Designing Sound Discussion Group – SFX and Freelancing in the Games Industry

Photo by Dennis Beentjes. Used under Creative Commons license.

I’m going to be a little quiet on the site this month, but I’m making up for that by putting together a kick-ass virtual panel for you!

Sitting on the panel for the next Designing Sound Discussion Group are Gordon Hempton (The Soundtracker/Quiet Planet), Rodney Gates (Sony Online Entertainment), Matt Piersall (Gl33k) and Douglas Price (Pro Sound Effects). The genesis of this panel is in response to Gordon’s idea of restricting the sale of sfx libraries to indpendent/freelance sound designers with the goal of making the people themselves more desirable…thus giving them a little more job stability. He specifically thinks this is important within the games industry. He and I have spoken in some detail about it already. I’ll spare you my opinions at the moment, but I encourage you to listen to his guest appearance on the Tonebenders podcast and formulate your own opinions before the actual panel.

We’re going to start by touching on Gordon’s idea, talk about the different ways the games industry acquires or licenses their sound effects, and then move on to what makes a successful, gainfully employed, freelancer in the game audio industry. Sound like your kind of panel?

The webcast will be taking place via Google Hangout at 4PM (US Eastern Time) on Saturday, February 1st. You can watch from here on the site, or from the Designing Sound Google+ page…where you’ll be able to interact with us directly. Mark it on your Calendars!