Poll: Should games have less voice acting.

[Professor James]

If games had less voice acting, that would mean more time and resources too spend on the game. I'm not saying every game shouldn't have voice acting. But do you think that some modern games shouldn't have voice acting so they can focus more on polishing and extending the game.

Edit: For an added bonus, how much time and resources do you think developers should spend on graphics.

 

[Hagi]

How is voice acting not part of the game?

Time and resources spend on voice acting are time and resources spend on the game.

A game should know it's focus, it should put it's weight where it's required. But that isn't in any way or form limited to voice-acting. Every single part of a game can be overdone, even gameplay (if the graphics, stability etc. aren't good enough to support that gameplay). A good developer will know where their time and resources will lead to the most improvement; Sometimes that will be voice-acting, other times that will be something else.

You can't just say games should have less voice-acting. Just like you can't just say games should have more voice-acting. It's a lot more complicated then that.

 

[zauxz]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

 

[Professor James]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

And Bad voice acting breaks immersion

 

[jonyboy13]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

And Bad voice acting breaks immersion

Bad anything breaks immersion. Voice acting is as much part of the game as recording sounds, music, animation and gameplay. Try playing any decent RPG without voice acting.

 

[everythingbeeps]

I don't think the problem is voice acting but cutscenes (which require voice acting).

I doubt the programmers record the voice acting. So I don't see how it makes much of an impact on the game itself...it's something that can be done while the game is being made.

But creating fancy cutscenes...that's something that can eat into a game's development, and it's usually not necessary.

 

[Something Amyss]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

I'm sorry, but there were immserive TEXT BASED games.

Don't be ridiculous. It's not vital. That's like saying colour film is vital to good storytelling.

 

[Robert632]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

And Bad voice acting breaks immersion

Next, I think we should cut down on gameplay, because bad gameplay breaks immersion.

Sorry for sounding like a dick, but that point you just made could literately apply to any aspect of a game ever, and is highly illogical because of it.

O.T: It depends on the game, as I'd expect realistic games to have voice acting, but other games would probably be unimmersible if they had voice acting. Plus, I doubt the people who make the graphics of gameplay also have anything to do with voice acting, so that shouldn't have much of an affect on gameplay anyway.

 

[latenightapplepie]

Bad anything breaks immersion. Voice acting is as much part of the game as recording sounds, music, animation and gameplay. Try playing any decent RPG without voice acting.

Morrowind had very little voice-acting. And that game was brilliant.

On topic: I think if your game requires voice acting as most seem to these days, you should probably make it good. That said, many great games can get away with no voice-acting. Or indeed bad voice-acting.

 

[Shadowstar38]

The amount of voice acting we have is fine. If a game is going for a theatrical type of storytelling it needs it. Games just need to make sure they have quality voice actors or they might as well have walls of text.

 

[Worgen]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

And Bad voice acting breaks immersion

Bad anything breaks immersion. Voice acting is as much part of the game as recording sounds, music, animation and gameplay. Try playing any decent RPG without voice acting.

Usually they are more immersive, I haven't really enjoyed rpgs as much since voice acting became prevalent since it meant that they had to be much more careful about character choices and silly lines of dialog sound really really weird when someone says them, its much easier to enjoy a jrpg when your just reading it as opposed to hearing it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Some of them yes, but that is not an issue of voice acting but rather management itself.
If development is not centered around game mechanics then it all soon comes crashing down to an unplayable pile of shite.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Voice acting adds more than it takes away. Yeah, its expensive and time consuming, but you know what? If you are going to make a game, you might as well go the whole way.

 

[Darkmantle]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

And Bad voice acting breaks immersion

Bad anything breaks immersion. Voice acting is as much part of the game as recording sounds, music, animation and gameplay. Try playing any decent RPG without voice acting.

Usually they are more immersive, I haven't really enjoyed rpgs as much since voice acting became prevalent since it meant that they had to be much more careful about character choices and silly lines of dialog sound really really weird when someone says them, its much easier to enjoy a jrpg when your just reading it as opposed to hearing it.

My favourite approach to voice acting was in the baldur's gate series. I was text based dialogue, but most times the first line a character said had a voice over, so you could hear what the character sounded like, and use your imagination to apply that voice to the rest of that characters text. Also, especially important dialogue pieces had voice overs, so as to emphasize them.

And really, would minsc be minsc without

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozv1RcQJAHA

""GO FOR THE EYES BOO< GO FOR THE EYES!!!!! EEEYYYYYAAAAAAHHHHHH!" *SQUEAK*

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

RPGs, yes. It would probably allow for more routes and choices, as they wouldn't have to record a response for every route or choice.

 

[wottabout]

It depends on the needs of the game. Some need voice actors, some don't. If they can tell their story without talking, that's great, but if they can find good voice actors to tell it, that's great too.

However, it does bother me when they use a narration when the visuals tell the story just as well, but that applies to everything these days. "I am going to explain to you exactly what is on the screen, because clearly you are too easily distracted to watch anything for more than five seconds."

 

[zuro64]

Absolutely not. Good voice acting is vital to immersion.

And Bad voice acting breaks immersion

Thats exactly why they shouldent fund voice acting less!