Getting Your Music Placed In Video Games

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Sorry no intro, let’s get right down to business

Know What You’re Getting Into

The most important thing you need to do is familiarize yourself with the gaming industry. You want to learn as much as you can about the company you plan on pitching to.

What kind of music is used for “x type” of game? Is it mostly instrumentals or full songs? What genre of music do they use (mostly)? Look at the companies franchise games. I would never send the music supervisor of John Madden Celtic music…. It just doesn’t fit the game.

I personally research titles of games that use styles of music I enjoy creating. If I’ve never played the game I do a quick search on YouTube, and most of the time I’ll find someone paying the game, which allows me to hear some of the music that’s being used. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go into a EB Games or something and play the game.
Most of the time the employees have a demo they can call up or even a kiosk with the latest games that you can play.

The gaming industry loves working with Indie musicians

Somewhere in between the acts of creation and communication an Urban Legend was born. This Urban Legend claims that gaming developers are only interested in  known artists/musicians.

This isn’t 100% true, I do believe in within the creation process there maybe some ideas/thoughts of having a certain piece of music to go along with the game, but if the music fits the music fits (regardless who the creator is).

In my experience indie musicians have just as good of a chance of being placed as the majors – Given the music is of the same caliber production.

Build A Resume/Track Record

Before you contact anyone make sure you have a portfolio of your work. This portfolio can be full songs, instrumentals or previous game placements. I suggest displaying any previous gaming placements/film work that you’ve done over the years.

Sounds great Greg, but I have no prior game or video placements

Well, now it’s time to focus on getting some. Start connecting with smaller game developers, these guys are always in need of sounds/music for their video games. They don’t always have the biggest budgets (for music) and in some cases can’t afford to pay anything, but hey, it’s a start.

This will help you put together a nice portfolio that you can share with bigger companies/bigger clients (Midway, EA etc).

Make Your Music/Portfolio Easily Accessible

You want to make sure your music is accessible and easy to listen to. What I mean is present something streamable rather than something that must be downloaded…unzipped/unrared and then played. I know that’s not a lot of work, but music supervisors/audio directors etc… These are very busy people, and you have to take that into consideration. They’re nice enough to converse with you and willing to hear your music… make it easy for them to do so.

Quick tip – Make sure you have a clean/professional looking website (you don’t need a designer for this).There are a lot of free resources out there that will host your music and supply with clean/professional widgets and players that you can easily embed onto your website.

Be Flexible & Understand Your Role

Be flexible with your creativity and be willing to make edits to your music. Remember you’re not the main event, you’re being contracted/hired to enhance someone’s project/vision.

Sometimes your music wont be used the way it was originally intended to, and that’s something you’ll have to get use to. I remember working with a company called JoWood (before they were bought out), and it was to my understanding that my music would be used during certain action scenes, but that didn’t happen, instead it was used during the character selection screen.

Did I agree with this choice? No, I didn’t, I felt the music was better fit for an action scene, but at the end of the day it’s their decision.

The easier you are to work with the more likely you’ll be hired for more projects.

Be Ready To Move Forward

You want to make sure you have everything inline to move forward on an opportunity. Let’s say a company was hyped on moving forward with a track I submitted. It would suck if I responded back with something along the lines of “I have get my partners approval 1st”, or “I have to setup a new bank account or another method to accept your payment” or “hold on, mom has to show me how to do an invoice” etc.

These are just examples, but my point is the business side of things should run smoothly. You should have a way to accept payments, you should own the rights to the work you’re pitching and you should know how to create invoices.

If there were sessions players or collaborative partners that assisted with the music, then you need contracts and release forms signed!

I like being in control and having ZERO snags/hangs ups, which is why I do not collaborate – To much of a risk for me & I hate risk.

We’re all bound to make mistakes, but try to avoid as many hangups as possible.

Addition Tips To Insure A Smoother Business Transaction

• Use Dropbox to deliver the project (unless advise otherwise)
• Make sure you back up multiple stages of the project
• Don’t let you intelligence overload your ass (be humble)
• Never be ashamed to mimic what’s working (music wise)

Great Reading Material For GameAudio/Sound Designers

The Sound Fx Bible By Ric Viers

Mixing Secrets: By Mike Senior

Designing Sound: By Andy Farnell

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