20 November 2024 | Deon van Heerden
Hi there! I’m Deon van Heerden, a freelance composer and sound designer from Cape Town, South Africa. Over the past decade I’ve scored around 30 video games, countless trailers and ads and, recently, my first animated feature. I run this small company called PolyForge Media. Formed in 2020 in collaboration with my writing partner, Kristi Boonzaaier, PolyForge Media is a small group of trusted professionals working in game, film and documentary audio.
So You Want to Be a Game Composer?
Today, there are more opportunities than ever for young composers and sound designers in interactive media. However, for most of us, the path to a sustainable career is uncertain. I’m constantly asked: "How do I break into game music?" And, though I’ll be answering this question as best I can, I’d like to append two, arguably more important questions:
What should I do before trying to break into game audio?
How do I sustain a career once I'm there?
If your game plan was to study, write some music in the styles of various big name composers and then send out a big batch of cold emails and wait, this article is for you.
The Current State of the Industry
The barrier for entry into the audio industry is lower than ever. A field recorder, a shotgun mic and a DAW with stock plugins is all you need to get your start as a sound designer. Any one of the dozens of cheap orchestral libraries, forever on sale or available for subscription, coupled with some free synths and drum packs, is enough to get started as a media composer.
And yet, at a time when tools are better and cheaper than ever, when countless games are being made and we no longer have to live adjacent to game studios to work with them, young composers still struggle to find work.
Every game developer I know receives dozens, if not hundreds, of applications a month from young composers, eager - or desperate - to work on their games, often for free. Many developers don’t have the budget to pay for bespoke music, or may not even have considered the value of a unique soundtrack. Many turn to licensed music, ready-made music packs or, in many cases, a hobbyist friend willing to knock out a few tunes for them. For sound designers, the situation is little better, and their value is often even less appreciated.
Internships are generally region locked, and in-house jobs are incredibly rare, especially if, like me, you’re not even on the same continent as a AAA studio.
For most of us, the only real option is to forge our own paths, make connections, take calculated risks and strategize.
From Power Metal to Game Scores
This is probably a good moment to tell you a little about my own journey.
I don’t come from a particularly musical background. Until I got to university, all I cared about was the theater and books. Writing, acting, touring. I got my bachelors in theater, and a Masters in English Literature. I tutored and lectured and, on the side, I played in a power metal band. I love power metal and, since there were no power metal bands in South Africa, I decided to form one with my friends, picking up the guitar and, eventually, taking over singing duties, too.
The music was unrepentantly cheesy and self-indulgent. I became obsessed with writing the orchestrations for the tracks, reverse-engineering musical fundamentals as I went. We gigged, toured, recorded an album and shot a music video where we were flying through space on an asteroid, eventually crashing into Table Mountain. It was called Power Metal From Space. Aside from a small, loyal following, there was absolutely no market for this in South Africa. It was just for us. Every aspect of it was insane, over-the-top and unrepentantly silly.
Meanwhile, more or less down the road from us, a group of young game developers were working on a game that was similarly insane, over the top and unrepentantly silly. One of them happened to be a fan. They reached out and asked if we wanted to write a theme song, and an end-of-level stinger. And, though they initially turned down my offer to score the game - preferring to use the licensed music they already had - I didn’t take no for an answer. The result was Broforce, and it was a match made in Heaven. It proved to be a seminal game for both the South African games industry, and for indie publishing giant Devolver Digital, and set me on a completely different path. Over a decade later, I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.
I tell this story, not because it’s somehow exceptional, but because it is actually so common. Speak to anyone working their dream job, especially in the creative industries, and you’ll find that they had a hefty dose of luck at a pivotal moment. But luck, as the truism goes, is preparation meeting opportunity. Without preparation, opportunity can be meaningless. It stands to reason then that,
by maximizing your preparation, and actively cultivating opportunities, you too can “create” your own luck, or at the very least stack the odds in your favor.
I hope that this story also serves as a reminder that there are 8 billion people in the world today. If you know who you are, and you know what you're about and put it out into the world, odds are that you'll find your people. Our industry is too saturated for you to mimic someone else. Be audacious and make art that’s all you. Your identity will grow and develop with time, but differentiating yourself from day one is crucial.
“That’s all well and good,” you say, “but I’m a student with time on my hands. What practical steps can I take now? How do I maximize my preparedness?” Well, I’m glad you asked!
Lessons Learned Along the Way
1. Master Your Tools
Learning the tools you have is a crucial habit to cultivate, and one that will serve you well until the day you retire (or, more realistically, die at your desk).
There is an entire industry built on selling quick-fix solutions to young composers and sound designers. Each plugin and sample pack promises to be the thing that will take you to the next level, gradually conditioning you to respond to challenges by reaching for your wallet.
In the early years, I fell prey to this many times myself. In my modest toolkit I had everything I needed, but the anxiety around a difficult brief would send me to Google, buying tool after tool, thinking they would somehow solve my problems. But the work still needs to be done, and the hard reality is that no tool can do the work for you. You cannot buy your way to success. I'm too scared to do the math on how much money I wasted during those years, but hopefully I can save you the trouble. Yes, there is a barrier to entry, there is a cost of doing business, but learn from young me and don't burden yourself with unnecessary tools, expenses and regrets. Rather, master your core toolkit.
Hans Zimmer famously still extensively uses Zebra 2, a soft synth originally released in 2006, in his motion picture scores. Zebra 2 costs 99 Euros. If you know a tool like that inside and out, you may never need to spend another cent on synths. So, crack open a manual or a YouTube tutorial, and when you’re working in the industry under crazy time pressure you’ll have a safety net that will never fail you. And, as an added bonus, you’ll be immune to people taking advantage of your stress and imposter syndrome to sell you something useless.
2. Diversify Your Skills
I’ve been extolling the virtues of specialisation, so now I’m going to upset the apple cart by extolling the virtues of diversification. Writing music, and writing music to a brief, are two very different propositions. When you’re eventually hired to write music for someone else, you’re generally serving as a tool for achieving their vision.
Just as communicating with a vocabulary of 200 words would severely limit your ability to express nuanced concepts, so too having a limited musical vocabulary is a form of self-sabotage.
Quincy Jones, a man whose ego is eclipsed only by his unparalleled success, says:
Musical principles exist, man. Musicians today can’t go all the way with the music because they haven’t done their homework with the left brain. Music is emotion and science. You don’t have to practice emotion because that comes naturally. Technique is different[...] You can only get so far without technique. People limit themselves musically[...] Do these musicians know tango? [...] Bossa nova? Salsa? Cha-cha?
You may well be called on to include a genre of music you’ve never heard of in your score. If you haven’t developed the skill of studying and assimilating different musical idioms, you’re in for a difficult time. And even if you’re only asked to write a single style of music for the rest of your life, every genre you’ve studied in your own time will have enriched your musical vocabulary. Bluegrass will teach you interesting things about harmony, dynamics, arrangement and arpeggiation. EDM will teach you things about compressors, EQs and translation between devices. Taylor Swift will teach you about creative reverb automation, minimalist percussion and a cohesive fusion between image and music. Also recycling. I wasted years of my life on musical elitism. If somewhere, for some reason, it makes someone happy, it's not beneath you, and it has something to teach.
So how do you break into game audio?
3. Get Involved in Game Jams
Game jams, for the uninitiated, are events where people make games from scratch, usually over a weekend or within a week. This kind of rapid prototyping encourages teamwork, focus and speed. Two big ones are Global Game Jam and Ludum Dare, but there are literally thousands.
Celeste, Angerfoot, Broforce, Surgeon Simulator, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes are just a few of the successful projects that started out as game jams, either internal or public. Game development is, with few exceptions, a collaborative, social activity. You can lament that it’s all about “who you know,” or you can be the person that knows people.
Let’s do some napkin math. There are game jams happening pretty much every day, all day, year round. If you were to do a game jam every weekend for a year, you'd have built up a network of 52 teams of people interested in making games. Those teams, very often, are composed of people who are in other teams. They’ve just come together for this project. You now have literally hundreds of people, all involved in game development to some extent, who know who you are and, if you’ve brought your A-Game, enjoyed working with you and may want to do so again.
So how do you make the most of this opportunity?
The Five ‘Co’s’
Competence
Confidence
Collegiality
Communication
Cooperation
Competence is your responsibility, and comes with discipline and experience. But where experience is lacking, reliability and good common sense will often suffice. There’s no time for second guessing in a game jam. You’ll learn your shortcomings, and if you’re diligent you’ll know where to focus your time and energy to improve yourself when the dust settles.
Confidence. Not to be confused with arrogance, confidence is not only something felt, but something projected. You're here to solve problems, often before anyone knows they exist. A can-do attitude can be the difference between consistent work and an empty inbox.
Collegiality. Be nice to work with. No-one wants to work with a dour, self-absorbed or pretentious person, especially not when it comes to music. Be the highlight of everyone’s project and people will want to work with you again.
Cooperation is incredibly important. This is a communal endeavor, and digging in your heels does no-one any good. Feedback is a collaboration, where the person who’s paying you is giving you a cheat sheet on how to succeed. Embrace it!
Communication. This is easily the most crucial, and most overlooked, aspect of being a freelance creative. Being able to write unambiguous emails, tease out what a client’s really looking for, or simply being able to foster a human connection is an important part of your composing process. Being able to maintain eye contact, speak confidently and openly, to be able to express frustrations and settle conflict diplomatically, to find a shared language, all of this requires communication. And all of it will set you apart from 99% of your competitors. When I’m training someone, I’ll generally spend vastly more time coaching them on email writing than I will on composition, it’s that important.
Ultimately, music serves to create a desired emotional impact. Only through clear communication, the application of tacit skills, flexibility, empathy and a positive attitude can you successfully fulfill your role.
Game jams will also teach you another crucial skill.
Working Fast
In audio, in film and video games, you are the final link in the chain. Speed and adaptability are key. Game jams, with their inherent time limits, are therefore a microcosm of the industry as a whole. There's no room for blind experimentation and learning tools when you're working under those conditions. You can’t put off the development of your core toolkit until you’ve “got your big break”, and game jams will illustrate that all too clearly. Start developing your box of tricks - both in terms of tools and musical vocabulary - today.
I hope it’s becoming apparent at this point that the answer to my second amendment - “how do I sustain a career once I’m there?” is more or less the same as the answer to the question of what to do before trying to break in. Audio is a discipline where you never stop learning, and cultivating good habits where you master your tools and broaden your vocabulary will serve you well, and help to distinguish you in a saturated market.
Facing Imposter Syndrome
While excellence is always the goal, doubt will always find a way to creep in. There’s something that I wish I’d known when I was starting out: People doing things at the highest level don't have a secret sauce, a secret plugin, or a secret anything. They're experienced, detail-oriented and self critical. The elixir, magical tool, or single piece of knowledge that takes things from being what you’re making, to what the big guys are making doesn't exist. If a famous mix engineer tells you a certain compressor is indispensable to them, you need to understand that their ear is developed to a point where they're working in degrees of nuance you can't even imagine when starting out. The difference between that and what they could achieve with a stock plugin is likely imperceptible to the casual ear.
The only things standing between you and getting into the ballpark of the guys at the absolute pinnacle is discipline, practical experience and applied taste. And, to be honest, very little of the media we consume is being created by the people at the absolute top. Most of what you hear is created by competent, disciplined folks on tight deadlines, using every trick and tool in their arsenal to get the product out the door before some unrealistic deadline.
Why Are You Doing This?
Perhaps I could add a fourth question to the three. One that you should be asking yourself today: “Why do I want to work in game audio?”
Your answer is probably some combination of “I like audio”, “I like games” and “it seems cool”. And this is a legitimate place to start. But the thing that will ultimately determine whether or not you actually enjoy it, and the thing that will keep you feeling fulfilled even when playing games is no longer as fun as it used to be, and your music taste stagnates as you turn slowly to dust, is the process.
The process of making art, the thousands of little challenges, choices and victories that eventually coalesce into something unique, that is what it’s all about. Some of you might recognise this as the hallmark of a flow state. Add to that the interaction with other people - artists, programmers, level designers and writers - each contributing their own process to this collective work of art, each with their own innumerable challenges and victories, and you have something truly magical.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully I’ve convinced you as young, prospective audio professionals, that “how do I break into the games industry?” is, to a large extent, the least useful of the questions you could be asking. Rather, you should be asking what kinds of skills can equip you for long-term success in the industry and, by extension, what you can do before trying to break into it. The actual moment of breaking in is largely a matter of luck and happenstance.
That luck, as I’ve argued, is something that can be consciously cultivated. By preparing thoroughly and creating opportunities, you’re massively increasing your odds of being at the right place at the right time, and of being able to rise to the challenge when your moment comes.
Embrace your unique, individual identity. Create art that reflects that and put it out into the world. Simultaneously realize that, the more you push yourself out of your comfort zone, the greater the vocabulary you’ll have to express your clients’ vision.
And, finally, I hope I’ve illustrated that game jams and the like are the perfect opportunity for you to cultivate every professional, psychological and interpersonal skill you need for long-term success. They allow you to grow your network, to identify shortcomings in your process, and allow you to practice your skills under pressure, but with relatively low stakes.
It’s a long, uncertain road, where you often need to clear your own path but, if you focus on the fundamentals that empower both you and your clients, and avoid some common pitfalls along the way, you’ll be setting yourself up for long-term success.
