When the first contact between developer and musician is made, the musician should get as much info as possible about the project. This allows the musician to evaluate how much he/she wants to be paid for the total amount of music the project will require, and to plan how he/she will do it. The payment/payment-ways varies a lot depending on many different factors, these factors can be:

• How much time the musician have to compose. Short time = higher charge.
• How much music the developer requires.
• Complexity of making the music required.
• Method of publication (shareware, full-scale game etc)
• Estimated number of copies sold

If the amount of music required could be composed by one person alone within the deadline, it's wise not to contact a whole company. (That is if there is more than one person working in the company. :] ) Since the company has many mouths to feed, it will charge you much more than a single game musician will!

The worst thing is when game developers, after completing 95% of their game, suddenly says, "Hmm ... Maybe we should start thinking about what music we need". This should be planned from the beginning so that the musician has plenty of time to get to know the game and it's theme. The musician could even read through some of the design document, maybe see some graphics, discuss some stuff with the development team etc. etc. In the design document there should be a list of all the music tracks required in the game! The game music shouldn't be seen, as something just thrown together or as an after thought. In fact, the music is a very important part of a game!

Getting Started