Video Game Voice Actors May Go On Strike
- Thread starter PatrickJS
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I wouldn't mind if hey stay on strike indefinitely. I'm happy with my Indie roguelikes, and it's not like the death of VOs would cause the soulless hacks in AAA to actually add depth to their games instead of hiding behind the chest high wall of "cinematic design."
Snippy-snipEndlessSporadic said:
That is selfishness. Your actors were paid quite well for their services and are not entitled to more money if the game does well. The specific amount is written in your contract, and if you refuse that amount there are 10 other voice actors or actresses to take your place. If you want to play it that way, I think actors should be fined if the game performs poorly. You see? You are giving too much unnecessary credit to the actors. The game does not succeed because of their efforts just as it doesn't always fail because of them.
This should be expected. Any position that may cause physical harm to the employee that prevents them from doing similar work in the future should require more compensation to account for the risk. Studios should be doing this regardless, and not doing so shows a clear lack of regard for their talent and/or employees.
Once again this is pure selfishness. Some third party union should not be allowed to decide who companies are allowed to hire. That is borderline discrimination and is not legal in almost every state.
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More often than not unions are a great thing, but this union is complete garbage and absolutely unnecessary. They are only attempting to grab money for the sake of grabbing money, not as a means of providing favorable working conditions for employees (which they already have).[/quote]
Yes... however I find it much easier to sympathise with this particular display of selfishness when compared to million dollar bonuses for executives. Especially when voice actors are not salaried.
I'd love to see a pre agreed distribution of post sales 'prize money' as per the old Royal Navy method of dividing up the share of a captured ship between the whole crew. That's prettymuch what they're asking for anyway.
Some of what they request is ludicrous, yet a part of me is kind of happy a stupid mentality to game development gets another bullet wound, maybe it'll stop kicking and we can stop guzzling all this money on top level actors purely for their recognition to get that movie aesthetic right.
You say even in Japan, but really, it actually makes more sense in Japan than it does elsewhere. Because voice acting is a bigger deal there, supply is plentiful. Top notch quality is fairly common, and good quality is pretty much ubiquitous. Add to that that anime is ridiculously low budget compared to western media. A 12 episode season of anime may cost about the same as a single episode of one of the better American television shows. And even then, voice actors get paid more than most artists. Japanese voice actors don't get paid that well, but it makes sense in context.Zontar said:
As for the topic.... On the one hand, I'm all for people trying to push for better pay, especially if the process results in a greater concentration of talent. On the other hand, voice actors really are the least important component of game development. I'd rather play a game without voice acting than one without textures.
There's a price difference, but it isn't THAT big. An episode of anime costs on average between half and a quarter of it's Western counter parts. A 12 episode season will cost about 7 million US to produce, or about 3 or 4 episodes of Family Guy or The Simpsons.Scars Unseen said:
In any event Japanese voice acting seems almost like television broadcasting of shows on this side of the Pacific: where after a certain number of episodes done they seem to have 'made it' since there seems to be an arbitrary cut off between novices and professionals that seems to be the actor equivalent of the syndication cut off.
Hazard pay for vocally stressful performances? Bloody hell.PatrickJS said:
I'm a clinical microbiologist and I handle BSL-3 organisms daily. I need to spend 3-4 hours a day in a biohaz suit with a powered breathing mask while dealing with things like B. anthracis (anthrax) and Y. pestis (bubonic plague). They don't pay me any extra for that. Risk of death by internal hemorrhaging and liquefied organs is just part of the job. I don't think a strained voice justifies a bigger payout, voice actors.
As amazing as Troy Baker and Laura Bailey are, they have never sold videogames to me. But neither have the executives of publishing company (in fact, a lot of them have done the opposite).
So I guess I side with voice actors by default if I had to choose between the two.
So yeah, strike away and/or whatever.
So I guess I side with voice actors by default if I had to choose between the two.
So yeah, strike away and/or whatever.
Are voice actors in movies and animated shows paid royalties? 'Cuz I gotta say, they're a much more important and focused part of the production of those than in games, and if they don't have royalties for those, I don't see why they should have them for games, why the part they play is mainly minor and inconsistent across genres.
Precisely what constitutes a "hazardous" role? I see the point on how its possible to damage their vocal cords, but everybody's voice is different and has different limits, so I don't think you can establish an objective standard. The union is just trying to squeeze for more money by introducing yet another point to fight over in future contract negotiations.
Precisely what constitutes a "hazardous" role? I see the point on how its possible to damage their vocal cords, but everybody's voice is different and has different limits, so I don't think you can establish an objective standard. The union is just trying to squeeze for more money by introducing yet another point to fight over in future contract negotiations.
Yes, this is the biggest annoyance to me about this entire thing. They want to make royalties standard in the contract for VA's, and they point to people like CEO's as evidence of "Oh look at how much money they get in bonuses!" but you know that's wrong because they should be looking at all the programers and designers and artists who basically get nothing.Steve the Pocket said:
Their entire benchmark is off. First off, it's not like voice acting in a video game is nearly as important to every video game as it is to say, every animated feature. I might listen to 3 minutes of cut scene for every 2 hours of game I play in a lot of cases. Maybe they should give every employee a cut of the game and then give the VA's a cut of that relative to how much time they put in compared to everyone else. I doubt they'd want to take that deal.
Lastly, the idea that they want to prohibit a company from using their own employees to do VA work... that's just wrong. So like, if you want one of your employees to do a cameo in a game, then they need to join (and pay dues to) this union? That's just ridiculous. If your union is such a great thing, then let people join it of their own free will. Moves like this are what annoy people in general about unions. Maybe if Unions had to actually work to attract members, they'd do a better job of representing those same members...
Don't get me wrong here, I actually consider myself pro-union in principle (I come from a UAW family), but I find a lot of the things they are asking for just asinine and some of it bordering on the worst practices that I've seen first hand in other industries.
That's exactly why they point the finger at the CEO that way - it's to make it seem like you need to make a choice between the two of them, instead of realizing that all the OTHER employees are screwed way harder than these VA's are. I guarantee you that even a scenario designer or modeler, let alone a programmer, puts in way more hours than a VA does and their work is much more integral to the overall game experience than someone delivering a cutscene.mysecondlife said:
Somehow I knew Laura Bailey would be mentioned here, I don't know why. I lover her voice work. This does remind me of her talking about the working conditions in Japan while recording Silent Hill 2, though, which were rather concerning. That said...
"SAG-AFTRA would like to keep publishers and developer from hiring their own employees to do voice work without having those people join the union."
This kills it for me. I hate unions, and the restrictions they place on work. They hamper the creation of art, and I can't tolerate them. It's like when George Lucas got fined by the directors guild for putting the credits at the end of The Empire Strikes Back in order to preserve the opening of the film. Then he left, and they wouldn't let him hire Spielberg. Or how Persona 4 was unable to retain the original voice for Chie. They're far too intrusive.
"SAG-AFTRA would like to keep publishers and developer from hiring their own employees to do voice work without having those people join the union."
This kills it for me. I hate unions, and the restrictions they place on work. They hamper the creation of art, and I can't tolerate them. It's like when George Lucas got fined by the directors guild for putting the credits at the end of The Empire Strikes Back in order to preserve the opening of the film. Then he left, and they wouldn't let him hire Spielberg. Or how Persona 4 was unable to retain the original voice for Chie. They're far too intrusive.
Some are, some aren't. I happen to like the work done in Persona games of late. I don't think this'll turn perma-bad, but it's still kind of bad.Zacharious-khan said:
Oh I'm aware they're not the only cogs in the machine if that's the point you're making. VA's are not the ones who has to fear for their job stability when games don't sell more than 5 million copies.Jake Martinez said:
Honestly? I would just start using speech synthesis software and not deal with stuff like this. Speech synthesis is slowly getting better, not natural yet mind you, but good enough to recognize most words spoken.
So basically voice actors now wants pay and royalties for the job? Should electricians get royalties too because they installed electricity for the developer?
This is pure evil and everything wrong with the unions.
they did, but that someone now wants royalties added on top of that.erttheking said:
I think I read a story the other day about a school teacher in the LA unified district that is suing right now because she is forced to join the public schools teachers union and pay them dues even though she doesn't want them organizing contracts or representing her on her behalf.Coruptin said:
It seems insane to me that if you want to be able to represent yourself and deal directly with your employer, that you are not allowed to do this and not only that, but you have to pay money for the privilege of giving up your right to negotiate the value of your own labor.
This is the thing that really kills me. I have no problem with unions or people wanting to unionize, I have problems with them attempting to monopolize labor and claiming it's for the "greater good". If your union is really that great, then why wouldn't people want to join it? If anything, it makes it less likely that the union leadership will be receptive to creating policy and direction that is attractive to it's members if they don't have to compete for the support of those same members.
This seems blindingly obvious to me, but I guess other people need it explained.Jake Martinez said:
The union negotiates on behalf of everyone in the union. If they get a deal through, everyone benefits from that deal.
People like that teacher you brought up are selfish bastards. They want the benefits the union provides. They want the security the union provides. They want to reap the rewards that the union fights for, but they don't want to pay for those benefits.
Ask anyone who doesn't want to pay into a union if they'd willingly give up any union won benefits so that they could try to negotiate their own benefits and they'll laugh in your fuckin face. Ask them if they'd willingly give up their health care, or willingly not take a raise that the union negotiated on their behalf for. Seriously, do it. See how many of them willingly agree that they, as a single person, could convince their employer to give them the same benefits that the union negotiated at.
People don't want to join unions because they don't want to spend money on the unions. They don't want to spend money on unions because unions have been stigmatized as horrible things over the last 2 decades and barely anyone understands how beneficial unions are.
Just look at the rhetoric involved. Fox news all day every day labels us as union thugs and talks about how we're bullying X group. Apparently to them threatening to go on strike because we don't get paid remotely close to a living wage, get forced to work unpaid overtime, and don't just bark when we're told to bark is somehow deplorable actions.