the answer to this thread is simple.

1. if you work in-house at a game studio, you will be expected to handle a large potion of implementation, and work with audio programmers to solve issues.
2. If you are a freelancer, you can probably score a gig just doing asset creation.

Point is, most game audio jobs are 50/50, between sound design and technical implementation. Only other exception I can think of would be if you got hired at one of the rare studios that have large audio teams, so large each person has specific roles (like technical implementor, sound designer, composer, voice producer, etc etc)

But all that stuff you mention about pan, it's mostly taken care of automatically by middle ware engines like F-Mod and WWISE. Even the source engines like those in Unity and Unreal have this feature built in. Getting your sound to act properly in a 3D space would only require a few clicks for the most part.

[quote name='the_grimace' timestamp='1355649171' post='5011209']
the answer to this thread is simple.

1. if you work in-house at a game studio, you will be expected to handle a large potion of implementation, and work with audio programmers to solve issues.
2. If you are a freelancer, you can probably score a gig just doing asset creation.

Well, I wouldn't paint with such a broad brush. I've had plenty of gigs as a freelancer where I not only took care of asset creation, I also did all of the implementation. In fact, I think that was one of the selling points to why I got the job. What you've stated above is certainly quite common but it isn't 100%.
[/quote]

Well, that's why I included "probably" in that part. I have had freelance and contract jobs where I did only asset creation, and ones where I had to do some implementation, and some where I had to do all of the implementation. I was just saying it would be much easier to find an asset creation only job through freelancing than an in-house audio job, but regardless, implementation and technical skills are going to be good to have.