television

Marks provides a facinating peek inside the world of audio content development in the computer game industry. With a casual and friendly style, he covers a broad range of topics in his book, from basic equipment setup to negotiating contracts for freelance work (and much more, of course). Having recently become a freelancer myself, I found his advice both helpful and inspiring.

All in all, this book bolsters Marks' credentials as a professional musician and businessman, and comes highly recommended to anyone interested in getting some excellent and no doubt hard-earned advice.

I bought this book on recommendation of a friend in the video game industry. Be away of what this book is and what it isn't. This is not a book on how to write audio for video games. This is an introductory book to audio and its role in the video game industry, and how to get into the industry. This book contains no technical information, as one might hope, about computer audio technologies such as Direct music or any others. If you already know how digital audio, MIDI, and mixers work then most of this book will bore you to tears.
I have no doubt that, if you are looking for the information which is in this book it is good. The presentation is longwinded and very centered around the author rather than the topic itself it seems. At times, the book seems to lose all relevance to the audio industry. The interview with established video game artists are interesting, however I didn't find in them anything that I hadn't learned by playing around for a hours with recording techniques.
In conclusion, there are better books on the market in all regards except for the video game audio industry notes. For that I have found no better source, however it is wrapped in information which I already know, and that I found nearly impossible to sit through.

Although an o.k. book, I have to agree with "mysticmusing" in his criticism. The industry advice is probably invaluable to professional or budding audio dudes, but it fills up half the book..!

There are very few specfic examples of actual techniques for composition, sound effect development or integration. There are no concrete examples of game audio as implemented within any game engine - be it by C+ or through e.g. DirectMusic.

All in all this book has very little to tell people that don't already master all the great techniques and tools. And if you do master those techniques and tools, I suspect half of this book would be old news.