GameSoundCon 2025 Survey: Game Audio Salaries Climb, Outsourcing Rises
The annual GameSoundCon Game Audio Industry Survey is out, and the 2025 edition brings key insights for professionals working in game music and sound design. Based on responses from over 650 game audio pros, this year’s report dives into job trends, salary data, education, AI adoption, and the growing impact of industry layoffs.
Key Takeaways:
- Salaries are up — U.S./Canada-based game audio professionals reported an average income of $155,198, a 20% increase since 2023.
- Outsourcing is rising — Game audio pros are now 3× more likely to work for an audio outsourcing company than in 2016.
- Layoffs hit hard — 16% of salaried employees were affected, with mid-career professionals impacted the most.
Read the full 2025 GameSoundCon Survey: https://www.gamesoundcon.com/post/gamesoundcon-game-audio-industry-survey-2025
Melon Mayhem: How Donkey Kong Bananza Got Its Juicy Sound
Next time you’re smashing through fruit in Donkey Kong Bananza on the upcoming Switch 2, spare a thought for the real heroes: the sound team—and hundreds of sacrificed watermelons.
In a recent interview with Nintendo Dream Web, sound director Naoto Kubo revealed the challenges of capturing authentic Foley. To give Bananza’s fruit physics over‑the‑top impact, the team:
- Crushed real watermelons
- Used cookie crunches for apple bites
- Waited a full season before continuing recordings, due to melon shortages
“Recording the watermelon was tough,” Kubo said. “We had to wait until the next year to get good ones again.”
What’s the result? Bold, squishy sound design that’s as dramatic as the gameplay itself. That burger squish? It might’ve started life as a melon.
Read the full article: https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/nintendo/it-took-nintendo-devs-a-year-of-squashing-and-crushing-watermelons-to-record-sound-effects-for-donkey-kong-bananza-there-were-no-more-good-watermelons/
Diablo Devs Unite: Over 450 Blizzard Employees Form Union
In a landmark move, over 450 developers from Blizzard’s Diablo Team 3 have unionized under the Communication Workers of America (CWA)—one of the largest wall-to-wall unions at Microsoft.
This follows a trend of unionization across Activision Blizzard studios: starting with Raven Software’s QA team in 2022, then teams behind World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Blizzard’s narrative development (as North America’s first story-focused union).
This shift comes amid massive layoffs in 2025—approximately 15,000 Microsoft employees laid off between January and July. Unionization is being framed as a way for workers to secure a stronger voice amid AI-driven uncertainty.
To date, over 3,500 Microsoft employees have unionized under the CWA, including many at Blizzard.
Read the full article: https://gamerant.com/diablo-developer-union-blizzard-team-3/
From Vampires to Dryers: Neil Newbon Brings the Drama to Date Everything
Best known as the voice of Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3, Neil Newbon now plays Drysdale, a sentient clothes dryer in the surreal dating sim Date Everything.
Newbon compares Drysdale’s performance to Astarion’s—both British, aristocratic, theatrical—but took inspiration from Lord Flashheart (from Blackadder) to differentiate characters.
“We wanted to make sure [Drysdale] wasn’t going to fall into the Astarion trope too much… So I based him on… Lord Flashheart… so there’s enough that’s fundamentally different.”
Date Everything features over 100 dateable characters (including your bed, your TV, your existential dread) and boasts a 95% positive Steam rating.
Keep an ear out—Astarion’s laugh might still haunt a scene or two.
Inside Remedy’s Audio Workflow: Scaling AAA Sound Without Sacrificing Quality
Finland’s Remedy Entertainment (known for Max Payne, Control, Alan Wake 2) is celebrated for cinematic sound design—but how do they maintain such quality across multiple AAA games?
According to Ville Sorsa, Principal Audio Designer, Remedy balances custom Foley and field recordings with the extensive Pro Sound Effects (PSE) CORE Complete library—as many as 1.2 million high-quality sounds—as their backbone.
“PSE sounds show up everywhere—level design, gameplay, cinematics,” said Sorsa. “We lean on it heavily, and it holds up.”
Their hybrid audio pipeline blends creativity and efficiency to deliver immersive sound across genres and projects.
Read the full article: https://blog.prosoundeffects.com/how-remedy-scales-cinematic-game-audio-across-franchises-with-pse
20 New Game Audio Job Openings from Soundlister
Here’s a roundup of 20 recent game‑audio-related job openings, aggregated by Soundlister as of August 29, 2025:
- 10:10 Games (UK): Lead Unreal Technical Sound Designer
- CD PROJEKT RED (Poland/Remote): Audio Design QA Analyst
- CARIAD (Denmark): Working Student – Audio / Sound Software Systems
- Wispfire (Netherlands): Voice and MoCap Performer (vampire-themed game)
- Creative Circle (Canada): Sound Designer
- EA Create (Canada): Audio Artist III – Speech/VO
- Epic Games (US): Senior Tester, Audio
- Gameloft Bucharest (Hungary): Senior Sound Designer
- Lucid Motors (California, US): Technical Specialist, Embedded Infotainment (Audio)
- Nintendo (Washington state, US): Associate Localization Audio Editor – (Bilingual Japanese)
And more: https://soundlister.com/20-great-new-audio-jobs-at-nintendo-red-bull-more/
These roles span creative, technical, QA, localization, ML research, and narrative positions—reflecting the breadth of opportunities in today’s game audio industry.
That’s a wrap for this edition
From crowdsourced watermelon Foley to union milestones, heroic audio workflows to emerging job markets, game audio continues to evolve in wild, wonderful, and essential ways. Whether you’re smashing fruit, mentoring teams, or hitting the job market—your sound brings games to life. Want to see what’s happening at G.A.N.G.? Check out our Events page to stay connected with upcoming activities, gatherings, and more.