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Voice Actors Vote on VG Strike
The Screen Actor's Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists will vote today on whether or not to strike against publishers in the video game industry. The actors claim they are not getting a fair piece of the pie in the ever increasingly lucrative industry. From the article: "Voice actors say they are not sharing in the riches of the $10-billion-a-year industry. But game publishers say voice actors are just part of a increasingly costly and complex development process in which a typical game costs $5 million or more and several times that for blockbusters."
with all the regulars on strike, maybe they can hire some people capable of showing emotion. That is to say that there those that don't suck, like those in the Legacy of Kain series. If the striking VG voice actors put half as much emotion into their work at they put into their complaining, i wouldn't be so ticked off at them.
It's the programmers that make the game good! And what do they get for all their hard work? a 90 hour work week and an "Atta Boy" at the end.
The programmers should strike!
I hope they strike and the video game houses hire "scabs" who've been trying to get voice acting jobs for decent wages.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
...how many video games have you played that have had real voice actors but someone set us up the bomb. Main screen turn on. How are you gentlemen, All your base are belong to us?
Help us build a better map!
...the artists, coders, and designers whose work makes up the game? Why do they deserve royalties any less than a voice actor?
From the article:
If a strike occurs, game players probably won't notice much of a difference, GamePro editor Sid Shuman says. "I think if you asked gamers what is more important, recognizable voices or prices not climbing higher, they are going to opt for lower prices."
He's completely and utterly wrong. I personally don't care about recognizing the voices, but I do NOT want to go back to the early days of PC games that used voices. They tended to sound as if the programmers or the programmers' friends did the voices themselves, and they were horrible. This Shuman guy doesn't know what he's talking about; even losing the rank and file guys is going to hurt games.
On a side note:
Union actors lent voices to nine of 10 of last year's top video games, Oster says. That includes Halo 2, with Michelle Rodriguez, David Cross and Ron Perlman
Halo 2 had an insane amount of relatively well-known actors, even in minor roles. In addition to the eminently hot Michelle Rodriquez and the others listed above they had Miguel Ferrer, Robert Davi, and Orlando Jones. Never figured out WHY, did they like have a huge voice actor budget that they just had to use no matter what?
I was a voice actor on the first Pong game. You think I've ever received a penny? Nah...
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Actors need to realize that their contribution in a game is one element out of many - the developers and designers do just as much creatively as they do!
In the words of the mighty Deep Thought... WHO WILL THAT INCONVENIENCE??
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
Which do you think is really worse, the voice acting, or the script writing?
Fuck 'em.
The voice acting in GTA: San Andreas was awesome. (As much as I hated David Cross as Zero)
I know there will be those who simply say "Well, them let them go - they get overpaid for their $300 an hour work anyway", or "Voice acting in games sucks!" or "It's a free market!"
To which I would respond "Yes, it's a free market - and they are free not to work unless they get the pay they demand."
Electronic Arts makes multiple billions of dollars of profit (not revenue - profit) every year, while they treat programmer like dirt. Their response to the voice actors request is something like "But - we don't pay the programmers this much - what's your problem?"
To which the voice actors, which come from a history of which using a guild (or a union, really) has gotten them what they want: pay for their work, and residuals for using their talents to promote someone else's product. As I wrote in a column not too long ago, it's a system that's served Hollywood well.
And yes, with all of the unions about, Hollywood still makes a lot of money. A *ton* of money.
Maybe this is the wakeup call that the game industry needs. Maybe EA and other publishers (sorry to pick on EA, but they're the most egregious example I know), if the voice actors get their way, will be faced with developers saying "Holy fucking shit - where's my piece of the pie then?.
Maybe the big publishing houses will have to break up, or deal with lower profits - or maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.
Who knows. Personally, I'm rooting for the voice actors. Overpaid hams? Sure - but they're overpaid hams who know the value of their dollar, and are willing to sacrifice profits now to do better in the future. Maybe they'll lose. But it won't be because they just bend over a desk when the guy with the paycheck wants to ram it up their ass.
Just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Yes, with the addition of voice talent in video games + next gen games projected to cost $60 + $5 for random celeb to lend voice talent I'm sure pumped for next gen systems! I'm so sure they need MORE money. I mean if they lend their voice to a game I see it as free advertising, people will hear your voice and make an association between the character and the actor. If they want more money it make pull funds from other aspects of game creation, and who wants to be associated with a shitty game?
while programmers == set builders. I'm assuming that's how SAG sees it.
But, there's a crucial difference between a voice actor and a movie star. While a movie star can carry a movie, I don't know of any video game that a single voice actor carried. Yeah, Michael Ironside is great as Sam Fisher, but I didn't know he was the voice until I read it. No one buys Splinter Cell because of Michael Ironside: he only adds to the realism.
Its for this reason that I think voice actors shouldn't get points for games. They don't carry games like they can carry movies. Until you can sell a million copies of a video game because Tom Cruise does a voiceover, voice actors shouldn't get points.
As for Ironside stating "There needs to be a standard for the people who can't protect themselves, the rank-and-file performer" what a bunch of crap. Somehow I don't think anyone but A-list actors get points from movies.
Of all the voice acting in games these days, there is usually only a handful each year (if that) that have decent enough voice acting to not make one cringe anyway.
Sure the next GTA game might be lacking without some of the celeb voices, but you'd be doing us a favor by keeping all your shitty, low rent voice actors away from all the other games that come out.
*slight fanboy rant*
If everyone took a queue from Nintendo and realized that to make good games you don't NEED a full voice cast this would be a non-issue.
No sig for you!!
I am not an experienced voice actor. However, I am fluent in English and have been speaking it my entire life.
I have been recently made aware that you are having difficulty with the voice actors you have hired, and you may be in the market for prospective new talent.
I am willing to work for one third the going hourly rate performing voice acting work, which I understand is $300/hr. Please reply.
Kindest Regards,
NonUnion Voice Actor
Which do you think is really worse, the voice acting, or the script writing?
A
My stupid web site
Put aside how retarded the SGA, etc. are for thinking their 'talents' are as of value in this realm as they are on the screen. Video games are not Shrek 2. Push comes to shove, devs can use the voice jobs as sex bait for chicks in bars.
Programmers is far more valuable to the process - if they organized like this, they might not complain so much about EA (at least until they were outsourced).
Look, I do my duty as a good customer. I pay for your games. I honor brand loyalty over bad reviews. I'm willing to forgive the odd dropped feature now and then. In short, I do everything you've asked of me.
And yet, I'm not getting the same value for my dollar any more. Oh, sure, the visuals are prettier, and the sound is amazing. But the games you're putting out these days, frankly, don't have any soul. It's as if you used the same voice actor for every character, and asked them to just grunt a little more for the guys voices and suck helium for the girls voices.
Until I as a consumer get my fair share, I'm striking. No more broken and buggy games. No more repetitive and bland gameplay. And I want royalties, too -- free or inexpensive content for years after the release of your product.
I do my part. It's time for the industry to meet me half way.
What ever would we do without "professional" voice actors. I'm certain that the only good voice actors are from Hollywood. It could be that there's plenty of talent all around the world, perhaps right in your town's theater.
Unions are outdated. People who join unions are spineless whiners who cannot take a stand for themselves (at least in the US).
Programmers who work for EA are spineless slaves.
I'll be trolled down, but I don't care.
If you don't like your freaking pay or your work conditions, STOP WORKING THERE!
At least until the lawyers completely fuck up the game industry with game concept patents, there's a ton of room for small, independent game companies to create the next sleeper. Lord knows none of the big companies are creating anything worth buying. Every one of them has 80% eye candy that plays like shit.
Go and do. Stop whining.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I have no doubt this will come back to bite current video game voice actors in the ass. They'll probably get their wish, but when the publishers have pay higher rates, they might start hiring other voice actors. You know, good ones.
It's a shame, because I've loved some of these guys since their FMV days. Or something.
Solidarity!
[o]_O
Apparently not enough people have learned the lessons of "Mace Griffen: Bounty Hunter*":
Actors and their voices do NOT make or break a game.
And quite frankly, there's no reason to justify royalties for a game that will only be playable on a single generation of consoles and computers.
I bet if you check with Gamefly.Com, you won't see anyone demanding to play the old Wing Commander games, even though they've got Mark Hammil and Ginger Lynn Allen in them (on screen and not just voice overs too!).
So voice actors at SAG/AFTRA, question for you.
Just what the hell are you smoking?
*Mace Griffen was voiced by Henry Rollins. B.F.D
P.
I happen to be related to a guild actor who does work for Ubisoft. He's informed me that most of the voice talent the industry uses is non-union. In fact, many of the voices are programmers who get no bonuses or royalties for adding their voice. (This may explain many of the terrible voice overs.) My relative charges what he needs to make a living doing this, and, according to him, typically costs less than non-union talent. Why? Because he gets done in 1 hour what takes them 2 or 3. I'd work for dirt-cheap as a Linux admin, because I don't really know what I'm doing. I could FAQ my way around, but it'd take me 3-4x as long as an experienced professional. In the end, I'd cost more even though I get paid less. Is my uncle famous? Does his name help sell video games? I doubt it, but, did you like the voice acting for the moniter in HALO?
it was a one-liner?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
They should get royalties, just like everybody else who worked on the game, but the royalties should be proportional to the value they added to the game. The best way to do this would be to use a weighted sum of the hours spent working on it.
As a few hours work by a voice artist produces a greater effect than a few hours work by a programmer, let's say that the voice artist gets ten times the hour-royalties of a programmer. That seems fair enough.
Of course, this still won't result in much for the voice artist as it'll be their five hours ( x 10) versus at least 3000 for a programmer...
When will we have a full text-to-speech game, then?
On a side point, how the HELL does it cost $5 million dollars to get a game together?
Not to mention the multiple figure if its a "blockbuster"?
How many artists, sound guys, coders, PR people, advertising etc does a game need? Maybe the industry needs to look at more cost-effective ways of getting the job done. Then, maybe they could pay some decent voice actors.
This reminds me of the Alec Baldwin marionette in Team America...
"Screw you, Hans Brix!"
My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?
Yep, it's all the "little" expenses that add up. The voice actors certainly get their share, but it's not like Wing Commander III. The actor budget of that was rumored to be around $5 million (50% of the gross budget). Nowdays, it's 10% or less. All the various licensing fees for the console, game engines, and driver support are above 33%.
This little jewel is available from various...channels.
It's old but still pretty close to what goes on today.
that the majority of voice acting in games absolutely stinks! I mean, with some notable exceptions, (GTA Vice City, Half-life, etc) people mock voice acting, and nintendo thinks that it's so bad they don't even put it in ANY of their games!
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
From a TV show with real voice acting talent:
Sal: Welcomes aboard, scab.
Bender: Great to be here!
Sal: Come on. I'll introduces you to your scab co-workers you'll be scabbing with.
The Monitor irritated the hell out of me! It was probably supposed to be annoying though, so the voice acting was probably good :)
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Sadly most of the voice acting in games is like the stuff cataloged on Audio Atrocities. Insane they want more money for crap like that. At least the clips at audio atrocities is entertaining! I think the art guys, designers, sound guys, and programmers should get a cut LONG before some actor who spent 5 hours recording dialogue against the dev team's 2-3 years!