When does perfectionism help you, and when does it hurt you? When can you embrace imperfection without it harming your resultant work? How do you know when good enough is good enough? Many game audio professionals have a healthy streak of perfectionism in their creative personalities, but they also need to be able to deal with challenges like writer's block, learning new skills rapidly, quick turnarounds on demos and pitches, and more. In cases like these, perfectionism can utterly suffocate and stifle creativity and expression. Join Neal Acree ('Overwatch'), Guy Whitmore ('Peggle 2'), Austin Wintory ('Journey'), and Penka Kouneva ('Hellboy VR Experience') on a panel moderated by John Robert Matz ('Fossil Echo') as they discuss finding a balance between perfection and imperfection, and why allowing some imperfection in your work is not only healthy, but can result in better art.

Takeaway

Expect to learn how to balance your creative approach, break perfectionist tendencies, deal with shortages of time, skill, and budget, when to reach out for help in areas that you're weak in, how to use calculated imperfection to artistic advantage, and when a work is actually good enough to ship.

Intended Audience

While approached from a composer's perspective, topics discussed can be applied to all schools of audio expertise (although specific examples will tend towards music), and should be approachable and applicable to people across all levels of experience, while being especially useful to composers on the first leg of their journey.