woo first post! =D

well i just wanted to ask the community: what does an in-house sound designer offer to a company that a 3rd party sound designer can't?
i know its a big question, but its a real one.

i have a few ideas of what that is, but i want the straight dope from the source themselves.

Overall its more expensive sometimes to have an in-house sound designer ( or any position in general ). The trade-off being that you gain a much more direct line of communication with someone who probably is more keyed into the current iteration of the project.

If the company does know exactly what it wants than outsourcing it is generally the better choice ( cost-wise ).

Thats about as much as I know.

Also an outsourcing company (like mine) already has invested tons of money in to the equipment and software needed to create audio assets.

For the most part it makes sense for small companies and very large companies to outsource audio development. Small companies (1-3 titles in development at a time) can better allocate financial resources to more programmers or marketing. Very large companies (7+ titles in dev) bring on a company like mine during crunch periods or for large volume asset creation to ease the load for their existing staff.

Mid sized companies have the most use for a wholly in-house staff of about 3 or 4 staff audio personnel. This team can see the titles through with little help from outside contractors, though many companies under-hire audio and wonder why their games only got a 4 on IGN for sound.

If you are looking to break in to audio and are seeking an in-house position I highly recommend getting on a mod or two (preferably a UE3 team) and learning implementation. The largest need I've seen in recent years is for skilled implementers.