After threatening to do so last month, the video game voice actors’ guild has voted to authorise a strike, Variety reports. This does not mean they’re on strike — it simply gives the SAG-AFTRA union board authority to declare a strike if negotiations with the video game industry fall through. The actors are looking for bonuses based on sales among other concessions.
Read more at Variety.
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8 responses to “The Video Game Voice Actors’ Guild Has Voted To Authorise A Strike”
okay so actors is a bit of a stretch if you ask me. They really aren’t involved in this game at all orrrrrrrrr should require any profits from sales thats crazy. You do your bit you get paid that’s it. I bet half the time you don’t even know what your reading out aloud for someone. This is just GREED.
Except for a few of the top actors, they are not paid very well. they have no job security and usually have to own their own businesses, meaning they have to do all the stupid paperwork for employees that a company factors into profit margins.
Bonuses based on sales are pretty standard fare in the gaming industry, but agree in that I’m also not sure how they think that should be implemented fairly. They are no different from session musicians. That said, they should be able to ask for better conditions. It’s by no means a glamorous or well-paid job.
Am i the only one that doesn’t see the supposed bargaining power that VA’s have? I have never bought a game based on the voice actors in it, and neither has anybody else that I know.
Not trying to troll just curious as to whether many gamers put much weight into who provides the voice work in games that they decide to purchase?
You mean you didn’t buy Destiny because it had Peter Dinklage in it?
I’ve seen games with particular VAs advertised on the cover; I think I remember seeing the occasional soft porn title advertised as “starring” a porn actress, for example.
I suspect Jennifer Hale might actually draw a few purchasers. And maybe “NOT voiced by Nolan North” for the intensely curious. Otherwise, there are probably some movie tie-ins where sharing the VA with the movie makes a difference.
Have to agree that in general they’re not exactly a big purchase driver, however.
I can honestly say I have never bought a game based on the voice actor. I might have been interested in who does the voices, or been pleased that certain people had done the voices on a game I was already going to be interested in, but honestly at the end of the day I could care less who actually does the voice, so long as it is not a completely botched job.
That said, I think voice actors are under appreciated in some ways. I had no clue what went into doing a role until I read Wil Wheaton’s article about it. I had no clue how physically demanding the job was on their voices. I’m not in a position to say whether or not voice actors deserve a cut of the profit of games. But a lot of the other items in the negotiations should be addressed.
I makes games and do acting – including voice acting and a lot of live event work. Yes, it is a lot of demanding work and your voice can get absolutely shredded, but I feel like me putting in 2 – 3 years of work on making a game run well, fun and good looking DOES not equal a few weeks of voice acting. Yes, acting is intensive and is the result of (usually) years of training, but it’s unfortunate that it becomes the public face of a games success.
Like a lot of commenters above, I don’t think that there would be many people that look at a game and think “OH MY GOD NOLAN NORTH THIS IS MY JAM”. Hell, if I hadn’t watched Grounded: The Making of Last of Us I wouldn’t have even been able to tell he was in that, but he did a damn good job of a creepy character. Good VA work should actually dissapear into the character, this whole celebrity status thing is at odds with the very purpose of a good voicing job. If I hear Brad Pitt voicing a character, it doesn’t matter how well that character is animated or designed, I will see Brad Pitt in my mind. It’s fast becoming that way for animation and game VAs.
I don’t think asking for better conditions is bad at all, but you don’t get to build a nice looking house for someone then demand a cut of the rent. You do the job you are paid for and you get paid what you are worth. Games are a multi-faceted and huge processe that involves a crazy amount of work for a lot of people. VA’s are just one, albeit public facing, part of that. What about the programmers who don’t see their families for weeks because of bullshit crunch? Do they get a bonus if the game goes well? Not implicitly. Some do, some get fired. If VAs can negotiate residuals in their contracts then fine, but it shouldn’t be a condition of employing them.
They should get bonuses. All the great games VA takes em to that level.
You may not buy games for VA. But i sure as hell dont want to go back to the status quo of having the RARE game have good VA rather than ALL of them these days.
so we go back to having devs voice games. big loss lol. I don’t buy a game because of the voice actors.