Hello everyone! First post but I'm a longtime lurker and fan.
This thread poses a couple of questions:
1. What kind of skills do game companies (and OE in particular) look for when it comes to the audio side of things? Do they (you) have the traditional creative (composer, orchestration, performer) and technical (recording, mixing, mastering) divisions or do you look for more hybridized candidates? Do you subcontract to other companies and if so are you aware of the profiles they look for in potential employees?
2. Given my skillset could you advise on things I ought to work on to make myself more desirable in this field?
I'm a doctoral student in music who will finish his coursework this spring and complete his degree (inquisitions, papers, projects, recitals, etc.) roughly a year after that.
On the creative side I have a good pedigree of compositional teachers, a small portfolio of compositions some of which include recordings, sounds orchestrational technique, and top notch performance chops on one instrument (most of my extremely modest income is from freelance performance in the LA area).
On the technical side I use Pro Tools LE on a regular basis for recording and mixing of both live and digital instruments. One of my elective fields is in recording arts so I have 'the textbook approaches' to fall back on when my quirky recording and editing styles don't work.
Presently I'm taking coursework in Audio Mastering and looking into appropriate software (mastering in Pro Tools is possible, but very inefficient) and moving to a locale where it is quiet enough for mastering work.
So... Should I be working on expanding my portfolio? Perhaps putting up a website with examples? Finding a demo team (a la Jesper Kyd)? Find a mod team? Learn basic programming skills?
I have a lot of interesting new ideas I think I can bring to the industry and I'd like to thank everyone who replies in advance for bumping me in the right developmental direction. Thanks!