Video Game Voice Actor Strike Continues, as Union Pickets Batman Publisher This Week

[JEMC]

Captain_Yuri said:

JEMC said:

Publishers have compared the gaming industry with the movie industry for years. Well, now they are facing the same problems the movie industry has had to deal with for years.

And I disagree with you. Voice actors and developers aren't fighting for the same money, because there is not a fixed amount of money used to pay all of them. The publisher fixes a budget, yes, but in that budget everything has to be taken into consideration, and a higher cost for voice actors won't affect the money to pay the rest of the people involved in the production of a game. After all, we all know that publishers spend more on advertising than in the game production itself.

And if publishers face troubles for paying their employees what they deserve, maybe it's time to take a look at what the f*ck they're doing with the millions they get from the games, season passes, dlcs, companion apps, etc they sell. Maybe the problem is not the people that creates the games, but the executives that run the companies.

Yea well, I always thought it was nonsense :P

Yea but paying for advertising is a thing that has to be done. If it costs that much to sell a game and make people notice, then it doesn't matter if the advertising costs more than the game itself because if that is what it takes to get it in people's hands, then they can't reduce it. And while it isn't a fixed amount, it is in the sense that they can't increase it to any amount they want otherwise they won't make enough profit to impress the investors.

But here's the thing, the only people that I have seen complain are the VA as far as paying employees what they deserve in this incident. The developers aren't exactly complaining and neither are the rest of the crews. Cause if they were, they would go on strike and voice their anger no? So it feels like as far as developers and etc go, they are getting paid what they deserve (with some exceptions obviously) cause if they aren't complaining, they are probably happy. But the VAs seems to feel that they deserve more than what they are getting paid and its not even all the VAs. Correct me if I am wrong but didn't we have some VAs also saying VAs don't actually deserve much more or at least not what they are trying to pull.

Cause currently, with the game budgets, no one is taking residuals to devs/VA/etc into account as far as I know but if they all suddenly want it, that is quite a big cut into their profts since for every X amount of copies sold, the employees are getting Y amount where as before, the publishers could take all of it afaik. Specially since the devs would probably want much more than what the VAs would get and etc.

Overall, it is a tricky situation. I will be curious to see what happens

Developers have much more things to worry about besides their salary. Those legendary, and definitely not for a good reason, crushing sessions are anything but healthy, as well as those lenghtly workdays.

This is the thing, tho. Developers only complain about that and other things once they have left the business or the company they were working on have closed because they're afraid of losing their job. If they see the VA fighting for their rights and succeeding, how long do you think will be until they form their own union and ask for their own rights?

That's why publishers are so agressive against this whole strike. If they succeed, it'll be the beginning of bigger and more important changes in the industry.

KLXVER said:

Darashiva said:

Yeah, I've seen that and I agree. I don't think people necessarily realize that this isn't about voice actors getting more than everyone else, it's about them getting a decent compensation for their work. That doesn't mean that other people working in the industry shouldn't also receive more, but it has to start somewhere if the video game industry is going to become a healthy place to work for people.

They get paid for what they do. Just like most jobs in the world. They actually get paid more than most jobs in the world. Should builders who help build a store get paid more later if the store becomes popular? No, they have done their job and gotten paid for it. This is just actors wanting more for doing nothing.

 

Wrong example as construction workers have their own unions that have fought to get their members the rights and work conditions they deserve, and that includes the salary.