Game Audio 2025: Higher Pay, More Outsourcing and the Role of AI

Seattle, Wash.—GameSoundCon, the largest professional conference for video game music and sound design, has just released the results of the 2025 survey about employment, salaries, royalties, and education in game sound. The GameSoundCon Game Audio Industry Survey is one of the most referenced surveys of its kind in the video game industry.

654 people responded to this year’s survey, the vast majority of them being game audio professionals, such as composers, sound designers, middleware, and audio programmers for AAA Games, Midcore Games (Midcore games are often, but not always, casual games such as those published by Zynga, or games such as Plants vs Zombies, Candy Crush), and Indie Games. 

The 2025 survey included new questions on industry layoffs, the use of Artificial Intelligence in game audio, and how long it takes post graduation for new hires to find a job. The survey also looks at some trends GameSoundCon organizers have seen since the first survey in 2014. “Outsourcing,” for example, has shown an increase, meaning a growing career path in game audio is to be an employee of an audio outsourcing company.

The most striking finding this year is that the average income for both salaried employees and freelancers were up by approximately 20% from the 2023 survey.

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For the complete numbers and results, please visit the GameSoundCon website. 

GameSoundCon will take place at the Marriott Burbank Convention Center in Burbank, Calif., on October 28–29. For in-person and online tickets, please visit the registration page.