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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Video game companies reach agreement to end voice actor strike

Chazore on 26 September 2017
TallSilhouette said:

The lack of appreciation for the craft continues to depress. I encourage any who think 'just anyone' can voice act for games or any other medium watch a documentary or two on the profession. Programs, lol. The best AI's in the world still can't speak convincingly on their own.

I don't see that working, these are people who are far too stubborn to realise that it's not as easy as it sounds let alone how important it can be to a medium.

 

For years I've been watching a few VA's go from complete nobodies to someone regarded as being quite popular, with the likes of Steve Blum, Tara Strong, Nolan North etc, all of those VA's took years to get where they are and not a few weeks or months.



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vivster on 27 September 2017
Aeolus451 said:
vivster said:

You keep pushing that narrative but where is your evidence? If it's so easy to just replace voice actors why aren't companies acting on that? Why did this blow up in the first place? These voice actors have been "pushing it" for 2 years now. And instead of just drawing consequences and booting their asses, an agreement was reached that highly favors the voice actors. Why would companies do that if voice actors are as easily replaceable as you say?

What you're saying goes completely against the reality that is happening.

Why do I need show any evidence for my opinion when you get to sit there on your high horse without having to explain why we need those particular voice actors when they can just get new ones? It's voice acting not actual acting. It's just saying lines into a mic by yourself or with a few other people. 

I think that the companies were trying to be nice and perhaps avoid potential negative PR. Trust me, if it's pushed too much it will be automated or replaced by people who are willing to work for alot cheaper.  Voice acting in gaming is no where near as important as it is in disney content/cartoons and dubbed anime. There's alot of gamers who want games to be less like movies and that means less dialog between characters/cut scenes. 

No, I'm just telling you what is happening right now. What you think voice actors are worth doesn't matter whatsoever, neither does my opinion. As for myself I wouldn't mind having no voice actors at all.

I'm just telling you that it is clearly visible that game developers and publishers do care about voice actors and that is the only thing that matters when it comes to their "worth". You say that voice actors are easy to replace, reality says they are not. So your "opinion" goes clearly against reality and I just wanted to point that out.



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Aeolus451 on 27 September 2017
vivster said:
Aeolus451 said:

Why do I need show any evidence for my opinion when you get to sit there on your high horse without having to explain why we need those particular voice actors when they can just get new ones? It's voice acting not actual acting. It's just saying lines into a mic by yourself or with a few other people. 

I think that the companies were trying to be nice and perhaps avoid potential negative PR. Trust me, if it's pushed too much it will be automated or replaced by people who are willing to work for alot cheaper.  Voice acting in gaming is no where near as important as it is in disney content/cartoons and dubbed anime. There's alot of gamers who want games to be less like movies and that means less dialog between characters/cut scenes. 

No, I'm just telling you what is happening right now. What you think voice actors are worth doesn't matter whatsoever, neither does my opinion. As for myself I wouldn't mind having no voice actors at all.

I'm just telling you that it is clearly visible that game developers and publishers do care about voice actors and that is the only thing that matters when it comes to their "worth". You say that voice actors are easy to replace, reality says they are not. So your "opinion" goes clearly against reality and I just wanted to point that out.

It doesn't go against reality because you're basing that entirely on your opinion. Either one of us could be right or wrong regardless if our "opinions don't matter." We're not talking about all video game companies. It's only 12 and that strike was related only to them. They are easy to replace because there's alot of voice actors out there or people who could do it. It depends entirely on what value they give to individual voice actors and how much they are willing to tolerate their antics. It's no different than film actors. They get fired all the time and the show still goes on. There's alot of people lined up to replace these people. Most gamers don't give a shit who voices the characters in the games they play or if the same people are voicing the characters in the sequels. 



haxxiy on 27 September 2017

I'm glad to hear it, it's insane they didn't even know what projects they were doing in the first place. Thankfully the developers managed to be more reasonable to these people than some of their userbase would be, with its "muh games" attitude, as exemplified... somewhat close to this post.