Additional information, limitations of the study, references

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This study was conducted as thesis for my Masters Degree in Cultural and Music Management from the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.

Answering financial or demographic questions was voluntary.

Every participant could provide financial information in his currency of choice. All numbers were converted to Euros (€) by using the exchange rates from the middle of the survey period in order to make the analysis of financial data as reliable as possible.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study can contribute some scientifically substantiated insights into the game audio industry.  For some parts of the analysis, especially when dividing responses into different groups, there were not always enough data available to get reliable information, because the number of responses to some questions was quite low.

In favour of anonymity, demographic  and financial questions as well as questions about contracts and agreement were optional which lowered the number of responses to some questions.

Some obviously inconsistent or inconclusive data were either discarded or manually adjusted to the best of the author‘s knowledge. This could have resulted in slight corruption of data material.

Some questions might have been misinterpreted  by the participants which could have corrupted the data material.

In some cases, the responses had to be divided into different groups and categories. A representative categorisation of the complex video game industry and the game audio sector  might not have been possible all the time. Some findings of this study might not be representative for the whole industry as a result.

The survey was promoted via forums, social media platforms, universities, companies and the personal industry network of the author. It is possible that the sample of respondents is not representative for the entire game audio industry.

REFERENCES

Gamasutra (2014) Gamasutra Salary Survey 2014, Gamasutra. Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/salarysurvey2014.pdf [last visit: 31.03.2017].

Marks, A. (2009),  The Complete Guide to Game Audio (2nd edition). [E-book] Burlington: Focal Press. Available at: http://safaribooksonline.com [last visit: 12.02.2017].

Passmann, D. (2012) All You Need to Know About the Music Business. New York: Free Press.

Schmidt, B. (2014) GameSoundCon Game Audio Industry Survey. GameSoundCon. Available at: http://www.gamesoundcon.com/game-audio-survey-2014 [last visit: 31.03.2017].

Schmidt, B. (2015) GameSoundCon Game Audio Industry Survey. GameSoundCon. Available at: http://www.gamesoundcon.com/game-music-jobs-salary-2015 [last visit: 31.03.2017].

Schmidt, B. (2016) GameSoundCon Game Audio Industry Survey. GameSoundCon. Available at: http://www.gamesoundcon.com/game-audio-survey-2016 [last visit: 31.03.2017].

Strötgen, S. (2013) P(l)aying Music and Games. In: Moormann, P. (Ed.) Music and Game. Perspectives on a Popular Alliance. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, S. 191–214.

Sweet, M. (2015) Writing Interactive Music for Video Games. A Composer’s Guide. Upper Saddle River: Addison-Wesley.