New findings and updated information on opportunities
for game music composers & sound designers
for game music composers & sound designers
Every year, the results of the GameSoundCon Audio Industry Survey are published before the premier conference for video game composers and sound designers. GameSoundCon opens its doors again in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on Sept 27-28. The 2016 survey ran from May 15 to June 30, 2016 and received close to 600 responses of game audio professionals.
The report covers compensation, work and environment, use of
live musicians & middleware, contract terms, and education, plus an
addendum on gender and game audio. New questions for 2016 deal with
- Total Compensation for Freelancers
- Correlation with experience/years in the industry
- Use of Union musicians and voice actors
- Income Breakdown by Gender
The report reveals that while salaried game audio employees make more
on average than freelancers ($65,000 vs $42,000 per year), the very
highest salaries were obtained by freelancers. Experience and time spent
working in the industry influence the income opportunities greatly for
employees, and the same can be said for freelancers, even though their
range of income varies much more.
Indie games are on the map
In terms of freelancer compensation per project,
Brian Schmidt, Executive Director of GameSoundCon, was surprised to find
a few indie games among the highest payers: "Per project fees varied
tremendously, from a low of zero, to a high of over $250,000. Large
budget games, of course, dominate at the higher end, with Indie games
clustered toward the low end. However, there are significant number of
Indie games (self-funded, kickstarter, etc.) with per project fees
rivaling those of Professionally Produced small scale/casual games," he
says.
The report informs also about the correlation between
education and game audio employment. It turns out, just relying on your
musical talent is not enough: 72% of all surveyed have a bachelor's
degree or higher.
Another big surprise was the income differences in between male and female respondents. Schmidt is in the process of verifying the findings and will issue an addendum in a soon-to-come blog post.
The report contains 17 pages of information, such as how many
game audio pros are currently working on a Virtual Reality title,
corresponding graphs, and remarks on the statistical validity of the
GameSoundCon survey. The complete report is available at GameSoundCon.com.
