Oh you sweet summer child, if only you knew, if only, but you don't and that's why you act the part. My heart would go out to you, if you were only worth the time.

You'll never understand though and that's why you'll look down on VA's and I'll look down on your kind.

The biggest video game voice actors are actually very very overpaid and they get their jobs through connections and not through competition in a free market, when in fact they could often be replaced by very skilled amateurs who are just waiting to get their chance and who would voice act for much less money (often as a side job and extra income to studies or some other job).

We need to understand that the big voice actors are people who dreamt of becoming Hollywood movie actors but they weren't talented enough, so they had to resort to voice acting video games for a easy bucks. Many of them see voice acting video games as a low status job, while in fact it's a comfortable and very easy job for a normal person. Naturally these bitter wannabes will want to milk as much money from voice acting as possible in order to gain a luxury lifestyle that at least reminds of the glorious Hollywood star life they always dreamt of.

But there's no reason for us to give in to the unrealistic demands of these megalomaniac voice actors! It's not our job to compensate for their failures in Hollywood.

This is actually a very smart move by Nolan North. Now he'll get all the contracts that might've been going towards the strikers.

$$$$$$$$$$$$

They may give some, it's part of negotiations.

No, it isn't about thinking it isn't real work. It's more on considering some actors are paid very low and others very high it's quite evident that talent and possible revenue to be made by the contribution of that person is what defines payment.

Union decisions only will do the cost be higher to VA and they may quite easily diminish the number of VAs in a game, higher amateurs or increase the poduction cost and see higher risk projects became scarce... all in all it would end up bitting them in the back.

How do you think most manufacturing jobs left USA and gone to China?

Games are overproduced... and where most of that production money goes? Owwwww paychecks, but they are underpaid, where does the math match?

Deserve more based on? Perhaps the amount of companies going under because of excessive costs?

If all suposelly get a better deal the cost of production will be bigger and we'll see even more complains about companies taking less risks, more nick and dime DLCs, or higher pricetags for games.

Funny enough you brought the points on other industries... Haven't seem anyone parading that SFX professionals get their names on the cover of a movie or any high paid actor to forfeit their big paychecks so the groundwork people receives more.

It's always a "pay more using the money from another pocket".

The person works let's say 1/4 of a regular citizen while earning 10 per hour that of a regular folk and we should support they asking for more because???

That person would have 3/4 of his working time free to earn money on other ventures. I'm certainly you try to maximize your earnings by allocating more working hours instead of saying "I can only work 100h a year, so I should be paid 1k/h so I can only do this during the year".

There is no democracy in unions... they only vote what they already have decided and how they decided.

Most groups act like that, the elite decide and if the others disagree they won't accept. And that is one of the reasons I'm all for individualism.

Jobs left because people prefer to buy more cheaper Chinese products. It will go the same route with videogames, it's currently a race to the bottom. Mobile is already lost as value has eroded so much. No AAA games there.

The math doesn't match. People want to pay sale prices for new releases. It's creating a toxic industry where people are chewed up and spit out in a few years of almost constant crunch time. I don't think by far VA is facing the strain of artists and programmers, yet they're the only ones unionized. Someone has got to start the ball rolling for progress.

AA games have already vanished. Now there's indies and AAA games with ridiculous budgets which still aren't enough to hire enough people or have a more reasonable development cycle. The constant demand for bigger spectable is what's making the industry more risk averse, gamer's buying patterns is what ends up biting them in the back! No need to blame the industry, they just respond to consumer demand. Consumer expectations are unrealistic. It's very evident with VR with many people ignoring the games as too expensive, not big enough, wait for AAA games specifically produced for VR. Unrealistic.

Not only that... people demand higher payment for the work and lower prices for the products. Those don't work side by side unless they raise the productivity. And the pace both happened had only one solution, moving the production to China. iPhone isn't a chinese product, just one made in China.

Yes, so explain to me how you want to solve budgets already inflated with raising the payments even more? How will they break even or take risks?

Productivity has already been raised to the max. The only solution is what we're already seeing, less risks, shorter campaigns, extra revenue streams, dlc, subscriptions, micro payments etc. Or we could start caring less about graphics.

And yeah outsourcing is already happening
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech-deck/india-a-growing-market-for-game-development-outsourcing/
If one has any doubts about the quality of game development talent in India, one might want to look at the fact that top international studios such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Zynga have already set up development centres in India.

Yet what else can you do if the consumer won't pay more while demanding ever bigger games.
http://kotaku.com/crunch-time-why-game-developers-work-such-insane-hours-1704744577
It's not a healthy industry, and asking more money isn't a solution. Yet perhaps this strike will empower other people in the video game industry to stand up for themselves. With ofcourse the risk of getting their jobs shipped out overseas :/ The movie industry seems to have figured out a way, I think?

I don't have the answers, just takes the shine a bit of that new release knowing it probably burned out a bunch of people making it.

Graphics is one part, but having the game dubbed in 10 languagues and subtitled to another 20 is another drain on the game cost.

If you think raising the salary but being unemployed is empowerement ok. This very word is totally bogus, people use it on the most silly situations.

I can assure you that asking for more money on a situation of costs already elevated and trying to pressure through unions that even the less talented get a good paycheck will have very dire results for them.

Holywood is a completely different industry. It's quite a lot harder to transfer all the production of the movies and series to bolywood, cairo or any other place (but could be done if necessary). On the other hand manufacturing was "quite easy". I don't think VG sits so far from it. They could make most of the game over in China or India and just pay the VA to dub the english lines. So in that everyone loses so VA gets paid more.

Watching him do the VR sales person gig in the same show was quite entertaining.