blessing and a curse of course.

When you're talking about "lower-paid" indie games, is it possible to give me an idea of the sort of fees you're talking about? I'm really happy to work for a quality project for a lower fee, I just need to make sure I get paid enough to justify doing the work to my family at this point.

I won't respond to every point so as not to clutter the thread, but I'm taking everything onboard, agree with you on most points and will follow up all your links.

Thanks again!

Jamie

P.S I've got other tracks in mind to demo different styles, won't expect anyone to listen, but in case anyone's curious and has any thoughts for me:

https://soundcloud.com/jamiesalisbury/monsters-vs-pirates (fun, happy, main theme)

https://soundcloud.com/jamiesalisbury/imagem-us-drama-album-excerpts (Moody, introspective, atmospheric)

https://soundcloud.com/jamiesalisbury/sets/end-game (thriller, action)