Post by: WindyMan on June 09, 2005, 08:42:16 PM
The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have struck a three-and-a-half year agreement with videogame publishers to see that voice actors used in videogames are fairly compensated for their work. The previous deal expired at the end of 2004.
In the deal, publishers will increase minimum pay to the actors who lend their voices to games by 36%. SAG and AFTRA were pushing for a residual payment system, wherein voice actors would have been paid per copy sold of the game they were featured in, similar to how payment is rendered in the TV and movie industries. In the end, the two unions reluctantly dropped the demand from the negotiations, and a deal with the over 70 publishers involved was reached.
Games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2, as well as many of Nintendo's games, feature voice work from actors from the big screen and television. Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Fonda, and Keith David are just some of the actors featured in new games. This new deal assures they can continue voice work if they so desire.
Post by: Bloodworth on June 09, 2005, 09:23:26 PM
Post by: KDR_11k on June 09, 2005, 10:27:59 PM
These scumbags get 700 dollars per four hour session, double pay after six, can you imagine that??? They do the LEAST amount of work on the game and contribute the least to its success yet they get the biggest hourly pay and even wanted residuals? You know what, f#ck them, let your coders do the voiceovers. Works pretty well, companies like Blizzard produced fairly good stuff without hiring actual actors. Actually compared to the performances of actual actors the coders seem to be much better at the job. The actors say they deserve the pay because they only get one or two jobs a month. Well, maybe you should get a real job, then! Voice acting is hardly fulltime, leaves enough time to work as a coder or artist on a game. Sure, that means less gigs but hell, you get regular pay and probably more than you would have made as a VA.
Besides, those big name actors get even more. MILLIONS for a few lines of badly delivered dialogue!
Post by: Nephilim on June 09, 2005, 10:48:25 PM
Post by: Bloodworth on June 09, 2005, 11:04:41 PM
Post by: D-Mac Double on June 10, 2005, 01:05:37 AM
QuoteOh yeah, and while we're at it, let the animators do the voices for all cartoons. They know how to talk, so they could do voice acting, right? ...Right?
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
You know what, f#ck them, let your coders do the voiceovers. Works pretty well, companies like Blizzard produced fairly good stuff without hiring actual actors. Actually compared to the performances of actual actors the coders seem to be much better at the job. The actors say they deserve the pay because they only get one or two jobs a month. Well, maybe you should get a real job, then!
I beg to differ.
Voice acting can either greatly add, or detract from a game's presentation, and using coders with no experience for the job is really a "hit a miss" decision. More often than not, a miss.
Ooh, by the way, I looked up many VAs from Blizzard's games on the IMDb. Quite a few of them seem to have a pretty good amount of VA experience.
However, I will agree that I hate situations like XIII, where companies pay barrels of money to celebrities so a few idiots can go "OMG this has David Duchovny!! BUY!!" rather than hiring someone who specializes in voice acting, and knows how to (or at least cares enough to) deliver lines with the proper emotion and tone. The exact same thing has been happening in animated films for many many years.
Post by: KDR_11k on June 10, 2005, 05:38:07 AM
Post by: Ian Sane on June 10, 2005, 07:37:23 AM
I agree with Daniel though in that the artists that create the game should get some percentage of profits. I don't know about everybody but the designers (ie: the creative talent) of major hit games should be stinking rich. But then it's kind of hard to determine who "creative talent" is with something like a game considering how many people are involved. It's not exactly as simple as song writing credit.
Post by: vudu on June 10, 2005, 08:58:41 AM
Post by: D-Mac Double on June 10, 2005, 10:07:26 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: vudu
This is why Nintendo should continue to not use voice actors for its games.
Why? Because their minimum wage was increased? Riiiight.
Charles Martinet is a voice actor.
And, um, do you play Super Smash Bros with the volume muted?
There are so many reasons why actors have unions, aside from pay issues. They include on-set safety regulations, and also help ensure child actors aren't overworked and underpaid.
Post by: RABicle on June 10, 2005, 08:35:01 PM
Post by: KDR_11k on June 11, 2005, 12:35:47 AM
The little voice acting that's there could probably be done by the dev team and few would notice because the samples are too short to express any emotion at all. I mean, we already know who would do the voice for Link.
Post by: Nephilim on June 11, 2005, 08:39:21 AM
this agreement is a hollywood type thing, like it said before, its they see it as too expensive, they will do it oversea's... example: lucas arts could use george lucas australian studio's
Post by: jasonditz on June 11, 2005, 08:59:45 AM
This is not a law, its not a "minimum wage", nor is it something which will effect all games using voice talent in the US.
If you're a game maker and don't want to pay these rates... don't hire voice actors that are members of these groups.
Post by: KDR_11k on June 11, 2005, 09:22:54 AM
Post by: jasonditz on June 11, 2005, 10:32:12 AM
Post by: KDR_11k on June 12, 2005, 02:19:04 AM
Post by: Caillan on June 12, 2005, 02:38:43 AM
Post by: jasonditz on June 12, 2005, 07:05:49 AM
Post by: xts3 on June 12, 2005, 07:48:37 PM
Quote
Originally posted by: jasonditz
Hell, you could do better than most games' musical scores in Garage Band with the orchestral pack
I wouldn't go that far, designing good music for a game is complicated. Good game music lasts for years (think Nubuo Uematsu, Jeremy Soule, etc), especially when you are going to hear it hundreds of times in the game, so it better be good that it doesn't grate on your nerves after many hours. Game music is listened to and used differently (outside of cinematic events, etc) then music in other mediums, i.e. background music should never suck so bad that you have to turn it off and it should never get on your nerves or drive you crazy after you've heard it the hundredth time.
Post by: KDR_11k on June 13, 2005, 04:22:04 AM
