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[Lauchsuppe]

I think the problem is there's too many "johnny just-bought-logic"s out there selling their stuff for rates like 10/min and too many buyers who are okay with the level of quality they'll get for that price.

[8thMode]

What an unsatisfying life both of those parties must lead....


On a lighter note that's actually contributing to the thread, I really enjoyed my time with this book, http://www.abookapart.com/products/design-is-a-job
It's aimed at designers, but the words are applicable to any freelance endeavour.

Maybe not fixing the whole "over-saturation" portion, as those who think that $10/min is the way to go probably won't be listening. But hey, fun read nonetheless.

[xastris]

People actually buy your stuff.

otherwise as composers we're teaching developers that music is cheap.

You have some very good points, but I must beg to differ with this last one.

Price is not driven by the suppliers (e.g. composers), but the market.

So far I have not seen any actual data on the average price for music, so I don't know if we just got the short end of the stick, or if the whole industry is undervalued.

Say that "Johnny" finds out nobody buys his stuff at $300/min. He changes it to $10. Then it's not Johnny who sets the price, but the market.

10 years later Johnny got better, and prices himself at $300/min, and finds himself able to get away with it, because people are thinking now that he's worth that $300/min. Again, Johnny doesn't set the price, the market does, the ones who pay him does.

[8thMode]

People actually buy your stuff.

otherwise as composers we're teaching developers that music is cheap.

You have some very good points, but I must beg to differ with this last one.

Price is not driven by the suppliers (e.g. composers), but the market.

So far I have not seen any actual data on the average price for music, so I don't know if we just got the short end of the stick, or if the whole industry is undervalued.

Say that "Johnny" finds out nobody buys his stuff at $300/min. He changes it to $10. Then it's not Johnny who sets the price, but the market.

And effectively good ol' Johnny is devaluing the market. He's practically telling people to value his original creations the same as a carparking spot. More games have shitty music, more people wrongly think, "wow, music doesn't really add much to games...", less value people see in music, less people pay for music.*

At the very least, charge a reduced rate (but for the love of god not $10) and have and increased back-end, non-exclusivity. You should be licensing your stuff at this rate anyway, $300 ain't a buyout rate. But let them know it's a discounted rate, and that your work has value.

10 years later Johnny got better, and prices himself at $300/min, and finds himself able to get away with it, because people are thinking now that he's worth that $300/min. Again, Johnny doesn't set the price, the market does, the ones who pay him does.

Dear god, I hope in 10 years he getting paid more than $300! His poor kids...

And "get away with it"? If he's actually had 10 solid years in the industry he deserves to get paid well. That's the outlook we need - we're not fairy-dust sprinkling "creatives", we're business people hired to create solutions to problems the client can't fix.

I do think we set the price. Nobody is born with the ability to be a great client, we've got to educate devs as to what good music is, and how much that good music costs.
And if you're not a Johnny, and you've got skillz, but you're charging a pittance, you are conditioning that client to how much music is going to cost. We are setting the market.

End of the day, I know if you're anything like me, you've got shit to pay, and a deep, unrelenting desire, to pour illogical sums of money into music and music related gear. So let's get paid.


*now I'm probably being over dystopic. and rambly, so sorry for that!

[xastris]

@8thMode

I completely understand where you're coming from, but we've really just been talking about the 2 sides of the same coin here.

It's not the price we set that is at the heart of the problem. It's the price that the customers are willing to pay.

An illustration: Johnny charges $300/min, but devs are willing to pay $400. That sucks for Johnny, but not for the entire industry, because there will always be composers with the same level of expertise who charge $400, and devs are willing to pay exactly that.

But if Johnny continues to charge $300, when the devs are only willing to pay $200, that's when we have a problem.

The solution is not for Johnny to keep charging $300 and demand others to do the same (not to mention that would be impossible, if not illegal ), but for the devs to realize that the $300 is worth it.

That's where composers like you come in, to raise people's aesthetic standards, to realize that music can be a big part of the game. And that's how you set the market.

[xastris]

And "get away with it"? If he's actually had 10 solid years in the industry he deserves to get paid well. That's the outlook we need - we're not fairy-dust sprinkling "creatives", we're business people hired to create solutions to problems the client can't fix.

Exactly! Set the highest price that you can get away with without losing clients, that's what businesses do.

And it would be the point where you achieve maximum profit, but that's beside the point 

[WittyNotes]

Nobody wants to say it, but... part of the problem is, of course, that music has become worth much less in the past thirty years. The personal computer MIDI orchestra has done that, but so have things like the growing public domain and ease of access to audio recordings.

I can't help but feel like the only way to keep music valuable (and expensive) is to emphasize those areas that CAN'T be taken over by simply copying-and-pasting other music: interactivity and proper cueing (although that last one is more for films, not games).

[mscottweber]

Nobody wants to say it, but... part of the problem is, of course, that music has become worth much less in the past thirty years. The personal computer MIDI orchestra has done that, but so have things like the growing public domain and ease of access to audio recordings.

I can't help but feel like the only way to keep music valuable (and expensive) is to emphasize those areas that CAN'T be taken over by simply copying-and-pasting other music: interactivity and proper cueing (although that last one is more for films, not games).

This.

If every Johny with a computer and a couple of sample libraries can create music that (most) indie devs feel is good enough for their game, then we need to offer more than just mediocre music.

Write GREAT music.
Or write great music AND provide great sound design (I've had devs tell me they chose me over other composers because I'm an all-in-one audio guy, and not just a composer)
Or write great music AND do great sfx AND be super friendly and reliable and easy to work with.
Etc.

AND I absolutely agree with 8th Mode about composers dictating what their worth

[Kyle Preston]

If every Johny with a computer and a couple of sample libraries can create music that (most) indie devs feel is good enough for their game, then we need to offer more than just mediocre music.

Write GREAT music.
Or write great music AND provide great sound design (I've had devs tell me they chose me over other composers because I'm an all-in-one audio guy, and not just a composer)
Or write great music AND do great sfx AND be super friendly and reliable and easy to work with.
Etc.

AND I absolutely agree with 8th Mode about composers dictating what their worth

^

This, all of it.

[groovyone]

There is no one answer to this quesion, but a combination of a lot of different factors.

My observations is that there are
1. a lot of talented people out there
2. growing visibility of the gaming industry as a viable means to do something with your talent
3. technology shift allowing composers to create a high quality results whereas this would have only been possible with larger budgets and expensive equipment in the past.
4. discussions both at conferences and forums on how to break in, how to improve and how to build a client base.
5. a boom of developers who don't have years of experience and knowledge about game audio allowing budding composers that chance to do something.
6. Cheaper distribution and creation of games, combined with a lot of choice drives prices down.
7. People willing to work for free handing over bargaining power to the developers. If someone offers you a car for free, are you going to take the free car, or pay $5,000 for one? What is your expectation next time you need a car?? Find somoene willing to give one to you rather than pay for it.
8. Fierce competition to get some kind of foot in the door.
9. Changes in game audio technology allowing generalist composers the chance to work with a developer whereas previously perhaps you needed some technical prowess to write to a technologically driven restriction. Most composer provide mp3s/ogg/wav now rather than specialized formats to deal with memory  / cpu restrictions.

So statements like "Price is not driven by the suppliers (e.g. composers), but the market. " is only partially true. Yes the factors above allow the market to influence price, but the composers message to the market gives this false sense of value.

There is a big difference between saying "Music is FREE" and "I am willing to work with your budgets but lets work out some other form of renumeration or a compromise. Educate yourself and the developers.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

another thing to point out is that indie game developers aren't the only audience for musicians to sell their music to. musicians can also sell music to indie film makers, businesses writing commercials, youtubers who want intro music themes to their videos, all kinds of people. indie game developers are perhaps the least likely to be able to afford good rates for music, so it seems weird that we get emails every few days about some musician wanting us to hire them. try emailing other people too! i mean maybe you guys already do, but it seems like trying to get blood out of a stone to constantly be emailing indies and asking them to hire you when they tend to be fairly poor -- email people who are more likely to be able to afford it too

another option is that musicians can maybe charge different rates to different people depending on what they can afford? e.g. a musician could have a chart something like this:

individual/student projects - $50 a minute
companies with revenues of between $10k and $100k a year - $100 a minute
companies with revenue above $100k a year - $300 a minute

and they'd make it clear that the higher priced projects would take priority, and that they'd do the $50 a minute music only when they don't have any $100 or $300 a minute music requests lined up

basically, maybe the market for *music for indie games* can only support $50 or even $10 a minute, but there are all kinds of markets besides music for indie games, there is music for all kinds of things

[alyxjones]

I have to agree with Kyle, I like that tools make composition more accessible to more people.
I also think DAW's and the like make it easier to work with musicians since you can almost get a score straight out of MIDI...and get it recorded, with much less help from orchestrators, which of course can be pricey, and if you don't have a huge budget, eg in indie games you can get much better music out of it! If anything the standards are going up because all these sample libraries and VST's are available for very little and sound great!
To be honest I don't believe it is over-saturated anymore than any other part of the industry, the word is it's highly competitive! Since it's an awesome thing to do!

[Ryuno]

I think the problem is there's too many "johnny just-bought-logic"s out there selling their stuff for rates like 10/min and too many buyers who are okay with the level of quality they'll get for that price.

Yeah, but if they're okay with that level of quality, I don't want them as clients either. There's an analogy for commissions I like a lot, and that'd be the fast food versus proper restaurants: if someone goes out craving a burger, they probably don't want anything fancy/gourmet and even if they can afford it, they probably won't appreciate it because it's more expensive and doesn't taste anything alike, even though it's all food and should make the hunger go away all the same. It's a matter of targeting the right demographic.

You don't want clients who clearly can't afford you because you don't want to waste more time after the gig chasing after them. You don't want clients who'd settle for royalty free premade stuff because they're clearly not looking for something unique and custom for their project and will not appreciate the time and effort you're putting in the tracks. You don't want someone who'd pick a free or $10/minute composer over you because assuming the difference in quality between you and Johnny should be blatantly obvious (and if it isn't, you should re-evaluate your career choices), which means they don't know enough to be helpful when the feedback stage comes, which implied they'll give you really bad pointers when they don't like something and drive you insane trying to figure out what they mean (I've had clients start gigs asking for Greek-music inspired orchestral battle pieces and make so many changes due to not knowing what they wanted/having incomprehensible standards that we ended up with a flamenco-inspired hip hop track, which turned out to be "perfect" for a Spartan RTS, somehow).

Ruling those out, try and find the clients you do want. As a freelancer, your time and expertise are your main assets and wasting them on people who don't think you're the right guy for the job because of your rates isn't worth it at all.

[dllerroar]

Almost every profession in the world is over-saturated.

Just do what you like doing and things should fall into place.

[Valoon]

Almost every profession in the world is over-saturated.

Just do what you like doing and things should fall into place.

In a way it's true but the composer market is WAY more saturated than most of the saturated positions. It's probably one of the hardest job to get.

[WittyNotes]

Almost every profession in the world is over-saturated.

I feel like this is a bit of a naive approach to the problem. If every profession is over-saturated, why is it so much easier for me to get a coding job than a music production job?
Why is it easier for software engineers to get a position than, say, poets?

[Canned Turkey]

because there's little demand for poets
it's less about how many people there are and more about how much is wanted by the paying public

[Valoon]

I am not a

[ZackParrish]

I am not a

Then are you b?

[Zorg]

For me it's almost impossible to rate the quality of game music, compared to the visual design.

Wanna hear the only "song" i ever "composed"? This: http://isleoftune.com/?id=19267