---
title: "Game Audio Designer"
description: "Creates and implements the sound effects, ambience and audio behavior in video games, from footsteps to spell casts."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/game-audio-designer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Game Audio Designer

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-4014 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-4014.00

Creates and implements the sound effects, ambience and audio behavior in video games, from footsteps to spell casts.

Also advertised as: Sound Designer (Video Games); Game Sound Designer; Technical Sound Designer; Audio Designer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $73,130 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $35.16/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $37,570 to $137,370, with the middle half between $49,910 and $100,280
- **Total US employment:** 13,080
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -3.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,000 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 41/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 13,080 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $37,570 |
| 25th | $49,910 |
| 50th (median) | $73,130 |
| 75th | $100,280 |
| 90th | $137,370 |
| Mean (average) | $81,390 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NJ | $115,190 | $105,868 | 290 |
| DC | $106,630 | $97,024 | 90 |
| NY | $87,510 | $81,087 | 2,050 |
| NV | $84,570 | $84,588 | 170 |
| MD | $79,990 | $76,211 | 160 |
| CA | $78,150 | $70,583 | 4,060 |
| GA | $77,010 | $79,975 | 200 |
| KY | $74,100 | $82,188 | 60 |
| IL | $73,130 | $73,161 | 570 |
| IN | $73,130 | $78,357 | 50 |
| CT | $72,800 | $70,263 | 60 |
| FL | $70,360 | $68,037 | 590 |
| AZ | $66,350 | $65,904 | 130 |
| NH | $65,630 | $63,006 | 30 |
| OH | $64,030 | $69,017 | Not published by BLS |

21 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 36 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/game-audio-designer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/game-audio-designer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 15,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 14,600 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 500 jobs, or -3.1%. Declining: -3.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,000 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Postsecondary nondegree award (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 32.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 20.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 20.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 12.0% |
| Some College Courses | 8.0% |
| Post-Master's Certificate | 4.0% |

## What the work involves

- Record, edit and layer sound effects for characters, weapons and environments
- Design ambient soundscapes for game levels
- Implement sounds in middleware such as Wwise or FMOD
- Connect audio events to animations and gameplay systems in the engine
- Set up mixing, attenuation and spatial audio behavior
- Fix audio bugs reported by quality assurance testers
- Collaborate with designers and animators on audio feedback for actions

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fine Arts — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Hearing Sensitivity — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Auditory Attention — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fluency of Ideas — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Artistic (A), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.22 |
| A — Artistic | 4.92 |
| C — Conventional | 4.22 |
| I — Investigative | 3.32 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.16 |
| S — Social | 1.69 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTP | 75.5 |
| INTJ | 75.4 |
| ISTJ | 72.9 |
| INTP | 68.1 |
| ISFP | 59.3 |

Best-fitting types: ISTP, INTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Sound Engineering Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sound-engineering-technician) — median $73,130
- [Audio and Video Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/audio-and-video-technician) — median $58,100
- [Broadcast Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/broadcast-technician) — median $59,570
- [Lighting Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/lighting-technician) — median $68,060
- [Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $78,190
- [Audiovisual Equipment Installer and Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/audiovisual-equipment-installer-and-repairer) — median $52,600
- [Calibration Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/calibration-technologist-and-technician) — median $67,820
- [Media Technical Directors/Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-technical-directors-manager) — median $90,360
- [Camera Operator, Television, Video, and Film](https://nuecareer.com/careers/camera-operator-television-video-and-film) — median $74,990
- [Film and Video Editor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/film-and-video-editor) — median $75,420

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/game-audio-designer