# Video Games: The Land Of Milk & Honey...or Media Sensationalism?



## Replicant (May 22, 2018)

Bit of a long post, doin' some investigation, but hang in there:

I've long noticed that on forums dedicated to indie game development, every single site is flooded with ads saying "Composer Available!" mostly from an unending stream of people all making pretty much the same music. 

Any ad that anyone puts up looking for some people to collaborate will inevitably be flooded with "I'm a music composer/sfx artist/please, _please_ give me the job guy" in the PMs and immediately on the forums if the post specifically says they're looking for a composer. I set up an RSS feed on some of the sites, and on average, there is at least one composer replying in less than an hour. Not to mention, often times my notifications are from composers posting _in the wrong section of the forum_, announcing "I'm available".

You don't see programmers, artists, level-designers, _or anyone else_ doing this; so much desperation.

Maybe I'm oldschool, but most of my indie-game scoring gigs came from getting out there and making friends with game developers. 

I haven't noticed this kind of activity on other forums dedicated to filmmaking and such. So I wondered why this may be.

Well, for years, I've noticed articles popping up exclaiming, along the lines of how "Video Games Are The Land of Golden Opportunity" or "Video Games Are The New Best Way To Make A Living Composing Music!" and I suspect a great many have bought into this. 

My experience thus far has lead me to believe that video games may actually be a tougher market, without going into too much detail.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this.


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## Greg (May 22, 2018)

Posting on forums is the lowest hanging fruit for people trying to get gigs. I think its the laziest way to make yourself think you're chasing your dreams. You'd probably get more gigs by shouting out of your car window at stop lights.

I can't imagine they think video games will make them bank, likely they're just gamers themselves, or think they're not ready for films, or whatever else.


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## Virtual Virgin (May 22, 2018)

Greg said:


> I can't imagine they think video games will make them bank, likely they're just gamers themselves, or think they're not ready for films, or whatever else.



You must be asleep:
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Video-Game-industry-bigger-than-the-Film-and-Music-Industries


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## Greg (May 22, 2018)

Virtual Virgin said:


> You must be asleep:
> https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Video-Game-industry-bigger-than-the-Film-and-Music-Industries



Yeah but we don't get royalties from loot box sales...


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## Replicant (May 22, 2018)

Virtual Virgin said:


> You must be asleep:
> https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Video-Game-industry-bigger-than-the-Film-and-Music-Industries



"Where a movie ticket costs, on average, about *$8.50*, AAA games cost *$60*, which gives games a major earning advantage."

This is a common argument I've heard from gamers (I want to stress I'm _not_ ripping on video games in this thread) to state that games are "bigger" than film: That the industry makes more money. Yeah, well when you're up to 80 dollars per game now, that's at least 8 times more than a movie ticket at my local theater.

_Way, way more people have still gone out to see Avenger's or Star Wars than bought the newest Call of Duty _just by simple division.

"People just spend less time on movies and TV, while time in games is increasing:"







Yes, to the point that it's becoming a social problem. Not to mention, this is another unfair, biased comparison.

When I was a kid, most video games had short "stories", were tough as balls, but with a bit of practice you could burn through in a couple hours at most. Or, they were games like Street Fighter where it was a simple game that lasted two or three rounds and however many quarters you had — I'm of the last generation that still remembers arcades.

Fast forward 20 years and it took my friend 4 hours just to get through the _tutorials_ of Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

The time investment modern games demand also equals, like the the former point of $, one of those "well duh" moments that people are spending more time on it.



Greg said:


> Yeah but we don't get royalties from loot box sales...



Yeah, whether the industry pulls in more than the film industry or not isn't really relevant. Most video games don't pay even voice actors of iconic characters a royalty, never mind the composer — John Debney actually complained about this a bit when he did Lair for PS3, his first game.

The average, big-budget video game's production budget is still nothing compared to big-budget film and requires a lot fewer people.

Out of all the composers I've personally met, Tommy Tallarico is the only one who has become rich enough to afford a geek mansion from the job alone.


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## MatFluor (May 22, 2018)

I'm working on a few Videogames - noway near "AAA" of course.

What I'm seeing from the bottom is that the market is huge. I imagine it was the same when Camcorders became affordable, or with the advent of good Smartphone cameras. The Indie scene is huge, inverse to the budget.

Yes, I'm still catering to indie games since my portfolio isn't that big to go on the hunt for larger projects - 70% of indie games are hobby projects of people in school, uni, or with a dayjob. Very few have actual business aspirations. I give you a couple examples:

*1. Action RPG/Dungeon Crawler*
I met this guy from Canada, he liked my stuff and we started working together. IT was very early in development, but he put 2 years worth of money aside to work solely on the game. So far so good. After 7 months, a nice demo and good graphics design he said "yo guys, I'm sorry, but I'll stop development on this, I got a job in the gaming industry thanks to the demo, that's all I wanted. I might continue with it later on or as pet project". Bummer.

*2. Various other indie games (if you want a number, then 8)*
These had a specific thing going. They were all interesting projects to start with, some early in development, some further in. I quit them all because of a simple thing: Contracts. Since most is made with "rev-share", I want to have that clear cut in the contract with all things laid out, as well as the legal situation concerning license etc. In these games, either the lead developer was underage and couldn't sign the contract (and his parents wouldn't), they didn't want to sign a contract because I would've needed their name and address ("I don't give my name out to strangers") or "We don't need contracts, we trust each other". Yup.

*3. Again other Various games (I think it were 6 or so)*
These were simply abandoned. One day you just stopped hearing from the lead developer or other things. In some cases it was honestly shut down as in "Hey guys, I'm sorry, we stop developing the game", in others it was just simple abandonment. But pretty much all of them were underage folks as well. Luckily I didn't spend my time writing music for them and used my time to learn Audio Middlewares and other stuff.

*4. A Sci-Fi Visual Novel and a Moba*
So, these are the projects I'm working on currently. Both with a small patreon, where I get monthly around $80 together. On the Moba, I'm also the Head of the Audio Department (for which is the Patreon payout as Bonus). The thing with these two is, both lead devs are adults, they respect contracts, signed license agreements and other contracts and have an actual and realistic vision (the moba a bit less but it's a bigger thing anyway). The Visual Novel are 4 people, and the Moba currently around 15 including me. People get paid (if only little in the beginning), Game Design document holds up, some people are very good at their work. So, that's good.

All in all, 90% of indie projects suffer a terrible fate if you want to make money off it. The standard means of compensation there is revenue share - meaning you get a cut from the sales. Keep in mind that special discounts affect this as well. The problem is that a lot of these indie devs are a bit delusional - it reminds me of web app developers who "have a million dollar idea". They think this game will make them rich. Same as some web app developers I met had their business plan centered around "being acquired by google".

So, the view from the bottom in short is:
- Very little, mostly no upfront pay
- No royalties since Videogames are not "performance"
- A crapton of indie developers are very young and have no idea how business works
- There actually are gems around, but they are really hard to find
- Projects get abandoned, stopped, or don't see the light of day for various reasons

Yes, that from the bottom. I haven't had the chance to work on bigger budget titles sadly, but I can imagine, after some of the EA dumpster fires, that working conditions in the AAA space are similar to film, tight deadlines, restrictions etc. Plus the added requirements of knowing how to integrate the music, audio middlewares and such.

Here are some numbers from 2017 for Steam:













_graphics from https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260
_
Other short quotes from the article:
- Games at higher price-points make more money, especially full-priced AAA titles.
- Steam sales are skewed to the top with just 100 games (0.5% of all) accounting for 50% of total revenue.

If you add this numbers up and apply a 5%-10% revenue share to it, you need a few games to make some income. As said - my view from the bottom of the industry.


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## Replicant (May 22, 2018)

MatFluor said:


> All in all, 90% of indie projects suffer a terrible fate if you want to make money off it. The standard means of compensation there is revenue share - meaning you get a cut from the sales. Keep in mind that special discounts affect this as well. The problem is that a lot of these indie devs are a bit delusional - it reminds me of web app developers who "have a million dollar idea". They think this game will make them rich. Same as some web app developers I met had their business plan centered around "being acquired by google".
> 
> So, the view from the bottom in short is:
> - Very little, mostly no upfront pay
> ...



Your experience mirrors mine.

I'm not sure why so many game devs can't finish what they start, but I understand (and it's observable) that this is not limited to the indie sector. Look how many years Final Fantasy 15 or Kingdom Hearts 3 have been in development. How many games have been canceled with no real explanation. That "Vampyr" one's release date moves by two months every time I look. Hell, in 2014, I don't think there was a single major title that wasn't delayed at least once.


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## halfwalk (May 23, 2018)

Replicant said:


> I'm not sure why so many game devs can't finish what they start



Because it's a crap ton of hard work (often for multiple people) earning zero pay just to get a functioning game put together, and a few crap tons more hard work (and financial investment) to get an actual _good _game working. Some people have big dreams but then get burnt out after hundreds of hours without pay.

Then when you've put several hundred hours into a project, your skills have increased, which makes you want to go back and redesign everything using all the new tricks and technology you've mastered. By the time your game is nearing completion, it's already "obsolete" and you might be sick of it. Or sometimes people have unrealistic expectations of the scope of their game; they have this huge open world survival crafting multiplayer battle royale with zombies and jedi powers planned, and then realize that they spent months just trying to get the inventory system functioning, etc.

And with nobody pushing you, and no deadlines to meet, no money coming in, the project might just fizzle out.

Look at Duke Nukem Forever, perhaps one of the most infamous game dev nightmares. Fifteen (!) years in development, because they kept scrapping the engine and rebuilding it as technology kept improving, and because of legal/personnel issues as well. And then after fifteen years of work, the game flopped big time.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (May 23, 2018)

MatFluor said:


> I'm working on a few Videogames - noway near "AAA" of course.
> 
> What I'm seeing from the bottom is that the market is huge. I imagine it was the same when Camcorders became affordable, or with the advent of good Smartphone cameras. The Indie scene is huge, inverse to the budget.
> 
> ...



Yeah, in one line summed up: Shit market full of crapload if you ask me. I have similiar experiences made, even to the point where people who worked hard on a project weren´t even paid of. What a fuck! But that happens...


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## MA-Simon (May 23, 2018)

There was this one time I actually made some money from games.

It was a small project. We did some upfront payment and a little revenue-thingy.
It was UI art for a small mobile game. Maybe 1-2 weeks of work tops.

~3-4 months later I got a mail from paypal complaining, because the developer unexpectedly stuffed 10.000$ into my account.
Very happy surprise that day.

I belive that would have never happened with music.


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 23, 2018)

Replicant said:


> I haven't noticed this kind of activity on other forums dedicated to filmmaking and such. So I wondered why this may be.



I have, but I think indie games are the equivalent of indie films. The director/developer usually makes it sound glamorous just to get you onboard....and then the grim realization that you are writing music for nothing. What's worse is that they often run away when you mention the word "contract".


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## Replicant (May 23, 2018)

halfwalk said:


> Because it's a crap ton of hard work (often for multiple people) earning zero pay just to get a functioning game put together, and a few crap tons more hard work (and financial investment) to get an actual _good _game working. Some people have big dreams but then get burnt out after hundreds of hours without pay.



Maybe it's just me expecting too much, but I always kinda thought most people who want to work in the video game industry would probably realize that beforehand. 



MA-Simon said:


> There was this one time I actually made some money from games.
> 
> It was a small project. We did some upfront payment and a little revenue-thingy.
> It was UI art for a small mobile game. Maybe 1-2 weeks of work tops.
> ...



_Damn

_


MA-Simon said:


> I belive that would have never happened with music.


_
_
Probably not



Wolfie2112 said:


> The director/developer usually makes it sound glamorous just to get you onboard....and then the grim realization that you are writing music for nothing.



Well, I don't know as many indie directors as I do indie game makers, but the grandest promise that never usually comes to fruition from directors is "Yeah, I'm submitting it to all these great film festivals..." but at least you'll have a finished product that might at least have decent cinematography.


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## Desire Inspires (May 23, 2018)

Shoulda made a cheap and easy game like “Flappy Birds” and Ca$$$$$hed Owt!


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## Rasmus Hartvig (May 24, 2018)

As have been said before: The indie game scene is big, but there's very little money. On top of that there's a culture - grown out of mostly young, unattached people in the workforce, where you're expected to work for peanuts, be willing to do crunch and dedicate a period of your life to a project. That might not apply as much to composers, but in general you will be treated like everyone else on the project. 

Then there are different tiers of indie game developers. In the bottom one don't expect any money upfront, and the prospect of getting anything from revenue share is slim.
Bigger, established indie game companies will probably be better funded. If you money upfront deal with one of those, consider yourself lucky. I've seen lovingly polished, critically acclaimed games that people spent years on bomb when it came to actual sales, so I generally consider work for revenue share a very expensive lottery ticket.

As for all the aspiring composers wanting in, like everywhere else, it's about who you know. I make a pretty decent living working on indie games, and it all stems from just happening to know someone who started a game company, spending time at game conferences and other gatherings, getting to know people in the industry. I often read about composers finding it "hard to break into games". Step one should always be to get out there.

To the question from the OP: Yeah, I don't think the grass is greener in the game industry if making a living is the goal. If you just want to rack up experience working on ... anything ... without making money, it's probably a good place to start.


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## R. Soul (May 24, 2018)

As others have said, there's very little money in indie games, so I took a different approach. I wanted to work on AAA titles instead.

As I live in one of the major gaming hub cities, I started working in gaming QA testing games. It's close to minimum wage and the hours can be long, but at least you are working next to the devs, making it easier to mingle with them.
Having said that, I found out that most QA is not based in the same location as the devs and even when it is, it's often in a different building or floor, making the devs inaccessible as they are mostly in an area with restricted access - so a no go area for mere QA staff.

In my time working in QA I managed to work for some of the biggest devs - Microsoft, EA, TT games, SEGA and a couple of others, but as you know, a game might have a development team of 200, but often just 1 composer, so landing that job is no easy task. So while I got to know a couple of Sound designers at EA and Creative Assembly, the closest I got to a composing gig was joining the EA sound designer on a indie project he did in his spare time. And that of course, got abandoned.

So my point being - don't think working with devs will give you an advantage, unless you get to go down the pub with the Audio director on a regular basis.


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## Replicant (May 24, 2018)

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> I've seen lovingly polished, critically acclaimed games that people spent years on bomb when it came to actual sales,



The first game I ever did suffered that fate. I asked the how it was going a month or so post-release and they said "We've made just enough money to cover what we paid you for the music".



Rasmus Hartvig said:


> I make a pretty decent living working on indie games, and it all stems from just happening to know someone who started a game company, spending time at game conferences and other gatherings, getting to know people in the industry.



I agree about getting out there 100%, but I do think there's some things people should be aware of:

I used to attend a lot of the conferences and gatherings near me, but I've stopped going. The reason I've stopped going is because it's always the same people always going, I regularly talk with them on Skype/Discord, etc. The way I see it, is they know full well I do music, they've heard it, and if they want me to do something for them, they'll call. There's also the matter that I tend to be the only musician at such things and I'm not fluent in speaking programmer language or rendering stuff with Unreal. 

If you go too much to such gatherings without being somewhat of a game dev yourself, it's quite possible in my experience to wind up being a "third wheel" so to speak.

There's also the matter that networking causes you to see people as a means to an end, and they pick up on this. Most indie devs tends to be hobbyist, more reserved types who are just there to learn, make friends or show off what they're working on. So, for you and I, that's just business — but for people not used to the goal-oriented, assertive nature of establishing such relationships, they can view it negatively or even feel threatened by it. 

It's like: Not against being friends or anything, but still trying to make a career out of it here...



Rasmus Hartvig said:


> Yeah, I don't think the grass is greener in the game industry if making a living is the goal. If you just want to rack up experience working on ... anything ... without making money, it's probably a good place to start.



Fair enough. Personally, the fact that most indie devs aren't able to finish their projects is why I've turned my attention to trying to do more short film stuff. I'd say over the past 8 years, I've probably worked on around 10 games. 3 of them ever made it to release. I just got tired of getting all this experience, and sometimes even money, with nothing tangible to show for it. 

With the indie film stuff I've recently been doing, you may get little or no pay at all, but at least you will actually have something because you're getting the locked cut and (hopefully) most of the other sound. 



R. Soul said:


> So my point being - don't think working with devs will give you an advantage, unless you get to go down the pub with the Audio director on a regular basis.



At the college I went to, there was a professor in another dept. who used to work for a big game developer for like 15 years. I asked him about QA as an entry-level job to the business in general some years ago, and he told me that "QA used to be a great place to get your foot in, but these days it's where your foot might get stuck."


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## Rasmus Hartvig (May 24, 2018)

Replicant said:


> I'm not fluent in speaking programmer language or rendering stuff with Unreal.
> 
> If you go too much to such gatherings without being somewhat of a game dev yourself, it's quite possible in my experience to wind up being a "third wheel" so to speak.



That's a great observation, and one that might be true for most composers. I have a total blind spot there, since I have a computer science degree and definitely speak the language.

That might be another factor to consider: Knowing as many of the tools of the industry as possible. I think part of the reason my customers like using me is that I'm a one stop shop for all things audio. I can compose and produce the music, create the sound effects, and implement the whole thing in the game. Usually audio is the forgotten budget post, and you rarely see enough time budgeted for implementing audio, so if you can take a load off the coders - who are already burdened enough - that makes you even more valuable.


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