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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."
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?
Because they're not willing to quit en masse and tell the publisher "pay us more or else no game"?
"Then the publishers will hire scabs!"
Yes - and how long will it take for the "scabs" to get up to snuff and be able to handle all of the tasks of the former programers/artists/testers? What if every employee at EA and Ubisoft all left the same day and said "We'll come back when we're offered a 40 hour work week with overtime of 1.5x an hour over 40 hours and 2x every hour past 60 hours, with paid vacation time between games and a independent mediator for disputes", and the publishers were left looking at their bankroll and deciding if just going scabs are worth it?
The voice actors deserve it not because they're better, but because they're willing to fight and sacrifice what they want *now* for a better deal *later*. It's the way the entertainment industry rose up with the screen actor's guild and the like - and I think the game industry is about to get hit with it big time, and they won't like it.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
EA is making a lot of money by not paying the people who work there the money they deserve. I don't think that just the voice actors should revolt, but the programmers as well. Eventually EA is going to have to give in.
However, given the fact that next generation games are expected to cost $60 per game, it looks like the big developing houses are going to push the cost on the consumers rather than absorb it themselves.
Not just the programmers, the game artists are in the same position. They sometimes get paid less than even the programmers. Without the game content there wouldn't be much of a game.
However artists, much like voice actors, are a dime a dozen. The problem is that typically the end user doesn't give a crap how technically good the art and voice acting is, just as long as it's good enough. Pretty much anyone can tell if art or voice acting is good enough.
On the other hand a programmer is a lot like an artist except it's not so easy to spot good talent (for one thing talent is less obvious when evaluating a programmer) and there are many crappy programmers out there because it's complex work and people rarely devote the time to practicing like other artists do. It's also rare to find someone that has the passion about their programming that traditional artists have about their art.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Because they have a union (darn, can't link to Wikipedia as it is undergoing maintenance). Devs and designers might want to consider forming their own.
I'm not necessarily pro-union, but SAG et al were started to protect those types of workers from slimeballs. As such, they get to wield muscle in these types of things. Every worker deserves protections or "special treatment", but in this unfair world they often don't get it unless they band together and demand it. Actors do not deserve it more than game devs, but the actors are organized enough to actually try to get some respect.
In the professional TV/Film/Theatre industry many of the folk involved have their own union or are a part of IATSE. Game devs might someday get fed up enough and form their own.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
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?