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[JBell]

I was wondering if anyone would like to share their first experience getting a game composing job?
How did you get it? Did you meet the developer in person, over forums, or email?
What was the job like? Was it harder than what you expected?
I've never had a game composing job (I'm still in high school) though I have written some commercial library music for television.
Thanks in advance!

[FelixArifin]

Sheer luck and perseverance, really, haha. Having a repertoire of music that you've composed also helps a lot!

Just don't stop and always jump at every opportunity you see. You will never know what you'll find.

-Felix

[Kole]

It's interesting that you brought up this topic, as I'll be moderating a panel of Game Composers/Sound Designers at this year's GDC on this exact topic. If you can attend the name of the panel it is called, "Landing Your First Game & Building a Career".  Should certainly be interesting

As for myself…

I landed my first game after taking an audio test & making a bid (I found the ad online). Fortunately the developer lived near me, so I was able to go into their offices pretty regularly, but a lot of my work now is done online.

There are always some unexpected challenges, but nothing in that project was overly difficult. I did learn that it's wise to put a certain "limit" (preferably in an Agreement) on exorbitant revision requests though.

[JBell]

Thanks for the responses guys! Yeah I think I'll just to need to be really diligent about job searching Felix. Thanks for letting me know about the game conference Kole. Unfortunately I live in Wisconsin so I wont be able to attend. Do you know if they'll be recording it? Also, where have you guys had the most luck online? From what I've seen, posting portfolios doesn't help, because the game music industry is so saturated. Case in point: http://www.moddb.com/forum/board/recruiting-resumes, and http://www.reddit.com/r/gameDevClassifieds/. There's so many composers that a developer could post an add for a musician and get hundreds of responses. Is it better to contact developers directly or in person? I know there's developer pages on forums so maybe I could ask them if they need a composer?

[groovyone]

I had friends who started getting jobs at game companies, and they knew I was interested and capable of hitting the technical format required for the tools they were using at the time so they asked me to bid.

Other contracts I got through making friends at things like GDC (which I've attended for the past 13 years) which led to more work which led to in-house work, which led to more work.

The more effort and time you put into making contacts / friends the more rewarding they will be and the stronger your network. Clicking an add request or shoving a business card in someone's hands after a few minutes of chatting is not what I really call networking so develop strong relationships - that is what networking really is about.