Musical Crossroads

[Garpocalypse]

I'm a long time patron of Ocremix but first time poster. I did a search and couldn't find a similar topic so i'd thought i would make one.

I currently have a four year degree in music and I've been a little too addicted to video games since I opened my Sega Genesis way back on Christmas of 1992. Right now since not much is opened to me job wise, i am thinking of going to get a master's degree in music education or forsaking all in order to get a time-demanding but steady job in the hospitality industry. However I just started thinking about pursuing something in the VG industry but I have no idea where to start looking. A few googles later, I have no idea how to get into this business or what I need education wise to get started.

I have several incomplete remixes of my own that someday, when my mixing skills improve, I will submit to OCR.

I would hate to give up everything and be assimilated into the business world just to get security to pay the bills. Can anyone give me some pointers to get started in the right direction?

-Gar

[Orange Pylon]

The hard way is to look up and send a resume to / cold-call as many studios as you can think of, if they don't have job listings on their home page or whatever.

The other, possibly less hard way is to get a job in QA. Testing. Hell. If you have a job right now, chances are testing pays less and is far less forgiving. The advantage, however, is that you are in direct contact with ALL the right people on the development team. Get to know some people, earn some connections, and send some of your demos around. Next time someone needs a new musician for a project, why go through an expensive and time-consuming hiring process for that when you have a perfectly capable musician working for you already?

This is my understanding of the topic, anyway. This foot-in-the-door approach is universally agreed upon as the best way to get into the game industry as a designer/programmer/modeller/level designer/etc. I'm only assuming it applies to music as well. There are successful freelancers that aren't tied to any one company, but it's my understanding that most of them established themselves in the company ranks first before going freelance.

Oh, and don't take my word as law, since I've never actually worked for a game company. Most I have to go on is a shitload of articles and interviews that have pretty much universally agreed that testing is the best way to break into the business.

[zircon]

Don't even think about cold calling game studios until you have some sort of real portfolio to show! My advice is to start doing indie and student game projects to build up your chops and get a reel going. Once you have something to show, hit up conventions like the GDC where you can network with more game developers.

[Garpocalypse]

I was looking into the Xboxlive Community Games as one of my possibilities. I like how you can input your own soundtrack into whatever game you're playing too, At the risk of destroying your experience of the game of course.

When i was in college I did a few demos for some students who programmed for fun. They were more content to place random blocks on the piano roll in pirated versions of Fruity Loops than to use my stuff. not off to a good start.

I wasn't sure if a degree in computer music or recording would help grease the wheels so to speak.

Thanks for the ideas though.

[Meteo Xavier]

Don't even think about cold calling game studios until you have some sort of real portfolio to show! My advice is to start doing indie and student game projects to build up your chops and get a reel going. Once you have something to show, hit up conventions like the GDC where you can network with more game developers.

This and more. Look for ANYTHING you can do music for. Build some songs for a youtube page that don't have any other purpose BUT to show off your skill. I've had some really interesting requests come from all that and anything you do is potentially worthwhile.

Its not an absolute, but its a lot better than nothing.