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Games Losing Their Voices
Gamespot is reporting on a possible SAG strike against the video game industry. The working contract that the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has with the major game publishers expires tomorrow and negotiations are still underway. From the article: "Academy-Award winner Charlize Theron will lend her voice to Majesco's Aeon Flux, David Duchovny and Marilyn Manson voice-act original characters for Midway's upcoming Area 51, and Sean Connery will do some Bond-speak for EA's recently announced From Russia With Love. Actors are even voicing from beyond the grave--the late Marlon Brando will join James Caan and Robert Duvall in Electronic Arts' digital version of The Godfather."
This may, in the end, be good for the games industry; removing the advantage of a big development to hog the limelight by parading big name actors on their game boxes, and giving a tiny bit more of a chance for smaller game houses, who rely on gameplay to sell their games, to grab a piece of the pie.
However, this is another example of a big money union crossing the line. While SAG is acting perfectly within its bounds, it is completely pissing on the spirit in which the union were founded.
Unions are there to protect the workers, not to be dicks.
Dont get me wrong , i am very much pro union in some situations, However the SAG is an example of why some unions are seen as abusive groups of organised criminals. . .
A union is there for one reason , to protect the rights of the workers
Now this does not include boycotting a small company who hires non-union workers..
Fair enough to boycot the studio if it hires people during a strike but this is just silly.
Perhaps back in the day the Screen actors guild was used to right a few wrongs(I have my doubts) but now all they do is keep the exclusive club going and try to hike up wages for the elite
(/Rant)
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Last year I worked at a Talent Agency that speacialized in Voice Overs (VO). A few of our guys had done some games. I got into a conversation with one guy who had done a bunch of the russain and italian mobsters for Max Payne 2. He told me he put in a full day at the studio doing these voices, and only got scale.
VO actors thrive on being able to do multiple sessions in one day. They studio hop, and although each gig pays less than an on-camera gig would, they make it up in the numbers.
Since video games are a little more like films, they take more time, and therefore these guys should be getting paid more.
IIRC, there are two major brackets for scale right now: On-Camera and VO. I'm willing to bet that Video Games will get their own bracket, and they will be somewhere in between the OC (about $700 a day, and that means the full day) and the VO (about $450 a day, per session, which are typically just an hours or two)