When you want to work on games, often you have a lot of assumptions.
The interesting part is that they’re so ingrained in your mind, you won’t recognize them or that they’re assumptions.
Things like…
- Everyone knows what they’re doing but me
- Games are super hard to get into
- Everyone is better at this than me
- I have to know all of this software before anyone would employ me
- Even if I got employed, everyone’s going to know I’m an idiot
I’m happy to tell you (and I’ll explain one of these) that pretty much none of these are true.
I’m sure I’ll have people wanting to argue with me about it – especially that getting into games is super hard – but this is how I feel, that all of those thoughts are completely overblown.
I’m hoping this will dispel a lot of your panic and fear – emotions I see way, way too much of in people just getting started – and help you continue your path more easily.
(For the record, about the “super hard to get in” thing – I’m not saying it’s by any means easy or will not require work. For me, games wasn’t any more difficult to get into than doing my first film audio jobs. Arguably, film was harder because there weren’t even positions to apply for – you had to know people. I just don’t subscribe to the idea that games have this impossible mountain worth of work you have to do before you can be qualified for a job. It is work, and nobody will hand you anything – but it’s entirely possible for any self-motivated person to do this within a few months or years depending on what their level of starting knowledge is.)
The Biggest Lie
“Everyone knows what they’re doing but me”
I think this is often the biggest lie we tell ourselves. It’s certainly one of the – if not THE – biggest lies we believe within game audio.
It’s the lie, the mindset, that causes most other panic, fear, self-doubt, self-loathing, disconnectedness, and sense that you don’t belong. You doubt your own ability, assume everyone else is a genius, and then feel like you’ll never get there or be anybody.
Here’s a massive, massive secret.
No, it’s not “you belong, don’t worry about it” or “nobody knows what they’re doing”.
Game audio is an ever-changing, ever-challenged field. The challenges teams face can be vastly different than one another. Therefore each teams needs and expectations are at least mildly different, and team dependent.
What I mean is – Halo doesn’t have the same needs or challenges as Forza, which doesn’t have the same needs or challenges as Zelda, which doesn’t have the same needs or challenges as Bejeweled.
Simply because they’re very different games.
And yet, to my knowledge, they all use similar software tools. A game engine, middleware (though honestly I have no idea what the hell Zelda uses), and other audio tools.
But before going to work on any of these titles – especially when you’re new – you’re going to feel like you should know everything before you walk in the door. You should know the tools the team uses, how they use them, what the setup is like, how the game is put together, mixed, etc.
After all, you want to be a high caliber employee, right? That seems pretty much expected – that you create great sound or tools – and you should be able to hit the ground running and know what’s going on extremely quickly. Right?
Here’s the secret – no, you’re not required to know a ton of internal knowledge before you work on any game.
How it Works
For many of you, especially those who have been in the industry a while – what I just said is obvious. After all, how can you know a project’s structure before you even work on the game? How can you know what internal tools exist – let alone how they work – before you start.
But those of you who haven’t been employed, are starting new jobs, or haven’t been employed much (especially on indies) often assume you need to know every little detail when you actually can’t.
There are some expectations, obviously.
If a team is using Wwise – you need to know the basics of Wwise before you walk in the door. If a team is using FMOD – you need to know the basics of FMOD before you walk in the door. If a team is using Unity or Unreal – it’s a good idea to learn how to use those editors before you work for a team that uses them.
But how these tools sets are all used is often completely different from studio to studio.
No two mixing hierarchies are the same. No two project structures are the same. No two sets of file naming conventions are the same.
For better or worse, we often make and re-make tools and rules from team to team. Each time you get employed by a new place – you learn a new set of tools, and a new set of rules. For as many “industry standards” as there might be, there are a tremendous amount of “this is just how we do it here” type of rules.
And none of these you can know – or even know exist – without being in the team already.
You Can’t Know Everything
So that assumption…
“Everyone knows everything but me”
If most of what makes a game truly special is the weird, quirky, unique approaches that teams take to creating a game, and the vast majority of that is internal knowledge – how can everyone know everything?
How can you be expected to know everything beyond the general needs of interactive audio and the unique skills you possess from your lifetime of learning?
And why would people enjoy tech talks, like what happens at GDC and other conferences – if everyone was extremely knowledgeable and you’re not?
It’s just not true.
In fact, some of what you bring to the table is likely to turn into special internal knowledge when you come up with something creative that begins to make the game special, weird, quirky, and unique.
So make sure you have the knowledge you need – the basics of the tools to be used, the skills a team is expecting you to bring to the table, etc.
But there’s no need to freak out that you don’t know it all. You just need to know enough. The team will, if they’re worth their salt, give you a little bit of time to get up to speed on the rest.
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