"Leading with Sound is the must-have companion guide to working on video game projects. Focused on the creative, collaborative, philosophical and organizational skills behind game sound and eschewing the technical, this book celebrates the subjects most essential to leading with sound in video game development at any level. In refuting the traditional optics of sound as a service in favour of sound as a pro-active visionary department, Rob Bridgett offers insight into a process that is actively and collaboratively present in the beginning, middle and end of creative decision making and production with a clear vision to inspire and deliver an engaging, exciting entertainment experience to an audience. More specifically, this book will examine each of the four food-groups of dialogue, sound design, music and mix, not through the usual technical and production lenses of 'how' and 'when', but the essential lens of 'why' that enables leadership with sound. A new movement in sound is at the vanguard of a broader shift of enacting game development as 'entertainment' rather than 'software development' and, like everything in game production, this thinking is not yet evenly distributed or understood across the industry. This book is written, in part, to accelerate, clarify and disseminate the wider understanding and success of this approach. Sound can be a powerful advance guard for any production, acting first as radar, then as a beacon, illuminating the project in the collective imagination of the team. It is the goal of this book to do the same thing for the reader - illuminating who we are, what it is we really do, and more crucially, how much more we are capable of bringing to each team and each project through the energetic craft of leading with sound.

Leading with Sound is essential reading for both aspiring sound designers, inside and outside of the classroom, as well as experienced professionals in the game industry"--.