Sound in video games is important, and this firm will help you make yours great

IMBA Interactive is a Singapore sound production firm that specializes in video game music and sound design. And if you think this is quite a niche industry, you wouldn’t be wrong. Most of the industry is made up of freelancers who charge per sound effect or music track, and competition can get pretty cutthroat.

So why start up in it?

Gwen Guo, Jeremy Goh, and Sharon Kho all graduated from the former Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab’s internship program before they started IMBA Interactive. At GAMBIT, they learned production hacks like getting composers or sound designers involved right from the start, unlike how game studios often leave audio (or purchase of audio elements) to the final stage of production.

The trio realized that early involvement was key to getting good audio done for a game. Audio and actual game production are two disconnected processes in Asia and audio freelancers usually provide assets without being able to see the game. It’s tough for the audio to “relate” to the game, and many sounds end up not even fitting in.

That’s why IMBA was started, not just to provide high quality audio assets for game studios in Singapore, but to also push the agenda that audio producers can work with a team, and can be more involved in production.

That, and the trio of former freelancers realized it was silly for them to compete against each other. Undercutting someone just to secure a job would cheapen the industry and ultimately hinder its growth.

The business of sound

People tend to confuse composers with sound designers, IMBA’s founders all say. But it’s different. Composers do mainly music, while sound designers concern themselves with everything else that makes a sound in the game.

It’s definitely easy to pay for music and sound effects together, and it’s cheap, but sometimes composers end up making sound effects as an afterthought and sound designers compose likewise. The end products may not be what the indie developer client is expecting, and it’s possible for things to go south.

When that happens, an indie developer quickly forms his or her own opinion of how freelance audio producers are like. The best way to avoid a sticky situation like that is obviously to get an in-house audio producer, yet getting one to be part of an indie team is usually not possible.

“Economically, it’s not viable to have an inhouse audio person,” co-founder Guo says. Employers need to fork out for salaries, for programs, for rooms in which to use those programs, and these add up to form astronomical costs. Independent developers typically bootstrap their ways to financial sustainability, and they may not have the capital needed to invest into an inhouse audio producer.

So engaging a freelancer is a natural gravitation for the typical indie developer – that, or buying pre-made audio assets. But as the GAMBIT program has proven to the IMBA team – getting an audio producer involved can make things different – and it’s working on bringing that message to Singapore’s indies. So far, IMBA has worked with Mojo Forest (Magic Temple II), Witching Hour Studios (Romans In My Carpet), Daylight Studios (Spirit Horizon), Inzen Studio (Amazing Studly Strikes), Playmoolah (WhyMoolah), SUTD Game Lab (One Upon Light), PD Design Studio (Dusty Revenge), and Ixora Studio (Monster Grand Prix).