Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

The only emails I don’t reply to (sorry!)

cliffski

It seems every tenth person with a computer is a composer of music for Video games, who currently has a gap in their schedule and wants to make music for my next game.

At least, that is what you might think if you saw my inbox. I’m sure I’m not special, I bet anyone who makes indie games, and who has the budget to actually pay people to make music gets the same number of CV’s and emails sent to them as I do. generally speaking I try to reply to everyone who emails me, regardless what it is about (unless it’s yet more justifications of piracy – I’ve read enough now thanks). However, I confess I don’t reply to unsolicited CV’s from music composers.

Partly this is because there is such a glut of them right now that I know I’ll never have a problem finding one when I need one, and partly because the guy I used for my last two games does exactly the sort of music I’ll need for my next one, so the chances of me needing a new composer in the near future are pretty much zero.

So if you are reading this at music college and hoping to make your fortune in the games industry doing music for games, trust me, get a different plan, because there are WAY too many people out there trying to do that right now. Learn C++ instead :D.

5 thoughts on The only emails I don’t reply to (sorry!)

  1. Same with “concept artists”… I laugh every time I get an email from a concept artist, who won’t do anything but concept.

  2. Hahahaha, I just realized this. Yeah, we get so many requests like this. However, they do seem to be genuinely talented, it’s just that there are so many of them. My usual response is that “Sorry, we don’t have any money to pay you, but would you be interested in helping out for free?” and we actually get a pretty favorable response. One guy actually went ahead and pre-ordered Overgrowth and then went on to work with our main musician Mikko Tarmia and replaced the synthesized flutes with a real one.

    Go to our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Overgrowth/39924081634
    and listen to the main theme and see if you can spot which instrument is recorded live. :)

  4. Curious this.
    I wonder if its the same thing in computing. The general home computer design for twenty years was square beige box. It seemed the industry didn’t bother with usual standards, the product designer was the geek who put the insides together.
    To a computer geek, the best design is a square beige box, who cares about looks right? Its the megahertz that matter.
    I wonder if the computer industry was bombarded by hopeful designers and rejected them for decades before Apple revolutionised the industry by deciding to employ one.

    I shall be extra critical of a computer game with bad music in future.

  5. This is an old post, but I have some thoughts on this. There’s a difference between people who say they can, and people who actually can. And then there is the difference of being good. I’ve found most of the people who want to get into making music for games are the ones who can strum a chord on the guitar, download a program and then think they can do it.

Comments are currently closed.