As a fairly unknown independent band, what is the best way to get our music into computer games? I'm not so much thinking about licensing issues, but more about what channels are available and how to get noticed by game devs that could be interested in our type of music.
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You have two options: 1) The indirect route: Find sites that distribute music and put it there. See Where is quality paid game music? and Where can I find free music for my game? 2) The direct route: Find a project in development and talk to them directly. See "Finding a project" from here: Open Source game projects |
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Direct Promotion. Search for game developers which you'll think your music match in their current or previous products and send a simple email introducing yourself. I'll even send an email to devs even if your music doesn't fit with previous projects, as you never know what could be building: today is a educational game, tomorrow maybe a Satanic Hack'n' slash Gore game that would make God Of War rate C ;) |
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This isn't your games as the soundtrack, but Rock Band Network (currently under maintenance while they change stuff for Rock Band 3 compatibility, but should be back up soon) is simply awesome. You can author everything yourself, and the only cost is an XNA Creators Club account and an Xbox 36 ($300 for the Xbox, $100 for a year of creators club, which you can actually put off on getting until you're ready to test). Another alternative is to just go make your own game. Shinobi Ninja just went and made an iPhone game about themselves: itunes.apple.com/us/app/brooklyn-to-babylon-shinobi/id347930797?mt=8 They contracted a developer, so there was that cost involved. Make friends with computer science majors. ;) |
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As an independent game developer I would tell you that, for us, it is very difficult to find the right music for our games... It should not be difficult for you to find games that match your music style. Just set up a webpage with some examples of your music and promote it in game development forums. If it is good, you will get a lot of responses, I'm sure! |
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network network network... Go to things like the Game Developer's Conference. Hang out and talk to anyone and everyone you meet. Learn more about videogame music at someplace like GameSoundCon to try to make yourself more knowledgable (and more valuable) to a potential game developer. Know and love games and gaming. Lots of people want to get into game music. Not a lot of them love games. Would George Lucas want a composer who never really watched movies or couldn't name a current game scoring his next film? Game Developers often feel the same way about their composers. Get a student game or two under your belt-- go to the local college and see if they have a gaming club or computer science department. There are often a ton of student-created games at these places and they have no idea where to go for music. Nothing makes for a better resume than "oh, download XXXX from the App Store to hear some of our game music. |
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