Voice actors union authorizes strike! - now if there is no agreement it will happen

[binary solo]

noname2200 said:

Ka-pi96 said:

SubiyaCryolite said:
Wow, absolutely no sympathy from some of you >_>

Think that's largely because people are obsessing over the royalties part and often aren't even mentioning all the other problems they currently have, so it makes them look greedy or whatever despite the fact that they do have some legitimate problems.

That's entirely the voice actors' fault for even including that demand. What did they expect to happen?

Why? Residuals are a legit demand as long as the conditions under which they come into effect are reasonable and tailored to the aspects of the video game indistry that make it distinct to the TV/Film industries. If you don't grant residuals to video game voice acting then basically video game voice acting is second class to other acting gigs. And in terms of demand video game voice acting is as demanding as voice acting in animated films, and of course when mo-cap is involved video game acting is more demanding than animated film voice work.

People should not be conflating the demand of voice actors with developers either. The same argument can be applied to camera crew and other technical crew on TV and movie shoots. You can't make a film without camera crew, it is a highly skilled job and not one that an average joe of the street can step into, but they get no royalties. Should camera crew (and other off-screen crew) get success bonuses for movies that make massive profits? Probably yes, if there was justice in the world. But the fact that they don't get such bonuses does not deligitimise the claim that actors should get residuals. End of the day, the actors are entitled to bargain for the best deal possible, and why should anyone begrudge them doing that. Perhaps once they get a good deal they might be open for criticism that they are not supporting other employees and contractors to get a employment / contract conditions, but for now, they are focussing on renegotiating their collective conditions, and that's fair enough.

I do wonder what the consequences for the future direction of game development will be if the actors get an agreement that includes quite liberal residuals conditions. We could see a return to more games with silent protagonists, and games with mostly or entirely text-based dialogue. What about games that use a Narrator as the only voice work? Is that an acting job covered by the SAG agreement, or is it something different?

If the publisher side of the industry feels like they've been shafted (justified or not) by whatever agreement comes out then they will be looking for ways to minimise the impact of the agreement. Which will include use of foreign voice actors in countries where residuals are not part of standard acting contracts, as well as reverting to game design that minimises or eliminates voice work.