Slashdot Mirror
SAG Rejects Game Contract
Reuters is reporting that the Screen Actor's Guild has rejected the contract with the Games Industry, despite earlier signs negotiations would be successful. From the article: "The Screen Actors Guild's bitter infighting claimed another victim Tuesday as members of the national executive committee voted to reject the recently negotiated video game contract against the wishes of members and the negotiating committee. It is believed to be the first time in the union's 72-year history that board members have used the routine approval process to overrule the unanimous recommendations of a negotiating committee."
Alec Baldwin: "....way to go, FAG."
I prefer how the South Park/Team American guys call them. The Film Actors Guild, also known as FAG.
Now we get to listen to more half-hearted monotone voice acting in all our video games.
And how could this be?
Because SAG is trying to get the games industry to go COMPLETELY union.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000EEC0 A-7032-1E6E-A98A809EC5880105
Their future doesn't look too bright.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Hopefully that means no more main characters voiced by David Duchovny (XIII, Area 51).
Though his voice does work better than counting sheep... zzzzzzzz...
<insert funky hand motions here>
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I would rather video game makers drag people in off the street and hand out the voice acting spots to desperate college kids who will work for pennies then get some 'high quality' voice acting at the expense of a couple of programmers. Of all the things I would like to see video games focus more on, voice acting is exactly last. I would pick a fiction writer to write a good story, another programmer to debug, another programmer to optimize performace, a dozen more beta testers, or a number of other things over voice actors. The thought of giving risiduals to voice actors makes me sick. I can't think of a bigger waste of money. If SAG can't get its shit together and offer a reasonable contract, I hope the gaming industry merrily points them to the picket lines where they can rot until hell freezes over and have no one care.
Good voice acting is nice, but it is hardly on my top 10 as a consumer of games. I can stomach half assed voice acting if the game is bug free and well written. I can't stomach a game with bugs and poor writing though, even if the voice acting kicks ass.
How many games are sold strictly on the strength of a SAG member's likeness being in it? I can't think of a title (unless we count John Madden, et. al.).
x = x + ++x;
Oh, hold on, I think I have an idea on how they can do it...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Is the rejection based on them not getting the "residuals" or was there something more?
0 03293 "
I recall reading an entry on Wil's site
" http://www.wilwheaton.net/mt/archives/003293.php#
that had the perspective from the non big name hollywood voice actors, was very good as well there is a recent addition responding to the personal attacks Wil recieved shortly after his orginal post.
I think we forget about the majority of actors that do voice actor.. I am not talking hollywood A-list types but the guy who does it along with working at Starbucks or where ever.
But i'd like to know more about what they are really demanding before I make my judgement.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
They thought they were going to have a contract with the entire games industry?
Excuse me while I catch my breath from laughing so hard.
Looks like game developers will have to continue doing what they do most of the time... Hire non-union talent.
Oh no.
The union is holding out to try to get EVERY job in the game development hierarchy unionized. They're after POWER. That's where the true money lies.
This is how I imagined the conversation went between the game industry and SAG
SAG: Well, we get points and residuals in movies.
Game Industry: We don't make movies.
SAG: Yes, we understand that. But, points/residuals is how SAG has always operated.
GI: Yeah, but we don't make movies.
SAG: Yes, I understand that, but that's how we've always worked.
GI: And the game industry has always worked without residuals.
SAG: But, but, but...fine, we strike.
GI: Fine. AFTRA has agreed to our most recent contract, so we'll go ahead and use TV and Radio actors.
SAG: Fine. Jerks. No more Wil Wheaton for you!
I can only speak for myself but I would rather have a computer generated voice that sounded like Stephen Hawking than to give these 'actors' any extra money. Lets face it, the people who make or break a game are the Programmers, Level Designers, Artists, Directors and Producers who spend years to produce these games; the actor who spends a WEEK saying stupid phrases into a microphone is essentially irrelevant.
"While the negotiators unanimously recommended that the contract be approved, they did so only reluctantly after failing to get member support for a strike.
Even then, with almost no other option but to accept the gaming industry's final offer, some of the more militant negotiators still demanded that the contract be rejected, sparking one of the most embarrassing rebellions in recent memory. "
They don't want this contract and only want Restore Respect out so they can bully the union into striking against the game industry.
The fact of the matter is that games have thrived for many years before they even had voice acting. Losing a bunch of overpriced, self important little shits isn't going to hurt the industry.
In fact, it may end up helping the industry by freeing it from the whiny bitches in Holywood and encouraging game companies to hire people off the street who can do the job just as well but will work for peanuts.
In short, fuck SAG.
Seriously These guys aren't making millions...I KNOW VIDEO GAME VOICE ACTORS...not one of them pulls even a "normal" 30k salary based off their Voice work. Most of them get a few good day or two jobs a year ..maybe 10, 1 hour or two sessions.
so that ends the "they are making more than the programmers" arguement. Even these changes will not change that.
Next arguement
"They will have to hire less programmers...skimp in other places...etc"
You have no frigging CLUE what you are talking about...Risiduals are NOT repeat NOT repeat NOT Royalties...Risiduals ONLY happen AFTER profitability AND a certain number of units (x) is sold. The estimates were last year only 30 titles would have been effected...that places X at WELL OVER 500,000 units (12 did over 1million sales, ~50 did over 500k sales)
There is no way residuals would effect the coding talent able to work a game as all the coders would have to be paid AND recieve any bonuses THEY make FIRST before residuals would kick in.
Next up: Why do they deserve it and not "insert job here"?
Have you ever considered that once one group gets it the others will have that much more leverage to get such treatment...it has to start somewhere or management just gets to excuse it off saying "we dont' do that for everyone else why should we do it for you" instead of having workers say "we demand more because you pay --- more and we are just as good"
fuck my wonderful stupidity...
Here's a properly formatted one:
Seriously These guys aren't making millions...
I KNOW VIDEO GAME VOICE ACTORS... not one of them pulls even a "normal" 30k salary based off their Voice work. Most of them get a few good day or two jobs a year.. maybe 10, 1 hour or two sessions.
So that ends the "they are making more than the programmers" arguement. Even these changes will not change that.
Next arguement "They will have to hire less programmers...skimp in other places...etc"
You have no frigging CLUE what you are talking about...
Risiduals are NOT repeat NOT repeat NOT Royalties...
Risiduals ONLY happen AFTER profitability AND a certain number of units (x) is sold. The estimates were last year only 30 titles would have been effected...that places X at WELL OVER 500,000 units (12 did over 1million sales, ~50 did over 500k sales) There is no way residuals would effect the coding talent able to work a game as all the coders would have to be paid AND recieve any bonuses THEY make FIRST before residuals would kick in.
Next up: Why do they deserve it and not "insert job here"?
Have you ever considered that once one group gets it the others will have that much more leverage to get such treatment...it has to start somewhere or management just gets to excuse it off saying "we dont' do that for everyone else why should we do it for you" instead of having workers say "we demand more because you pay --- more and we are just as good"
"Seriously These guys aren't making millions...
I KNOW VIDEO GAME VOICE ACTORS... not one of them pulls even a "normal" 30k salary based off their Voice work. Most of them get a few good day or two jobs a year.. maybe 10, 1 hour or two sessions."
And they get paid for the full day of work at their exorbitant salary. Here's a thought, why don't get a normal fucking job? Oh wait, that's right, they're art majors, and so they figure the world should fucking revolve around them and their daily drama. Oh, woe is them.
"Risiduals are NOT repeat NOT repeat NOT Royalties..."
You had two chances to to do this, and you still couldn't spell "residuals" correctly. Truly, an example for the modern day moron.
A 25% instant pay raise to $675/hour minimum wage is, I repeat IS going to cause them to skimp out on other stuff.
"Have you ever considered that once one group gets it the others will have that much more leverage to get such treatment...it has to start somewhere or management just gets to excuse it off saying "we dont' do that for everyone else why should we do it for you" instead of having workers say "we demand more because you pay --- more and we are just as good"
Have you ever considered that there's no way that the little shits who work on the voice talent should be getting a pay increase or residuals at all, even if everyone else across the board gets one? In the span of game development, voice acting is higher than the secretary at the door, and that's about it. The previous article said that voice actors were responsible of 1/2400 of the total work hours on the game. So they can all orally service the entire dev company before they deserve getting a cut, and they certainly don't fucking deserve a piece of the pie before everyone else.
Cue the sound of people familiar with unions falling over with not suprise.
Personally, I don't give a rats ass about voice acting in video games. In most games I play, I have the sound turned down because listening to the same redundant soundtracks over and over again drives me insane. For me, video games are all about the story and voice acting DOES NOT IMPROVE STORY. Besides, half the time they talk too fucking slow. I can read a hell of a lot faster than they can talk and I don't like getting bogged down by some slow-reading voice actor [I know if the actor reads slow it's because of the script probably but you get the point]. Throw on the subtitles, put some music on I really want to listen to and I'm golden.
Voice Actors in Video Games are sorta like NHL Players...don't let the door hit you on the way out!