Selling your music

Started by Pet Terry, Mon 03/09/2012 18:38:39

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Pet Terry

Hey guys, it's been a while.

I was feeling nostalgic today and digged up my old back-ups to listen to AGS-related music I had composed back in the day. For the past years I've been composing mainly for band purposes but now I felt I'd like to try something else for a change.

I graduated a couple of years ago and am now officially a bachelor of arts and media, specializing in website and graphics design. However, the timing was a bit bad, seeing how fast the scene develops, and I have been left pretty much without a suitable job. Companies nowadays want people that can do every thing and there's no shortage of those. Thinking back now it feels I was super lucky in being applied to my school in the first place because there were so many applicants. I'm not complaining, obviously. And anyway, I do have a part-time job which I love but the amount of hours I work per month isn't really enough to keep me monied up.

So my questions now are: is there market for commercial music in the AGS scene? Are there any developers who would pay for soundtracks for their games? I see a lot of commercial games coming out of the community nowadays and it's very cool to see, so I suppose there has to be some market for music as well.

I would perhaps need some pointers from composers who have gone commercial, mainly about how much to ask for the music and such (if it's not a Great Secret). I will also try to get some samples of music I have composed in the past online (as in, got to get my portfolio back up, note to self...) so people can hear what I'm capable of. This feels like something I could pull off, so why not give it a go!

Thanks for the answers in advance!
<SSH> heavy pettering
Screen 7

CaptainD

I'm not a musician myself, but...


  • For my commercial game project I will be paying my musicians - I wouldn't think of not paying for music in any future commercial project.  I'm pretty sure all musicians working on commercial projects get paid (if you've composed it specifically for that game).  Getting paid for freeware projects would, I'm assuming, be pretty much impossible though!
  • One of my musicians told me that BandCamp is a good place to both place both to have your portfolio and sell your music (not specifically to game developers, just generally).

Well... that's about all the help I can offer.
 

Nikolas

#2
I think I can chime in here...

Yes, there is a market, but in all honesty it's quite small. I mean how many games have been made commercially available through the past 2-3 years? 10? 15? If you take into account that I'm the composer of 2 of them, Thomas Regin (my partner) is the composer of most Blackwell titles, and Nathan has done the music for Jemini Rue, you can see that it's a bit slim.

Of course all three of us, however diverse are not 'bands', so perhaps there's a niche you could take over...

And I should note that apart from these two games I've composed for money, I've done a number of other games, inside AGS (freeware for free, and one for some serious bucks), and outside AGS (various games).

So... yes, it can happen. No, it's not easy. And it's networking and a professional status that you should go after. Of course keep in mind that it's not something that can make you rich. Very seldom will an indie game make any serious money, and that WILL take money (Resonance took 5 years in the making alone...). And in either way, nor should you feel inclined to complain if your first 5 games don't make you much, or even a dime... :-/ It's the nature of the beast I'm afraid!

Hope this helps a little...

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