video game composing/scoring

[carryonplease]

I've been really interested to find a way to make a career/money composing. I am about to be finishing up a degree in music business from my college and have been writing music for about 4 years (which isn't too long but i'm pretty confident) i've arranged stuff, wrote guitar pieces, lots of people say some of the things i write sound like it could be in a video game.

 

does anyone have any connection to this field? or know where to look? or any experience or any kind of comments?

[kabeerg512]

Video game music has become part of the curriculum of traditional schools and universities.Changes in video game music creation will have very little to do with technology and more to do with other factors of game development.

 

Make one great demo of your video and send it to every video game publisher.

[Johnny-Boy]

Also realize...

 

Composing for video games is a long, tedious process. Composing a score for film takes less time.

 

A film takes 3-6 weeks, a video game 3 months to a year. Expect the video game producers to constantly change course. That which you composed today, will be trashed tomorrow – and you’ll be asked for different music. Many of the games take up to a year to completion. Good in some ways; you don’t have the stress of deadlines like in film.

 

There's a saying in the video game music business; “composing for film entails a beginning, middle, and end - composing for a video game entails a beginning, an end, and a hundred middles". Which means; scenes in video games are always changing. You'll need a hundred or more variations to fit all the possibilities. Usually 1 1/2 minute per track is long enough. Any scene lasting longer in a video game will be looped.

 

Good luck, John

[paulz]

Expect the video game producers to constantly change course.

 

ugh, ain't that the truth. I'm firmly of the position that AGILE isn't really a new management schema, it's really just an admission (and i'm pointing the finger in the mirror as much as anyplace) that (like many musicians) we aren't going to play it exactly as written

(ie - the spec is a fiction!...OK maybe that's a little harsh)

 

the docs and localization guys take it in the rear pretty hard too

 

There's a saying in the video game music business; “composing for film entails a beginning, middle, and end - composing for a video game entails a beginning, an end, and a hundred middles".

 

not in game dev myself (industrial control here) , but pals who are have mentioned the "modular" approach they like (now these are the coders - so keep that in mind) wherein various "loops" or "atoms" of music can snap together so that depending on play context the music can change, relatively seamlessly, within a "scene".

I don't know if that approach is consistent from house to house or even if it's still popular or has died off (not a gamer myself, though I'll play the occasional casual game)

[elscorcho140]

do a little google searching for sites like broadjam that can help you get songs into video games or films. It might be a good way to find independent game makers and film makers.