Rockstar Uses Actual Gang Members for GTA V Voice Acting

[Adeptus Aspartem]

I'd wager a bet that +75% of the comments against this are coming from people residing in the good ol' US&A.

I can hardly understand what's so bad about it. Nobody would give a fuck if half of the VA's would spend their money for drugs & hookers, but suddenly "ermergerd scery gengmemburs"!
Now you condemn people for doing a legal job?

I'll never understand that train of logic and/or sense of morality/empathy.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Hey, it worked for The Wire:


Getting people with criminal experience on board for some acting/consulting roles for films/TV isn't exactly new, I can't think of too many examples off the top of my head but I do know that Tony Sirico (Paulie on the Sopranos) got arrested nearly 30 times before getting into acting. Maybe not so many being literally picked off the streets whilst possibly still committing crimes, but we don't know the exact details behind the story just yet. At any rate, if gets them doing honest work for once or has a possibility to get some of these people off the streets, then I don't see a problem. I loved GTA IV, RDR and LA Noire and I like what I've been seeing thus far, so I'm looking forward to this one. :3

 

[Callate]

Funny thing? Being in a gang doesn't mean you can deliver a line of dialogue.

Because I'm sure the company spending millions of dollars to develop the game isn't going to get the guys who are interested to audition and see if they can pull off a good performance. Nah, they definitely would have just grabbed people off of the street, threw them in a recording booth, and kept whatever takes happened to come out, regardless of quality.

Not what I said, or am saying. But if you limit your selection to "authentic" gang members, you have a far smaller pool of people who can perform, and are far more likely to accept a sub-par performance because of the additional and seemingly artificial "legitimacy" requirement you added to the selection process.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

"We don't want a goofy L.A. actor who went to a fancy school trying to be a hard gang member," Jones says. "There's nothing worse than that, so just go find the terrifying people and say 'can you come in here please?'"

It doesn't really bother me that much, except for that one little "nothing could be worse" jab. It was perfectly fine for literally every other voiced GTA games to not have real gang members acting, but suddenly, for the fifth one, nothing could be worse than using actual voice actors.

This.

I have no problem with them consulting gang members (and paying them) to make the dialog more authentic, but the idea that professional voice actors are inferior to random untrained people off the street is insulting to all voice actors and fairly idiotic overall. When you get amateurs to voice act, you tend to get very stilted delivery.

Here's my question - is Rockstar actually doing this because they can pay the gang members less? Voice acting is one of the most expensive aspects of AAA gaming, so it Rockstar trying to cheap out by hiring people who don't know that they're getting shafted on pay? Because, if so, that at least I could understand. It's still insulting, to both the voice actors and the gang members, but I could understand it.

Because I'm sure the company spending millions of dollars to develop the game isn't going to get the guys who are interested to audition and see if they can pull off a good performance. Nah, they definitely would have just grabbed people off of the street, threw them in a recording booth, and kept whatever takes happened to come out, regardless of quality.

Yeah, except that your sarcastic comment is exactly what Rockstar said they did. We can only comment on what the article tells us, and that's what it told us.

 

[Something Amyss]

If anything, it's the opposite. Rockstar has hired them because they're legitimately scary dudes who are actually involved in the gang lifestyle. To them, it's probably yet another example of how crime pays - if they weren't gangsters, they wouldn't have earned this money. It's legitimate employment, sure, but legitimate employment based solely on the fact that they are criminals. I don't think that's as positive a message as some in the this thread are trying to claim.

Indeed. It's hardly the best thing, but illegal or actually supporting crime?

Yeah, I just don't see it as good or bad.

 

[Davroth]

This stink of a marketing ploy. Don't get suckered in. It's a publicity stunt, nothing more.

 

[lemby117]

As a game developer I don't think it a great idea/ethical to support criminal gangs. Reformed gang members I would probably be ok with, but taking actual criminals is another.

On the other hand they are giving gang members a legitimate job for a while and some work experience that they might have otherwise not got.

 

[VanQ]

Snip.

Besides the fact that you appear to show a complete lack of human empathy, I actually meant to say "often turn to crime as a last resort" and not "only" and have edited my original post to reflect that. I realize there are genuinely bad people out there, however I believe that most people are not bad people by nature. And some people are just misguided and in that case there's not much to do about it.

 

[BarkBarker]

I hope they allow anyone who says gangster or has the work gang in their recording studio, good lord having something like the SugarHill Gang would be amusing.

 

[Micalas]

Rockstar hired a specialist to find members of criminal gangs, "like El Salvadorian gang dudes with amazing tattoos

Does anyone else find this absolutely terrifying? Could you imagine a job where you were asked to go to the darkest alleyways of Skidrow to find talent?

 

[Hazy]

This stink of a marketing ploy. Don't get suckered in. It's a publicity stunt, nothing more.

Like I said before, they've done the same thing for San Andreas and Max Payne 3. I think people finally caught wind of it.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Ooh i do like gritty stories...but that's due to probably being a depressive child growing into a cynical, depressive adult.

But then i do like beautiful, colourful fantasies. Also probably due to being a depressive child turning into a cynical, depressive adult.

Perhaps that's why the word 'escapist' seduced me unto this site. But i digress. Is it not worrying, logical down to earth posters here, that if so many 'gamers' can kick up such a shitty stink about such a trivial decision...what the hell will the non-gamer anally retentive types have to say about it?
I would recommend not taking everything literally in every report you read, so much can be left out just to create controversy and 'good' news stories. Wise up.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Everyone is this thread:
"Those game developers shouldn't be giving money to those horrible gang members. We all know where that money's going anyway. Filthy Criminals. Probably foreign."

 

[Davroth]

This stink of a marketing ploy. Don't get suckered in. It's a publicity stunt, nothing more.

Like I said before, they've done the same thing for San Andreas and Max Payne 3. I think people finally caught wind of it.

What? They announced it on a radio show... they revealed it.

It's a marketing stunt. Even the slightest bit of controversy is gold for them.

 

[Hazy]

This stink of a marketing ploy. Don't get suckered in. It's a publicity stunt, nothing more.

Like I said before, they've done the same thing for San Andreas and Max Payne 3. I think people finally caught wind of it.

What? They announced it on a radio show... they revealed it.

It's a marketing stunt. Even the slightest bit of controversy is gold for them.

Yeah, what I'm saying is that it's silly people are suddenly reporting on this now, when it's been going on for years.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Isn't this a little like reality TV where the non actors are cheaper?

 

[Amir Kondori]

There is a reason companies hire professional voice actors. They are good at what they do. People don't want an "authentic" gang member's voice, they want a voice that sounds bad ass and puts some drama into the performance.

Perhaps this will turn out well, perhaps this will backfire. Only time will tell.

 

[Ken_J]

Is that...is that even legal? I'm not sure.

Yes it is legal to hire gang members, criminals, felons and what not but it IS frowned upon depending on the Job.

It's what makes it hard to people who are out of prison to have a job that doesn't involve prison time

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

actually this bothers me alot. i get it there's some people making bad choices and an olive branch to legitimate work might be just what they need to turn their life around. but what about taking people who "were" gang members. someone who has shown a legitimate desire to change and make their life better. it sounds like they are using current gang members, if it's all former gang members thats one thing but you give a thug a paycheck and it will be used to commit crimes and in a very real way rockstar is enableing them to continue down this path. supose a guy takes the money rockstar gave him, buys a gun or even just bullets and uses them to murder someone. isn't rockstar moraly responsible for that in some way. maybe not legally no, but moraly? i don't think a criminal record should be a death sentance we need to focus more on rehabilitation and less on punishment but this is putting money into the drug fund or the gun fund not the rehab fund. yay hurray for you the game is "authentic" i don't know that that's a worthy enough cause to employ violent criminals who have no desire to change their life.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

To all the people bitching in this thread:
This practice is not new, it's been done numerous times before in a bunch of different forms of media. I guess for you guys, ignorance is bliss after all.

I like the idea and want to see how it pans out.