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Forums - Gaming - Nolan North has strong words for striking voice actors

badgenome said:
vivster said:

Yeah, but the article makes it sound as if what he's saying is somehow an affront to the striking actors. I don't see what the two things have to do with each other. As if it's the actor's fault that some totally unrelated job is badly paid.

Well, that may just be Polygon being Polygon. But when everyone else is rallying behind the union it is kind of conspicuous that he would say this. Of course he's not blaming the actors who want more money and better conditions, but he does seem to be putting into perspective what they do.

Put what into perspective? Some guys want to be paid more, so they strike. End of story.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

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sethnintendo said:
think-man said:

Who?  What does he do,  never heard of him

Does the voice for Bob in Bob's Burgers (Fox) and Archer in Archer (FX).  Also, did a few other voices such as Coach McGuirk in Home Movies.

Don't know those games or that movie,  probably why im unfamiliar. 



vivster said:

Put what into perspective? Some guys want to be paid more, so they strike. End of story.

Like pokoko said, these are not the equivalent of stage or screen actors and they often seem to forget that. No one really buys a game because of who voice acted in it and without the nameless, faceless programmers there is no game for them to act in.

For all the people bashing him here because he's a big name, North does some of the most intensive video game acting around and he wasn't always the Nolan North, so he probably knows whereof he speaks on this subject.



badgenome said:
vivster said:

Put what into perspective? Some guys want to be paid more, so they strike. End of story.

Like pokoko said, these are not the equivalent of stage or screen actors and they often seem to forget that. No one really buys a game because of who voice acted in it and without the nameless, faceless programmers there is no game for them to act in.

For all the people bashing him here because he's a big name, North does some of the most intensive video game acting around and he wasn't always the Nolan North, so he probably knows whereof he speaks on this subject.

When the three Uncharted VAs was on stage, I thought "Who is that one guy, he seems familiar?" Turns out it was Troy Baker. Ive played many games with Nolan North and talked about him, but I had no idea who he was. Ive never seen the woman. Im guessing she voices Elena.



VGPolyglot said:
DonFerrari said:

Well, I heard japan have like a dozen male porn actors for thousand female actress and the most famous of the males said he felt sad because it must be boring to see he all the time in all the movies.

It is sad, but not for the reasons he's saying. What is said is how sexism is still so rampant there that there are thousands of women who are pressured into partaking in sexual acts for a living while a much smaller number of men have to do that.

Well you took that totally out.

Go read what he says and you'll see that just men there are just to out of women and so far they have very few candidates to act on the movies.

shikamaru317 said:
DonFerrari said:

And why do you think he is in all the games and the others have small roles very sparcely? Because they don't bring the same value to the production and thus won't have more money just because they want and think deserve.

No they aren't forced to work 2nd or 3rd job to make ends meet. If they do very small roles during very limited times of the year you can't even say their primary occupation is being VA.

Yes, sure there is so much profit being made... not like several companies are going bankrupt, should proggramers, devs and VAs pay for the companies going bankrupt? Nope, they unfortunately get fired and may miss a payment or another, but they aren't debted for the harshes of the company. They are being paid what they agreed to work for.

It's not just the lesser known voice actors that aren't being paid enough. There are some high profile voice actors taking part in this strike as well, people like Phil LaMarr and Jennifer Hale.

Just because they are forced to work a 2nd or 3rd job they shouldn't consider themselves to be voice actors? Even though that's what they want to be, what they've trained for, even paid for voice coaching lessons to become? I'm not saying these smaller voice actors should be paid the big bucks, many of them do nameless NPC voices and such, but they should make more than they are now. Some of them get paid a couple hundred dollars a day and only record a few days a month, that barely even covers the cost of the flight to the voice recording location if the actor doesn't live near where the recording is taking place. 

It's actors that think they deserve better payment, but not through negotiating their value but demanding through unions. So if you think even the ones that are paid enough are complaining them you see there is a parcel of entitlement.

No they aren't forced to work 2nd or 3rd. The VA is the 2nd or 3rd. If I pay soccer class and train every day but only get to play once or twice a year while working as Manager in a bank am I a soccer player or a bank Manager?

Getting a couple hundred for a day of work isn't shabby. The work you get to do 3 times a year for a few days shouldn't be the one paying your bills.

And living near your work is a responsibility of yourself not the company, they could just dismiss the candidate that doesn't live near if you want them to pay the cost of transport. The company paying that cost is only reasonable in basically two conditions you are close the company but they need you to go to a far away place or you are an specialist being hired for a specific issue and you'll charge all costs, fees and wage to go.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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badgenome said:

For all the people bashing him here because he's a big name, North does some of the most intensive video game acting around and he wasn't always the Nolan North, so he probably knows whereof he speaks on this subject.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias



shikamaru317 said:
pokoko said:
He's right. When it comes to residuals, there is no way that voice actors deserve that. They aren't the stars of the show. I'm all for improved working conditions but they need to lose the arrogant mind-set that they hold the same relative importance as an actor in a film or television series.

Also, I've read a few people say something like, "all the millions a game makes goes to the fat cats in charge," which is just silly. As with most industries, most of the revenue is rolled right back into production. Why is that incredibly important? Because that revenue is used to make more games.

I hardly think that's true. Activision is one of the publishers that this strike is about, so let's use CoD as an example. Modern Warfare 2 had a budget of $250 million, $50 million of which was the production budget. Modern Warfare 2's revenue was over $1 billion. $1 billion - $250 million leaves $750 million. Where did that $750 million go? It didn't go to the developers, there's a few hundred of them which get paid about $70,000 a year on average ($70,000 times 300 developers is $21m as an example). It didn't go to the voice actors, they probably made even less from MW2 than the develoeprs did. It didn't go to the next CoD game, Black Ops 1, it's budget was approximately the same as MW2's. So where did it go? A hefty portion of it went to pay the bloated salaries of Activision executives like Bobby Kotick and Erik Hirshberg. The rest, who knows where it went, Activision probably squandered it on their other smaller developers, most of which have collapsed since MW2 released because their games flopped. 

A lot of it gone to taxes, other to retailers, other to cost of production/distribution and another good part to pay for projects that didn't meet the goals...

Only people with very little knowledge of any business think the margins are astronomical.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:
shikamaru317 said:

I hardly think that's true. Activision is one of the publishers that this strike is about, so let's use CoD as an example. Modern Warfare 2 had a budget of $250 million, $50 million of which was the production budget. Modern Warfare 2's revenue was over $1 billion. $1 billion - $250 million leaves $750 million. Where did that $750 million go? It didn't go to the developers, there's a few hundred of them which get paid about $70,000 a year on average ($70,000 times 300 developers is $21m as an example). It didn't go to the voice actors, they probably made even less from MW2 than the develoeprs did. It didn't go to the next CoD game, Black Ops 1, it's budget was approximately the same as MW2's. So where did it go? A hefty portion of it went to pay the bloated salaries of Activision executives like Bobby Kotick and Erik Hirshberg. The rest, who knows where it went, Activision probably squandered it on their other smaller developers, most of which have collapsed since MW2 released because their games flopped. 

A lot of it gone to taxes, other to retailers, other to cost of production/distribution and another good part to pay for projects that didn't meet the goals...

Only people with very little knowledge of any business think the margins are astronomical.

Also they want a full scale payment for every 500K the game sells up to 2M. Some games doesnt even break even at 2M...

So if they have paid say 50K combined to all the voice actors for their work, that means they have to pay them another 200K if the game sells 2m. 



KLXVER said:
DonFerrari said:

A lot of it gone to taxes, other to retailers, other to cost of production/distribution and another good part to pay for projects that didn't meet the goals...

Only people with very little knowledge of any business think the margins are astronomical.

Also they want a full scale payment for every 500K the game sells up to 2M. Some games doesnt even break even at 2M...

So if they have paid say 50K combined to all the voice actors for their work, that means they have to pay them another 200K if the game sells 2m. 

Have they put any clause that they will return their wages if the game doesn't turn profitable or even pay up for the costs of making the game? I bet they didn't.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:
KLXVER said:

Also they want a full scale payment for every 500K the game sells up to 2M. Some games doesnt even break even at 2M...

So if they have paid say 50K combined to all the voice actors for their work, that means they have to pay them another 200K if the game sells 2m. 

Have they put any clause that they will return their wages if the game doesn't turn profitable or even pay up for the costs of making the game? I bet they didn't.

I highly doubt that