Events

The synergy between music and gaming creates new opportunities for both game developers and the music industry. How can effective game music be created? How can musicians establish themselves in the gaming industry? The seminar and workshop bring together experts from both fields, offering insights and practical skills. Additionally, this event serves as a great opportunity for professionals from the gaming and music industries to initiate new collaborations, as its goal is also to build an interdisciplinary community.

The event is aimed at game developers, sound designers, musicians, and other creative industry professionals who wish to better understand the role of music in games and its business and technical aspects.

Day 1 – Seminar
Date: April 29
Time: 14:00 – 17:00
Location: Lift99 Telliskivi HUB (Telliskivi 60a/5, 2nd floor, Tallinn, Estonia)
Participation: Free, open to all interested attendees.
Registration
Speakers: Gordon McGladdery (A Shell in the Pit) & Natasha Skult (MiTale) & Adam Bow (Music Composer – Placeholder Gameworks)

• Gordon will discuss the causes of the 2022–2024 downturn in the gaming industry and how his studio prepared for long-term sustainability.
• Natasha will share how music and audio professionals can succeed in the gaming industry, offering practical advice, collaboration models, and success stories.
• Adam will talk about his experiences and lessons learned as a composer for indie games, focusing on dynamic music creation.

The presentations will be followed by a joint panel discussion, where the topics will be explored in more depth and participants’ questions will be answered. After the presentations, there will be informal networking.

Day 2 – Workshop
Date: April 30
Time: 10:00 – 16:00
Location: Studio89 (Türi tn 6, 11313 Tallinn)
Participation: Paid (50€), up to 15 participants. Lunch included.
Registration
Instructors: Gordon McGladdery (A Shell in the Pit) & Natasha Skult (MiTale) & Adam Bow (Music Composer – Placeholder Gameworks)

Content: Creating Music for Games – a hands-on workshop where participants will gain knowledge and skills in composing game music and sound design. The workshop will dive into the practices of non-linear sound design and explore how music can dynamically respond to the player’s actions and the progression of the game.

Gordon McGladdery is a composer and founder of A Shell in the Pit Audio and A Shell in the Pit Games. Since 2011, A Shell in the Pit has grown from a solo music project into one of the largest Game Audio studios in the world with an explicit focus on creating sustainable jobs in a crisis-ridden industry while working on games they love. They have produced sound effects, audio systems and/or music for over 60 titles including Untitled Goose Game, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach, Pacific Drive, Caves of Qud and many more. Gordon has written soundtracks for 16 games & is also the game director of Fish Game, A Shell in the Pit’s debut title, which launched in October 2023.

Natasha Skult is the CEO & Creative Director of MiTale, an indie game studio from Finland, focusing on narrative-driven games. She is an active member of the Finnish and international games industry as Board Member of IGDA Foundation, Lead Organizer of W Love Games Conference and Finnish Games Week. Besides industry work, she is also active in academic research – finishing her doctoral degree on the topic of “Interactive Storytelling With Quantum Computing” and teaching courses in game design and game (digital) art production at University of Turku in Finland and Ashesi University in Ghana. 

Adam Bow is a games composer who specialises in orchestral, and other instrumental ensemble music. He’s been a part of the Estonian game development scene since late 2019 when began working on the soundtrack for the game Death and Taxes, made by the Estonian based game studio Placeholder Gameworks. Since then, Adam has gone on to score Placeholder Gameworks’ following two titles – Broken Alliance and CraftCraft, as well as multiple other games from around the world. Born and raised in New Zealand, Adam has recently made the move to Estonia, and is currently based in Tallinn.

The event is organized by Enterprise Estonia in collaboration with Music Estonia, Tier Music and Gamedev Estonia.