How I got into game audio
As it's the first post, I wanted to explain how I got into game audio, just to add to the variety of experiences and routes that people take. I also wanted to mention some of the obstacles and advantages I had along the way.
When I was 18, I moved to London to figure out what I wanted to do. Back in high school in Poland I was training towards architecture because that's what people with a mix of creative and technical skills get advised to do. However, music and pop culture have always been in the mix of my interests but I didn't know how to combine these things and turn them into a job. I played instruments (piano, guitar, bass) but I feel more like an artist than a musician, in a sense that I can bring different things/people together to create something - I often have a vision and ideas, but I’m not very good at any one particular thing or instrument.
In London, I started off by spending a year in art school but I didn't take it very seriously and spent my time mostly exploring the city, meeting people, playing in bands and getting drunk. My tutor noticed my lack of enthusiasm for my paintings and suggested sound design! But I didn't know what it was and after researching undergraduate courses, I thought that it would mean creating sound installations in galleries and I didn’t see how anyone would ever pay me to do this (ironically, my first paid sound design gig was to do a sound installation for a museum). So instead, I went on to study music business, thinking I could work in a record label or be a band manager or something.
Interestingly, the music business degree had elements of music composition. I had never written any music at that point but I had to do it to pass a module so I put something together in Garage Band and it turned out rather well! So I kept writing, learned to sing, got a band together, and things were going well. I had a manager and producer involved but eventually the project fell apart because no one knew how to fund it. So I went on to do a course in Music Technology at Islington Music Workshop, and this is where I first had a go at game sound design.
One of the projects there was to redesign and replace all SFX and music for an open source game 'Osmos' (Hemisphere Games, 2009) using only one tool: ES1 synthesizer in Logic. It was an exercise in subtractive synthesis to learn how to shape the sound to mimic different instruments and to become familiar with ADSR envelope. When I played the game with my sounds in it - I KNEW! I had tried sound design before but it was the interactivity of it that got me hooked. I listened to the ‘Beards, Cats & Indie Game Audio’ podcast and did the Wwise 101 course.
But this was in 2015 and I didn’t know how to get into games and there weren't many resources. With the lack of information, I wrongly assumed that it would be just as hard to get into as the music industry so sadly, I dropped the idea. At that point I was discouraged by my failures and disappointments in the areas of music (I tried performing, DJing, live sound engineering and working in a record label) and by the lack of paid opportunities. I was exhausted by low paid, insecure jobs in pubs and clothing stores, so I thought I might as well get a regular office job. I took a full time job in a logistics/IT start up, where I had a lot more responsibility and autonomy.
That job, though far from my interests, helped me to realise what my strengths were and made me more confident because I had a backup career. It taught me how to work with a wide range of people including programmers, developing and testing systems, and working under a lot of pressure. After some time, however, without having any artistic outlet, I became very unhappy. My thoughts kept coming back to game audio and I decided to give it another go.
In January 2020 I enrolled on an MA in game sound design and luckily my employer agreed for me to go part time. Working part time was necessary for me - I couldn’t do sound design on top of a stressful and demanding job, I tried but my health didn’t allow it. I should also mention that I got significant financial help from my partner and without this, I can’t imagine how I would pursue a new career because I don’t have a safety net or family support.
I mention the logistics of it all because in my view, the sound design and demo reels are the easy part - if you practice something, you get better at it. There are now more resources online and many nice game audio people wanting to help with this stuff. For me, the hard part was finding the time and money to even have a go at this. I knew I had the potential to develop the skills needed for the job but I just needed a bit of free time and feeling somewhat secure. I hope that things will get easier from now on. Of course, the work itself will be more and more challenging but hopefully I will be able to do it at a more balanced and sustainable pace.
