Composer, Sound Designer or Both? What to Pursue as a Game Audio Designer?

So continuing along the questions you want to ask yourself in outlining your goal of having a game audio career is do you become a composer or sound design or do you want to do both?

Why do one or the other?

This relates back to the focus and clarity I’ve been mentioning in other articles. In making sure you truly decided exactly what you want to do you can pinpoint what feeds towards that goal and spend your time on efforts on doing that.

Passion

In my opinion this is the most important factor in deciding which to pursue. What do you enjoy doing? What parts excite you? Do you love sequencing and arranging a song, crafting a melody? Then maybe composing is more your side of things. Do you like layering sounds to create something that will form something satisfying or provide some feedback to the player. Do you like putting the puzzle pieces or “ingredients” together to make a sound that will match the visuals. Then maybe sound design is more your thing. I think whatever gives you joy in doing it is what you should pursue because ultimately you’ll be able to put more into it.

Skills

Now I’d say that this should not be a limitation for whether you pursue something as skills can be developed, it just takes time. However that time is the main barrier to development. I think the more pressing factor is whether you have and want to invest the time into developing the skills you need to pursue either. That aside it is still may make sense if you’re inbetween which you pursue to consider which do you find more natural? Which do you have more exprience with? Alot of musicians interested in game development or audio design pick up sound design in order to say they “do both” but you’ll find alot of times their sound design will be lacking or there is big gap in skill between their music and sound design abilities. I think it is important to pinpoint what you are good at/your strengths and play to those.

Availability

Again this factor may not be as importnant and should not be the ultimate decider but it is something to consider. What is the need and demand in your area. Do the game companies around you need more coposer or sound desaigners. Most of the time sound designers are less common and so will be in higher demand but don’t let this stop you from pursuing composition because at the end of the day your role should be something you enjoy doing.

What am I doing?

Well ….. Both. I love the challenges of both and get alot of satisfaction from both. If I’m honest I have more experience making music and so it comes easier however I love doing both and can’t wait to see my sound design and composition skills development over time as I put in the work. In addition I want to make myself an employee with a more broad skillset but I definitely want to still be specialised. As a result I’ll be aiming to develop both to a high standard.