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Voice Actors Protest at E3
Thought it wasn't really covered by any of the news sites, there were apparently several protests by voice actors at this year's E3. ShackNews has a piece on the under-reported event. From the article: "To deny working-class performers their fair share of the tremendous profits their labor helps to generate is illogical, unreasonable and unjust...It is simply shortsighted to believe that consumers don't care about the artistic quality of the characters."
At $375 an hour, you'd think every videogame out there would have top-notch voice acting. Hell, pay me in pizza and I'll easily match the quality of acting in most games today. ^_^
So many games fall short in the audio department because they decide that its resonible to skimp on the VO work . Now I am not suggesting they pay the outrageous union prices (Alot of us who do VO work and are non union will do it for a hell of alot less) , but they need to properly audition and not just throw the janitor on at the last minute(though some games luck out with asigning staff parts , DMA(now rock star north) infact used their marketing manager for one of the DJs on GTA3.
;) ).
They need to take care not to taint their work with shoody poorly acted cheese ala Anime Dubbings.
A game can be a work of art , but if you just shove on bob from marketing who sounds like a squeaking rabbit as the all Macho one man army charichter then it can really blow the immersion.
So please please if your making a game that requires acting then please atleast audition properly and take care , there are plenty of younger actors and non union folks willing to work and hard just for the love of it (but we do prefer cash
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The difference is that "computer" people are stupid, and refuse to organize.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Do the programmers, concept artists, QAT leads and everyone else get a bonus if a game sells xxx copies?
A few hours in a studio vs months in a cubicle - tell me, who deserves the bonus?
Nope I'm not.... b/c they only get paid that 200/hour for like one or two days...then they're back on the search for another job.
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."