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SAG Approves Gaming Contract
GameDailyBiz reports that the Screen Actor's Guild has finally reached an agreement with the gaming industry over the work of voice actors. From the article: "The new 3.5-year contract gives actors a 36 percent increase in minimum pay, more contributions to benefit plans and other amenities. It does not, however, give voice actors for video games any residuals based on sales of titles, which was the bone of contention between the two unions and the video game companies--the actors felt they should be entitled to residuals on games that sell in excess of 400,000 copies."
I don't see what the big deal is. This is exactly like how painters get a cut of the profits when someone sells a house that the painter was previously contracted to paint.
Oh wait - that's right, that doesn't happen anywhere but Hollywood. Get a real job and quit crying you little voice-acting pussies. Really, I don't care if a completely unknown person does the voice acting. It's actually preferred and they'll probably do a more believable job.
It's not like voice talent sells games, its currently a novelty at best to have SAG actors doing voices in games. The only games that go to trouble to point it out are usually doing to distract us (cough * EQ2 * cough).
The only thing that developments like this are going to acomplish is a reduction in the use of SAG "talent" in games.