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Forums - Gaming - Some developers not as enthusiastic at videogame voice actors's demands amid the possibility of a strike

Kagerow on 27 September 2015
spurgeonryan said:
They should get royalties. But they should also realize that unlike actors strikes and writers strikes, it is not hard to replace voice actors. Not as if people buy games just to hear voices. I do not care if Mark Hamil does not do the Joker anymore. It matters little that Ash has a new voice or if the Pikachu voice retires. I am sure that even the voice of Mario would matter little.

They need to know how much little power they really have compared to other strike campaigns.


Yeah, and get completely canned in Asian market. Not really a good idea. Since some game sells on merit of hiring certain voice actors alone.



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sabvre42 on 27 September 2015

Royalties essentially guarantee that games will start dropping voice actors. Its the same concept as a pension... in the end it costs too damn much.



Teeqoz on 27 September 2015

I don't think voice actors should get royalties for a short few weeks of work. And using CEO and COO bonuses as an explanation for why thry should is downright stupid. I'm all for voice actors getting better working conditions though, but not royalties. Voice actors get paid well.



Hynad on 27 September 2015
DakonBlackblade said:
archer9234 said:

If that was the case. Movies and shows would be in shambles. It's a percent. A very low one. For both sides. ANd that isn't even the argument. It's the fact said company is still making money off a product for doing nothing anymore. That's were the Dev and actor work comes into play.

Differently from movies and shows the voice actors arent what sells the game, the game is, and that means if you gona pay royalties you need to pay it for the devs, and that just wouldnt work cause dev teams are enormous, theyre not a couple of actors theyre like 200 ppl.

Your case is a very rare one where you bought a game because of a voice actor, basicaly no one does it and most ppl have no idea who is voicing wich character going into a game. I know Nolan North and Troi Bakers name cause theyre everywhere giving interviews, aside from them I know no other and I learn who voiced wich character after I play the game. I dont remember who voiced Sora, who voiced Shepard or any of the ME party members, who voiced Hawk the Inquisitor, geralt of Rivia or Ciri. I know they did a good job but I have no idea who they are and I would never have bought those games if the gameplay, systems, story and whatnot werent top notch even if it had the best voice actor in the planet in it.

I would maybe be slightly moved by theyre movement if they were some sort of underpaid factory workers, they arent they get payed extremelly well, so they should just stop being greedy realy and be happy they have such great jobs were they get to work in videogames and make big bucks.

What about when the game uses both the voice and likeness of the actors? Like, say, Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, or Nathan Filion in Halo 5? As time goes by, this kind of thing will happen more and more, and we see actors doing just as much work as in movies, many of them doing their own performance/motion capture.



Frogger on 27 September 2015
ClassicGamingWizzz said:
I am with the devs on this, wtf , its the easiest job on gaming dev , they want royalties ? Are you serious?

 

This is, without a doubt, one of the most absurd things I've read today. Acting is easy? The easiest job in game developement? Good actors get paid so much because being convincing and touching an audience of critics is one of the most difficult professions in the world, and unlike game developement, you have to do it by yourself. 



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Mr.Playstation on 27 September 2015
AbbathTheGrim said:

- Hollick was paid $100,000 for roughly 15 months of work against more than $600 million made in the first three weeks according to Take-Two

This guy made as much as an average American household makes in two years. Yet this guy wants more. So what if the product he worked on became a huge success? He got his cut and that's it.



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DakonBlackblade on 27 September 2015
Hynad said:

What about when the game uses both the voice and likeness of the actors? Like, say, Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, or Nathan Filion in Halo 5? As time goes by, this kind of thing will happen more and more, and we see actors doing just as much work as in movies, many of them doing their own performance/motion capture.

I still think the game itself is much more important to sell the product than those actors, but that could be solved by simply paying more for these actors than you would if he was just doing voice capture. I still think regardless of the situation the real stars of a game are the developers, theyre the ones creating the motion capture technology and systems to digitize the actors performances in the first place.

 

To be fair I dont agre with royalties for movies and series either, ye the actors help selling those products quite a bit, but its always a team effort and a lot of the parts involved get payed less than any actor from the get go and have no right to royalties either.



Frogger on 27 September 2015
Teeqoz said:
I don't think voice actors should get royalties for a short few weeks of work. And using CEO and COO bonuses as an explanation for why thry should is downright stupid. I'm all for voice actors getting better working conditions though, but not royalties. Voice actors get paid well.


Getting payed $100,000 for 15 months of work for starring a game that made $600m in three is not "getting payed well." That CEO explanation may have been week, but the idea that the faces of a successful game don't get payed extra depending on how successful the game is is rediculus. These guys get community theatre pay for Hollywood movie performances.



Hynad on 27 September 2015
DakonBlackblade said:
Hynad said:

What about when the game uses both the voice and likeness of the actors? Like, say, Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, or Nathan Filion in Halo 5? As time goes by, this kind of thing will happen more and more, and we see actors doing just as much work as in movies, many of them doing their own performance/motion capture.

I still think the game itself is much more important to sell the product than those actors, but that could be solved by simply paying more for these actors than you would if he was just doing voice capture. I still thing regardless of the situation the real stars of a game are the developers, theyre the ones creating the motion capture technology and systems to digitize the actors performances in the first place.

But the same applies to movies and TV series. No matter how famous an actor is, he's only but a tiny element of a much bigger whole created by many other artists just as talented as the actor, if not more.



AEGRO on 27 September 2015

This is getting ridiculous.

I really dont know how much money does a voice actor gets payed for a performance in a game, but they sign a contract first and then perform. Why are they bitching after they did they job?

Videogame voice actors wouldnt exist without videogames.

Videogames can exist without voice actors. They should have that in mind.