I think I'll live if my games have no voice acting.

$100,000 for 15 months of work.

Sit down and shut the fuck up.

Actors get royalties for all other performances, so it's expected that they will want royalties for video game performances. But unlike movies and TV shows it is not that actor's inclusion in the game that sells the game. CoD:AW would have sold what it sold regardless of whether or not Kevin Spacey was in the game.

Also, do camera crew, 3D animators, SFX techs etc get royalties from movies and TV shows? I don't think they do. I completely sympathise with devs regarding their remuneration in the same way I completely sympathise with non-performing crew who work on movies and TV shows. The anonymous champions of these industries are commonly highly underpaid for the very skilled work they do. But the actors have a strong precedent for what they're demanding whereas the devs do not. And really, the devs, who are mainly not unionised, and in many cases deliberately so, should be supporting the actors and at the same time asking actors to support better pay and conditions for them. I do think Actors have historically been very selfish in terms of supporting non-performing crew and it is about time they showed some solidarity for everyone who creatively contributes to games and movies/TV.

One thing though, is that normally royalties are only paid for secondary revenues of movies and TV shows. In the initial theatrical run the actor doesn't get paid extra, and they don't get paid extra for the first time a TV shows is aired. They get royalties for syndication to other networks, for DVD/Blu-ray sales and for re-releases. So how would you work out royalties for a game? A game doesn't have those secondary revenues, all a game does is sell to people in the same way it did when it first released. That means actors don't really qualify for residuals. If a game is remastered, or remade re-using the same voice work THEN the actor would have a claim on residuals, because that is secondary revenue in a way. And of course when a game is re-done in some way devs are getting paid for re-working on the game, so there's comparability. Perhaps one could argue that things like GOTY editions of games are also secondary releases, so perhaps actors should get residuals for that. But I think that's harder to argue for compared to remasters and remakes. I definitely think, for instance the people who did voice work for God of War should be getting residuals for all the re-releases of the GoW games on PS3 and for GoWIII on PS4. Sony earned lots of extra revenue that was not anticipated at the time these games were made, and it is making money out of the acting work. All the actors on TLOU should have got royalties from TLOUR sales. The cast of Uncharted should definitely get royalties for the Nathan Drake Collection. The Halo cast should all get royalties for MCC, and the Gears Cast should get royalties for Gears Ultimate. The acting cast for Resident Evil should get royalties for the RE-make. I think these things are all fair demands for the actors.

The other thing is, if publishers had to pay royalties for re-masters they might be more judicious about what remasters they make, and only make remasters of games that actually deserve the treatment. The publisher will earn less money from remasters if they have to pay actor royalties, which means they won't see them as cheap ways to make money without having to invest in making actual new games. They probably would still be cheap sources of revenue compared to entirely new games, but they won't be as cheap, and so they will have a higher sales target in order to make a remaster project pay off.

I say yes to actor royalties, but only under specific conditions.

A game can't be made without developers.
A game can be made without voice actors.

They deserve a fair pay, obviously, but the video game industry is different to the movie and TV industry, and the jobs of VA's would not exist without the brilliant work the devs do.

Its unfair because they get hired to do a job, do the job and get payed and them they want to get payed more cause theyre gready and believe theyre super important cause theyre actors. If I build a house and its super well built and the owner of said house opens a business in the house and te business thrives and ppl always compliment him on how well built that house is I dont get a cut of his earnings for having done an awesome job building a house cause my job was build a house just that, I may get hired to build more houses cause ppl will hear of how well I build houses, wich is how it should be, but iI dont get anything extra for doing a job well, whatever comes next after the job is done is not my doing. if im a teacher and I manage to inspire a student to invent something I dont get a cut of the earnings of said student when he sells his invention even tough I was an awesome teacher. Why the hell do actors feel entlited to get a cut of a games earning them ? Theyre doing the job theyre hired to do, end of story they deserve nothing else than what they get already, wich is a very good amount of money.Good voice actors have plenty of jobs and ear a lot of money.

Part of their contract. Isn't this how everything is supposed to work? To get royalties just because you demand it seems unreasonable but if the actor/actor's agent negotiates it in part of their contract then that is fine. However there can be problems with this. Game development costs are high and games are risky meaning an actor could get paid one sum for their work (less risk) or get paid less for their time and get royalties based on game sales (higher risk). This is how a lot of deals in hollywood work, I think Tom Cruise does this a lot. Yet he can demand to do it as he is Tom Cruise.

So, I'd say, it's up to that person to get that in their contract. I think a good question should be why didn't they?

All good points btw.

Great. Next thing the writers want to get paid as well.

OT: I never understood the concept of striking or complaining about a work contract. 2 People play this game and if you don't like a contract, why would you sign it? And if you don't like it and still sign it, why do you expect it to be changed on your terms?

That's a different thing again. Actors like Tom Cruise are big enough to demand a % of the gross of the initial theatrical run on top of a straight salary for being in the movie. No one other than A listers have the personal clout to do this, A- / B+ listers cant even do this. Studios simply do not do % gross deals with actors who are not mega stars. Royalties are different.

Royalties are part of the standard actor's union contracts. Basically if you are in the actor's union and the movie / TV show you're making is covered by the actor's union then royalties are guaranteed and you don't need to negotiate them in. The size of the royalty you get might be subject to negotiation and if you're a minor actor with a minor part the royalty fee will be very small. Royalties kick in when the movie / TV show gets syndicated, and in some cases when the TV show gets sold to broadcasters in other countries, unless the original contract was for global release (e.g. I expect movies with global release would cover global release in setting the actor's base fee, but maybe not, maybe the base fee only covers release in the North America, and all other countries attracts royalties). With TV shows, the network pays the actor for the first time the season airs, that's what their per epiosode fee covers. Once a TV show goes on syndication to local TV networks / affiliates for re-runs and also if the TV show is sold overseas, the actors get royalties for those situations.

Really this isn't a strike, it's more like a boycott. You can only go on strike if you're an employee. But if you are a union of contract labourers (which is what the actors are) then all you can do is turn down contract offers en masse. The tricky thing is video game production is probably not captured by the SAG (screen actors guild) contract, which is why royalties are not a standard part of the contract. The video game industry is pretty much immune to the star power element of actors, because most gamers don;t give a shit about who's voicing a character. Who really cares that Nathan Filian is playing a character in Halo 5? It's not going to help the game sell. And neither is Kieffer Sutherland voicing Big Boss helping to sell MGSV. The video game industry can easily revert to hiring unknown actors because the unknown actors have no pwoer to bring the video game industry to heel.

My first gambit as Activision, EA, Ubisoft, R* and other big publishers would be to say, "Eh, who cares? We don't need you anyway, we sold millions of games before we started hiring you people, we'll sell millions of games after we go back to hiring no-name actors. See ya!"

Then the ball will be in the actor's court. The actors might be able to get the no-names to join them, but it's highly unlikely, no-name actors are desperate for work and they will take non-union gigs in order to put food ont he table. They can't afford to refuse contracts, because if they do they don't eat. The actor's guild is more likely to get people like Nolan North, Jennifer Hale, Troy Baker and a handful of other video game VAs, who have become famous in their own right within the video game fandom, to throw their lot in, but I think the industry is as likely to kick them to the curb too than to bow down and go, "Nolan North we neeeeed you!" And I suspect Nolan North and the like might just look at the hand that's been feeding them, and then look at the screen actors and say "What have you done for me lately? We've always been looked down on by you, so why should we swing in behind you now? You're just muscling in and taking work we used to have, and now demanding more money, WTF man?" It's a risky play for people like Nolan North and Troy Baker. If they go with the actors and the actors win then they will get much better pay deals for future games. But if they go with the actors and the actors lose, then they will be blacklisted in the games industry (maybe), find it tough to get future gigs on video games, and they still won't be taken seriously by the "real" actors, possibly worse because the real actors will be all pissy about losing to the video game industry. And even if the actors do win in the USA, the advantage of game development is that you can record VA work anywhere in the world, so you can simply avoid using US actors. Any wannabe foreign actor has an American accent voice, because they need it if they want to have any hope of making it big. And those actors will not be covered by any US actor's guild contract.

Like I said, while I think royalties for all VAs on video games under certain circumstances is fair play, I just don't think the actors are in a very strong position. It's only when your name is on the billboards that you can start demanding things from the industry in which you're performing, and the video game industry somply does not plaster actor's names all over their game cases of their advertising. The people who's names do get put up in lights are the creative genuises behind the games, like Kojima. But look at what Konami did to Kojima when they thought he was getting to big for Konami's liking. If Kojima can get kicked to the curb, then some upstart Hollywood actors have a pretty low chance of success.

It's going to be an interesting conflict to watch what happens.

@Rol, in this case the actors can be easily replaced, in terms of electing not to use big name actors in games and still selling buttloads of games.

But when delusions of grandeur (we're like movies, only better) run up against profits, profits always win. So if they can avoid paying residuals / royalties to VAs by telling big name actors to piss off and going back to exclusively using unknowns, that's what they'll do. And even when unknowns become known in the video game subculture, they have no leverage because those actors are not regarded as credible talent by the screen acting master race, which means they have nowhere else to go for work.

Where's that dirty console peasant / PC gaming master race cartoon that can be co-opted for this situation?

I strongly disagree.

One of the most iconic performances in videogame history comes from an unkown guy doing the John Marston role.

On the other hand, you have titles like Beyond Two Souls, whereEllen Page didnt add anything special, nor Willem Dafoe.

Like i said, videogame can exist without big name voice actors. Voice actors cannot exist without videogames.

EDIT: Videogame Voice Actors. Movies and TV series are a whole different world.