Sound or Silence: what will your audience hear?

What the talk is about

This panel discusses whether games need sound and how to work with it. The participants, sound designers, composers, a producer and a lawyer, agree that sound increases player engagement, and that games with poor audio lose out. They talk about budgets, which are often tied to the cost of the rest of the content, and about how stock sounds make a game feel like a patchwork and lower its value when it is sold. The lawyer explains the difference between a license and a transfer of property rights, why the moment of transfer should be written into the contract, and why license terms, including those of free libraries, must be read carefully. The panel also covers the state of the market and pay for audio specialists, briefing through references, and open talk about budget. Useful for developers, producers and audio professionals.