As Martin and Red Bladder have pointed out, there are no royalties in video games for the audio person.
>do you have any examples?
The first indie game soundtrack I did, I worked for free to get my name on something. The game sold 17,000 physical copies, so I guess they made a profit. The talk of "we're super impressed, people are asking for the music to be released, we're definitely gonna get you back for the next project and there will be a decent music budget!" amounted to nothing in real life. Lesson learned!
If you can get 50 bucks a track, take it! You will likely make more money out of the project than the developer themselves in the over-saturated app landscape.
There is a separate forum on each of the game developer websites, for budding composers to advertise their services. I guess they got tired of them spamming the main threads about coding. The composers are mostly offering to work for free. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
On a more positive slant, some real world figures could be:
AAA title on XBox/PS - Audio budget might be 10k - HOWEVER, this would have to cover all orchestral recording, session musicians, studio time etc. What's left over the composer might get.
A well established composer in the game audio field, let's say you are the Hans Zimmer of the game audio world, you could expect 4k per project as your fee. This is the top end. Very few people get this kind of money.
If you have some credits and a proven track record, so to say, entry level professional fee might be 2k for a project.
You will have to find out what the audio budget is for each project which comes your way. There is no flat fee you can just charge everyone. You can try to probe this when discussing with the developers.
Bare in mind that you will pay income tax on all that, so you only perhaps get half, depending on where you live. Then you got to pay for your studio equipment, acoustic treatment, software, furniture, rent, heat, electric, air-con, internet connection, web-hosting, business cards and the necessary coffee making equipment! What's left over, you might put towards luxuries such as food.
As for the rate of work, expect to knock out 3-4 minutes of orchestral music per day. That includes writing from scratch through to a basic mix. For purely electronic music you might have significantly more output, 2 or 3 tracks per day. It's called industrial composing for a reason!
Other useful talents for the game industry would include some experience with game engines (Unreal, Unity etc) and "integration" (the importing and setting up of the sound effects & music within the game). Smaller developers will have an audio person rather than separate composer and audio techie roles, and it's the audio person who will write the music (or find/buy music externally), make the sound effects and bring all of it into the game engine.
The speed at which you can work is important, not only that you can deliver on time and meet deadlines, but also because it decides what you are getting paid per hour. If you can knock out a soundtrack in 5 working days and get 250 for it, it's 50 per day. If you take two weeks to do the same thing, you are getting 25 per day. So half the pay, for the same work.
One useful book is by Aaron Marks, worth checking out:
Complete Guide to Game Audio: For Composers, Sound Designers, Musicians, and Game Developers, ISBN-13: 978-1138795389, ISBN-10: 1138795380
There is also an article "
Getting Started In Music For Video Games" in the September SOS magazine.
Good luck!
Best,
Mike