Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational individuals from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Kristen Quinn, Audio Director at Bonfire Studios. She speaks about the importance of balancing innovation with practicality, continuous learning, and advocating for sustainable work practices in game audio. Read more about Kristen here:
Hi Kristen! Throughout your career, you’ve worked on a variety of high-profile projects across different platforms and genres. What are some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned about the creative process in game audio, and how do you stay inspired?

It doesn’t have to be cutting edge to be good. At different points in my career there have been different focuses. Sometimes it was about innovation and cutting edge systems and other times it was about being lean and efficient but just focusing on making it good. The more games I’ve worked on the more I’ve come to think of audio just needing to be good at every stage. Audio for games is the sum of it’s parts. It can fall down at any stage. I think its’ about staying in service of what you are trying to achieve. Maybe sometimes that is cutting edge innovation, but sometimes its’ just thinking about the story or experience you are trying to provide players. That’s how I think about sound and how to craft immersion. There are so may different ways to break this down. Who’s perspective are you trying to share? What feelings are you trying to sell? I might craft a scene completely different based on the answers to these questions. I might focus on new systems or I might use the tools I have come to use time and time again through out the years. I think at the end of the day it just needs to be what’s right for the project and players.

I keep myself inspired by experiencing other people’s work, by working on projects that matter to me, and with people who matter to me. I believe in community and sharing, and also find being in a community that does this very inspiring. I try and go to conferences when I’m able to be around the game audio community. I get inspired by seeing others succeed. I’ve made it a big part of my career to focus on trying to clear paths for others to do their best work with the least amount of friction and in a sustainable way.

I love recording. I try as much as I am able to participate in a Field Recording Slack group that does crowd sourced sound libraries. I take Udemy classes in my spare time to learn more about game engines that I’m excited to work in and to learn more about game development outside of my discipline.

As someone who has worked with a range of audio tools and technologies, both third-party and custom, what are some of the most exciting advancements in audio technology you’ve encountered, and how do you see these shaping the future of game audio?

I have always been most excited about the game audio community itself. Tools have started to come around too that bring that community together and allow for more sharing. Things like Reaper which allows the use of custom scripts and tools to be built within it and expand on it’s already powerful functionality.
I will say 32bit has been really nice and saved many of my recordings in the past few years.
I know that AI is often a dirty word in the creative community but I see it as just another tool in the tool belt to help aid in our crafting. I think there are always new technologies in audio and game development and I think evolution can be healthy. Continued learning is healthy. I think when I look at AI and tools like Reaper, they are just more ways to speed up my workflows and help us focus on the heart of what’s important, crafting amazing content, and creating immersive player experiences.
I’m excited about new mix techniques that people have been using for the past few years. Mix in games has always been a challenge because games have a hard time being predictive. We rely on the game to build up our soundscapes and we have to use dynamic mixing tools to help us craft focus where we want it.

Your journey from a Sound Designer at Monolith Productions to your current role as Audio Director at Bonfire Studios is truly inspiring. Can you share some key moments and decisions in your career that helped shape your path and what advice would you give to women and underrepresented people aspiring to lead in the gaming industry, particularly in game audio?

Be authentic, share your voice, set healthy boundaries for yourself. Try and seek out what matters to you.

There have been a few moments in my career where I have decided to make big changes to how I was working. One of the more notable ones was when I ruptured a disc in my back and tore the disc above it while working on a Kinect title at Microsoft. It really made me think about how I show up and how I needed to work differently. I realized that I had to bring solutions to my problems. In this instance it was how do I work on a movement based game when I can’t move very well. I’ve learned that if I communicate and collaborate with the people around me, they have the potential to help solve them with me. In this instance I had to request a tester that could come into my office and play the game for me while I tested my audio content and mix.

There are solutions to every problem, even ones that seem impossible. It also made me realize that I needed to carve out more time to take care of myself. This was a big change for me and I was nervous. My entire career I had put in tons of hours and thought that mattered, but what I really learned is that by setting boundaries on my time and work life balance, it actually made me better at my job. I could think about what it really takes to make audio for a game. How many people do we really need, and then I ask for those resources. If I can’t get hires, can I get more money for outsourcing, and if I can’t get either of those can we scope the game in a way that will allow us to build it in a sustainable way. What I found is that by telling people what I was capable of and what the team was capable of with the budget that we had, people around me respected me more for it, and I respected myself more. I love being a manager and getting to be in a position to care for and advocate for audio teams health and well being means a lot to me.

Thanks for this interview, Kristen!

Kristen’s links: LinkedIn

Womenize! – Inspiring Stories Feature by Madeleine Egger