I agree with you. They're just fighting for what they think they deserve. Jim Sterling said it perfectly last week, here.

Yea but that applies to a certain extent and it highly depends on the game. But the thing is, if the devs don't get paid well, then the game itself might be poor. Its one thing to have poor VA or no VA at all but its another thing to have the gameplay itself be poor. Reviewers can dock some marks for poor VA but that won't break the game but what will is having poor gameplay and bugs. And not to mention that developers work on post content where as VA does not unless its like specific content which requires VA which doesn't apply to all games...

And yes, I do want the people that are more essential to the development of the game to get more than the ones who aren't as essential... I am not saying that everyone shouldn't get paid decently but to me, it doesn't make any sense for a person that isn't as comparatively essential to the development of the game to get paid the same as a person who is.

What devs (and also directors, writers, composers, etc) should do, then, is demand the publishers to pay them what they think they deserve, but not complain because voice actors are doing it.

Yea but games vs movies/tv shows are completely different things. Like when companies pay for the VA in movies/TV shows, they pay for the actors + VA. And the actors are one of the essential draws of the movie/TV show. Like for example, Leonardo Dicaprio made this documentary about climate change very recently and it is on youtube for free. Now I have zero cares about documentaries but since he is in it and he is one of my favorite actors, I watched the documentary. But if the ND's Voice actor from Uncharted did a VA in a different game, would I care? Is that the reason I would buy the game? No... And of course, as with actors, they are also paying for the acting and etc. Also not to mention that there isn't coding and etc involved in making movies like there is in making games since all you are doing is just watching which makes the actors/VA become more crucial to the medium.

Where as with games, it is a different story. With Nathen Drake for example, I am not buying Uncharted due to the Actor but I am buying it because of what the developers created. I liked the gameplay and I liked Nathen Drake who is mostly created by developers. The VA comes in for his voice and there is of course some acting but they aren't as essential as the developers who are making the game. We have seen this with MGS V where the VA got replaced and most people didn't seem to care outside of the minority. Now imagine of Johnny Depp got replaced in Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. Gl with that is what people would say.

More or less, in movies/TV shows, due to me only watching it, VA/Acting becomes very crucial. But when I am playing a game, the gameplay itself becomes far more crucial. Like you don't experience input lag, user interaction, bugs and etc when you watch a movie but when you play a game, you do and depending on the developer, it is either a positive experience or a negative one.

No offence there are A LOT of people who would do their job for free, AND do a BETTER job. Also some video games don't even need voice actors.... 

They're the lowest paid of all actors because it's lowest tier of quality and qualification (although I'd bet they make more than stage actors which is a joke in of itself). Some of them are talented, but it doesn't change the fact that industry is not very competitive and doesn't have a ton of leverage when you only have a few worthwhile voice actors.

Edit: Lot of discussion about devs vs voice actors. While it is a different fight between devs and publishers, it's very relevant. They're fighting for the same dollar. More money to voice actors = less money to developers. This is fact.

USe hobos from the street.

I agree that it is what they should do but they are all fighting for money. Games, while they do sell a lot, doesn't mean they give unlimited profits to the companies. Yes, we have companies taking up pretty huge profit margins but that is how businesses work. If there is suddenly a price war between different roles, then the company will have to take care of all of them which will lead to lower net profits which will lead to lower stock value which will lead to layoffs. Not saying that is exactly what will happen but it could if they handle this poorly.

I am not saying their current thing is perfect either but all I am saying is that Publishers need to look after the rest before making any deals with VAs. Because if they don't then the more essential groups will go on strike and the games themselves will be haulted. The Publishers need to make everyone happy while making sure that everyone gets compensated for the specific role accordingly. Because as soon as a party that arguably isn't as important to the game gets more than the ones that arguably are, there shall be lots of shitz hitting lots of fans and it will be a shit fest if not handled correctly.

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