As long as we're pretending that anybody uses forums like these for anything other than self-promotion, maybe we could start a discussion about the sorry state of the audio industry.

I've been in this field for 5-ish years. I've written some audio for commercials that aired on local television, iPhone games, and other small-time pro projects. I enjoy it immensely.

Yet I am routinely astounded at how cut-throat and competitive this field is, even after all of these years. It is close to impossible to find a listing for a composing gig without 30+ hopeful applicants already submitted - they are often highly experienced composers, as well. With some persistence it is possible to find gigs, but they are rarely well-paying or even worth the trouble. I've only really gotten anything good by operating locally, and even then, it's rare.

Hilariously, I've recently noticed more and more wanted ads from game developers SPECIFICALLY telling composers to bugger off, because they've already got more applicants than they know what to do with - before even posting the ad.

I'm not sure why this field is so horrendously over-saturated. I'm sure it has something to do with how readily available entry-level software is these days. It also probably has something to do with the ignorance of clients - maybe I can tell when a composer doesn't know how to mix & master their tracks, but the client will have no context whatsoever and hire the guy anyway because his name popped up first.

I'm probably coming off as a little bitter, but I don't think anybody will deny that the game audio field is essentially incapable of paying your rent. Unless you are extremely lucky, or you have powerful connections. What are your thoughts?

Great post JB, and Nathan

I hear you Garrett, and you're very right about it being over-saturated.

"I'm sure it has something to do with how readily available entry-level software is these days. It also probably has something to do with the ignorance of clients - maybe I can tell when a composer doesn't know how to mix & master their tracks, but the client will have no context whatsoever and hire the guy anyway because his name popped up first."

Well, a little bit. People don't know good music from bad, but there's also the issue that games simply need a lot more man-hours in art and programming than they do in music.

The typical game has maybe an hour of music? Say, 30 2 minute pieces if you really push it (which is probably about the number I'm commissioning).

How many composers does it take, for how many hours, to do that? Maybe a couple hundred man hours from a good composer. That's just a couple months of work.

Now, compare with the art load, or the amount of programming for the typical game.

Even if composers only make up 10% of game industry applicants, they're already oversaturated because a game (even a high budget one) usually only needs one composer, and only part time towards the end of production, while it may need dozens of artists and programmers.

Indie games can be a little more balanced, but they have almost no budget for music at all.

For example, I can only pay maybe $25 -$50 a minute for music (depending on the quality); I know, it's dreadful and I want to apologize for that, but it's just the reality of the situation that most of my budget goes to art and programming. Would I like to pay more, and hire Danny Elfman? Hell yeah. But it's just not realistic for my budget.

If it cost more, I wouldn't pay more, I'd have to cut the amount of music I ordered instead, or use cheap stock music.

For indies it's a blessing that there's so much competition in the music field: it makes the soundscapes of our games much better than they would otherwise be. But I wouldn't want to be a composer in this market, and I definitely feel for you guys.

Like others said, you just have to struggle to differentiate yourself, and appeal to those who can pay for higher quality and customer service. It's possible to make a living (even the rates I pay are living wages, but just barely), but it takes a lot of dedication to the art since it means more work, more struggling to find work, and less disposable income.

A lot of supply, very few demands.

It's easier to fake composing skills to a client than it is to fake programming skills, so plenty of people who are kinda beginners are on the market. (but I assume if you are decent you are above them in quality).

Mostly it's supply and demands.

A sound designer from Ubisoft told me one day that they had a few composers in mind at all time and when comes time for music they just send pictures of the game to all of them and they all answer with crazy stuff in around 48h max. And then they choose the best.

This is how easy it is for them and how hard it is for composers. They will never post any job offer for it, they have their pros already.

Granted this is Ubisoft and not a small studio but still.

Also as a person who tried to make a student team to make a small game, after my post where I specifically said that I don't need music because I have a friend for it, I got 5 answers from composers in one day and very little from any other job.

It's not just a matter of supply and demand- as others have stated, the situation has changed as a result of the technology. Now don't get me wrong- it's easy to be bitter when you spend most of your life learning certain skills only to have those skills made redundant by software/hardware- I can accept that, and I think removing the initial boundaries into the industry is a great thing. What really gets to me is the move towards loop/sample based music, in which people are able to string together a bunch of loops and deliver something that sounds amazingly professional and polished, if completely unoriginal and generic. Unfortunately, the average person will listen to tracks like these and think 'wow, sounds just like Zimmer' or so on, unaware that the loops used probably come from Zimmer himself.. and the problem is that is exactly what people will be expecting to hear.

The other problem, as mentioned above, is that this is a 'creative' industry (an oxymoron if you ask me..), unregulated and very unstructured. Things are not so different in TV and Film, although those industries have had enough time to settle into some kind of rhythm- but essentially the problem is the subjectivity of music and the wide range of opinions on different composers. It is very hard to justify hiring a composer on credentials alone, it is almost always a more emotional decision based on an attachment to that person's music.

It's very disheartening to find yourself with no work, while witnessing people getting paid to arrange pre-recorded loops that they probably downloaded illegily, or holding down one note in Omnisphere and calling themselves an ambient composer, or so on. But if you truly have something different and interesting to offer, you will eventually be regonised for it, it just a question of how much crap you can take, and how long you can endure it, up until that point.

Speaking of Omnisphere and the like, I work for a stock music library (not the cheap royalty free kind for chumps). Our boss can recognize almost any sample from omnisphere, trillian, stylus, and superior drummer. If he hears one sample, he immediately rejects the piece because the sounds are so overused in production music. I've heard heard music that literally uses raw garageband loops with no editing whatsoever. Hopefully people know the difference between good music and layered loops.

I am not a composer myself but I don't see any link between loops>bad music , no loops>maybe good music.

I mean if they make loops as a preset on plugins it will probably sound good and you kinda paid for the plug-in so why not use it.

Yes people from the industry will probably know what it is and it does feel cheap, but 99% of the people who play the game? Probably won't even notice.