How Much Does An Indie Game Composer Cost?

Hello fellow music maker. Unfortunately, there is no 1-sentence answer to appropriately answer your question. And if there is, then it's going to be a terrible answer with no real useful information. I always charge per project, which all depends on the scale of the game, projected sales/audience potential, developer history, and a bit of personal insight.

But in the interest of answering your question directly, I generally charge around $25/min on the low end, up to $250/min on the high end. But in the end, that doesn't really mean anything, because ALL of these factors come into play. So there is no "typical"...

Now that we got that useless info out the way, consider the following a bonus!

Charging a flat rate is a bad idea, because you may advertise that you charge $25/minute, get hired thru that ad only to find out you're composing for a game that has kickstarter with thousands of backers and $500,000 in the budget. I wouldn't go banking on that... but generally a flat rate is a terrible idea for our line of work, because it sets you up to get screwed. And we get screwed often enough as it is.

You also don't want to set a flat rate because there's a big difference between composing a 1 minute loop of an 8-bit melody with a handful of tracks versus a 10 minute loop of full orchestra + synths which can sometimes end up in the 50-100 track range for a single piece of music!

And you want to scope out the project, the developer/company, and look into their track record (if it exists). A lot of indie devs are doing this for their first time, but that doesn't mean their project sucks. What it really comes down to for me is preparation. If the developer has a strong idea and can tell you everything about it in detail, and not just the game itself, but thoughts past the game... which many lack... such as marketability, plans to take it to conventions, they have a distributor lined up, or they already have a strong backing with a fan base from past projects. All of which is available with a few google searches. Etc... if they can't provide any of this information, then chances are they aren't going to be able to pay you anyway, because they're flying by the seat of their pants...

Point being... it can vary greatly, and information is key.

Lastly, another point I want to make is that a developer with no money, but a dedicated audience, is still worth your time. This industry (not just music), is entirely dependent upon networking. Just recently, I was asked to score a series, that because it released most of its previous work for free, had a minute budget, but has a massive audience. The producer that hired me introduced me to the director, who introduced me to other producers and directors. Who, hopefully, I will get to work with, and the network tree continues onward... so as much as we don't want to "devalue the industry", there's a big difference between working for "exposure" and working for ACTUAL exposure. Working for ACTUAL exposure means there's a viable goal that will be mutually beneficial. Working for "exposure" means working as a slave.

/r/gamedev Thread