Let me tell you something, and this comes from personal experience, you might get your dream job, just for the studio to close a week later, you may be the best at what you do, but get stitched up because you are not part of the insecure boys club. But as long as you never give up, never lose your passion and never compromise your integrity, then you will never be a failure, so dont ever think like you are already one.

I have no idea what I've got in store for me if I need to move to America. There ain't much going on here.

There's not much going on anywhere. Being a musician is generally not a full time job in games. Even being an all-round audio person is not a full-time job in all studios, and even where it is, there's rarely more than 1 such role per studio.

If your passion is music then you probably need to be looking at working as a freelancer, building up a portfolio and getting jobs as soon as possible, because there are thousands of people who want to make music for games but only so many games to go around.

My passion WAS music, up until a point where I realized that making a career out of it would be problematic. Ever since then, I've been learning all I can about sound design and integrating audio for games. It was only very recently that sound design became a passion, though. I love designing sounds for environments and bringing new worlds to life. Gun sounds, on the other hand, crush my soul; but I digress! An in-house sound designer position, where my role would allow me to use software such as Wwise to design environmental sounds is like my dream now. It's definitely what I want to do, and nothing can make me give up any time soon. (I'll still do the gun sounds if it gets me a job, of course!)

<p>Job applications and interviews are a case of 'throw enough shit at a wall and some of it will stick'. Just keep applying, you'll find something eventually. For perspective, to get where I am in my teaching career (which isn't far!), I must have filled out 60 different application forms, attended 20+ interviews and got 2 jobs out of that process.</p>

Keep building your portfolio constantly. If you are serious about getting your foot in the door, you should be cold contacting companies with work you enjoy. Offer to do work on spec: meaning - they pay you if they use it. Consider it an audition where you have a chance to showcase your skills to people who otherwise wouldn't have listened.

Offer to do work on spec: meaning - they pay you if they use it. Consider it an audition where you have a chance to showcase your skills to people who otherwise wouldn't have listened.

While I agree with this point, there is a risk that you'll end up doing a bunch of audio work with no financial benefit. Some developers do "cattle calls" where they write to a bunch of composers asking for specific type of music and then pick what they want to use. You REALLY need to be careful with cattle calls. The WB once had a "contest" where folks could submit music cues for use in a high level IP. Reading the fine print revealed that every submission, regardless if it won or not, would be property of WB. Meaning folks submitted music which the WB now owns.... for nothing.

It's important to also learn how to negotiate, seal the deal and then collaborate with the client to make sure the content is on budget, on schedule and on target. This also helps reinforce the notion that an audio dude's time and craft are worth something. In some cases offering finished tracks on spec can negate some of these important lessons. But Max is right - this can be a useful, effective way to get a foot in the door, especially when done well.

Thanks guys. I've been in touch with an indie team who have a voluntary position available. I did request that if they intend to sell their game, that we negotiate a contract. I'm only thinking of protecting my work, and not so much profit, as I value the opportunity to gain experience a whole lot.

The problem these days is that every man and his dog wants to work in games. So many new faces flood the job market every day. Sound is one of the smaller areas of game development and one sound designer may work on multiple titles. Not only are you competing against other people trying to break into games both fresh, and from other industries like film, but experienced people within the industry from studio closures, and people striking out to freelance.

There will always be failure but dedication and patience, improving your marketability by getting works experience like you are doing on indie projects is a very important step.

Even experienced professionals miss out on jobs. There's a certain demand and an oversupply so you're not going to land every job you apply for. Learning implementation tools like wwise and fmod will help your marketability as well as scripting knowledge, and anything else you could possibly learn about the audio side of games.

Luckily there's this little revolution right now called indie dev and casual titles which is booming. May not all be paid work, but new games are being made every day so there's always the chance to get on a project and learn.

Just to add to what GroovyOne and others have said - value the development of your aesthetic judgement, skill-set and work ethic above everything else. It doesn't matter if you aren't getting paid. I've been on the dole, I've been rejected, so have thousands of starving musicians/artists - you have made your choice so stick with it and be ready for the consequences of that choice, which includes constant self-doubt, rejection and lack of income. Everyday I practice piano, write a bit of music and read some theory, and it helps. There are thousands of people out there wanting the same kind of job and lifestyle, all worrying about the same things and facing the same distractions. You have to be the one out of those thousands that maintains perspective and determination through all the crap and against the backdrop of the 'successful' face everyone you interact with will put on.

Thanks! I'm always trying to better myself. I just wonder when I'll know I'm good enough.