Video Game Voice Actors May Go On Strike

[Lightknight]

Everyone wants more money. I don't think I particularly care. They get paid $200 per hour to do up to three voices and video games can require significantly more hours than commercial gigs that pay $300 per hour.

This is just a cash grab. I'm not on their side and I'm also not particularly on the publisher's side either. Were I a publisher I would just go elsewhere to voice actors that aren't guilded up. It's not like voice acting in games is particularly good except for a handful of people like Nolan North and Mark Hamill. Hopefully they make more money anyways because of the quality of their work.

But paying all voice actors more when they're already getting more overall hours than commercial spots by a fair margin? Blow it out your ear. I would far rather see the highly skilled voice actors make more money and the shitty voice actors to eventually look for work elsewhere. As for game royalties? That's a bit extreme. However, they could include a clause where if the game make X amount of profit that they could potentially get a bonus for their involvement. Development studios have that too.

 

[Something Amyss]

So many people trying to justify this by saying they don't like the voice acting. So what?

I don't think that applies in performance arts

Based on the context, it looks like you're saying that performance artists don't deserve a fair day's pay for their work. Is that correct?

How about the developers get the bonus.

Why does there have to be one bonus? Why is this an either/or scenario? And since we're here, why can't we address each? VO actors have asked for something that is not zero-sum with regards to devs. Why not also fight that fight, rather than using it to shut down this one?

Also, you mention the voice acting being "mediocre," as though that justifies not paying them. Maybe that dev
s coding is also mediocre. There's a lot of that in the business. Does that mean they don't deserve to get that bonus?

Your actors were paid quite well for their services and are not entitled to more money if the game does well.

Can you give me some voice actor payment figures? You seem to know they're paid "quite well," and I'd like to see what that ballpark is.

Can you also include a list of standard expenses?

Hazard pay for vocally stressful performances? Bloody hell.
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.

Does simply doing your job damage your body in any way? I'm not talking about the potential for accidents. I'm talking actually damaging you just by donning the suit and handling the materials.

 

[Jake Martinez]

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.

Wouldn't be a union without shit like this would it

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.

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.

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.

...snip...

No, she doesn't want the benefits the union provides and I think it's disturbing that you immediately brand her a "selfish bastard" simply because she wants to represent herself to her employer. Literally you are calling her a "selfish bastard" because she wants to have agency over her own labor.

I hope you can somehow see how wrong that is, how vile it is to insult someone like that and insinuate that people who want to take possession of their own bodies and work are somehow "selfish", let alone "bastards".

Really, this trend of instantly vilifying someone because they happen to have an idea that you might not like, and even then completely misrepresenting that persons actual position or intentions... it really just needs to stop. People really need to grow up and stop this small minded and abusive behavior. People who have different ideas from you are not "literally Hitler". Can you please dial back the slander and hatred a few notches?

 

[immortalfrieza]

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.

If this "strike" actually got anywhere (it won't BTW) it would all but make it all but mandatory for developers to start switching to speech synthesis to still have voices in their games yet keep costs down. This is actually a good thing, because if an industry as a whole has to switch to speech synthesis it will mean they'll have to start trying to make speech synthesis better, thus making it more widely used, thus making it better, etc. in a cycle that will result in voice acting itself eventually becoming obsolete just like records and VHS tapes.

However, even in the unlikely event this strike actually comes to anything all it will do is cause more and more developers and publishers to decide to just stop using voice acting entirely, and that's bad. I don't know about everybody else, but for me even the absolute worst of English voice acting (Japanese voice acting is uniformly worse than even the worst English voice acting) makes me identify with and understand the feelings of the characters and thus improves the overall story in ways far beyond anything text boxes could ever achieve. Voice acting IS a very essential part of any video game, but even so the fact that any voice actor thinks they deserve more than they get is absurd, in fact with the plentiful competition the field has they're lucky voice acting isn't a minimum wage job. These people are pretty killing their own jobs from all sides by trying to do this.

 

[dreng3]

No, she doesn't want the benefits the union provides and I think it's disturbing that you immediately brand her a "selfish bastard" simply because she wants to represent herself to her employer. Literally you are calling her a "selfish bastard" because she wants to have agency over her own labor.

I hope you can somehow see how wrong that is, how vile it is to insult someone like that and insinuate that people who want to take possession of their own bodies and work are somehow "selfish", let alone "bastards".

Really, this trend of instantly vilifying someone because they happen to have an idea that you might not like, and even then completely misrepresenting that persons actual position or intentions... it really just needs to stop. People really need to grow up and stop this small minded and abusive behavior. People who have different ideas from you are not "literally Hitler". Can you please dial back the slander and hatred a few notches?

Apologies, but your somewhat fervent attack on the so called "Trend" does seem quite a bit like a direct attempt to discredit the person you're debating with, though I do agree, after a fashion at least.

I believe the main point is that unions needs everyone to be a member, having a union compete with several individuals is not only bad for the union, but for every party involved, except maybe the employer. By having a multitude of potential employees the employers can freely pick and drive wages down unless the field is highly specialized, furthermore it may come to infighting between the employees due to some receiving either better benefits or better pay. In order to combat such situations unions need to ensure that every employee supports them, which in turn gives leverage when negotiating wages and benefits.
I understand the idea of not wanting to pay the dues, but even those are usually, there are exceptions, put to good use, either as a reserve to use during strikes, or to provide certain benefits to the members.

After a fashion i guess it is not entirely unreasonable to call those not wishing to be in a union selfish, after all they're running the risk of ruining it for everyone, be that intentionally or because they don't understand the benefits the union provides.

Unions should of course be held to certain standards, after all the represent all the members, and so they must ensure that their interests doesn't conflict with those of the members.

As to whether or not the Voice Actors should receive royalties? Sure, if they can negotiate themselves a good deal, it might even inspire developers and others involved to lobby for benefits and increased salaries or royalties.

 

[bladestorm91]

(Japanese voice acting is uniformly worse than even the worst English voice acting)

I think you meant to say that a Japanese voice acting IN English is worse than even the worst English voice acting from an Englishman, right?

Because otherwise that would be just plain wrong, you would find that Japanese voice actors put more effort into their Japanese voice acting and sound more enthusiastic about it.

 

[Fox12]

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.

Wouldn't be a union without shit like this would it

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.

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.

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.

They're forcing people to join their organization against their will, making it very difficult for normal, non-union employees to get hired, create an entire bureaucracy between the employee and employer, and their supposed to be the good guys? You're right, I don't want to pay money to lose the privilege of speaking to my own damn boss. Somebody else wants to join a union? Let them. Somebody wants to force me to join a union against my own free will, or else endanger my job, and attempt to make me pay union dues so that I can sacrifice some of my own agency, just so that they can reap the benefits? Fuck 'em.

We all understand how the system works. We just don't want to deal with it. That teacher has the right idea.

 

[madwarper]

I'm simply not getting this...

The VA's were contracted to do work to get paid a wage. They did said work, and got paid said wage. And now, just because some company bigwig gets paid a bonus, they too believe they're owed some additional money?

Tough shit.

~But, they don't get paid much.
If they thought the pay wasn't worth their work, they shouldn't have taken the job in the first place.

~But, the game sold really well and made the publisher a lot of money.
Then, they should have negotiated it into their contract.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

They are negotiating for a "better deal" for their next contracts (what is actually going to happen is that they just get less pay for AAA games, because the bonus is assumed part of the pay, and sometimes hit the lottery on a surprise hit).

If they get too expensive a company like EA could afford to just hire people fresh out of drama school who are decent at impersonations and give them a couple months "free" on the job training and say a 2 year contract if it works out (free if they don't resign themselves). They have enough games in the pipeline to have a pool of contract workers.

 

[balladbird]

*gasp* my chance to break into the acting field! I'll be a scab, video game industry!

In all seriousness, though, I admit to not understanding the complexities surrounding the strike, but I do hope a reasonable compromise can be reached. I have no qualms with the old speech-free text box games, but I'd prefer that the medium remain what it has been since the PS2 era: A stylistic choice as opposed to a necessity.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

This seems blindingly obvious to me, but I guess other people need it explained.

This may be the most smug statement I have ever read.

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.

For starters, you're making a lot of baseless assumptions about a whole lot of people that you've never met or spoken to.

I've worked with both union and non-union companies, and I've known TONS of employees who wanted nothing to do with the Union mandated pension plan or health plan (amongst other things), but guess what? Too bad, they have to use it and have to pay into it anyway. To give a small example, at the old company I worked for, it was mandated that you take the Union healthcare plan, which covered your entire family. The problem was that it didn't matter if you were married with 5 kids or single, you paid the same amount. To make matters worse, if your spouse already had a family-coverage healthcare plan that you liked, you STILL had to pay for the Union plan, even if you never planned on using it. If you were single and you wanted to buy your own, cheaper insurance, or married and liked what you had and wanted to keep it? Too bad, the Union is going to take your money anyway.

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.

See above, I've known plenty of people who would love to drop their union mandated health coverage or pension plans. Also, you are aware that Unions impose wage ceilings as well, correct? Part of their contract is not just minimum pay, it also prohibits employers from paying exceptionally good workers too much money (can't have people breaking the status quo). Luckily this practice was largely banished in in 2012 with the passage of the RAISE act http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/06/raise-act-lifts-pay-cap-on-millions-of-american-workers

It's also worth noting that there are extreme differences between public and private sector unions.

I've worked with unions a lot, and some are good, some are bad, but quit acting like they are all run by these Angels from heaven who descended to bequeath upon us their light, and especially stop acting like any person who says they don't want to be in a union is a brainwashed Fox News troglodyte.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I don't think that applies in performance arts

Based on the context, it looks like you're saying that performance artists don't deserve a fair day's pay for their work. Is that correct?

More that I think it works backwards. Unlike with a job or service that is time in to product out to a point and then extra time equates to extra quality. Unless they force them to record the lines over and over again, there is a ~constant time in to an output which quality exclusively depends on the person. Thus pay scale sort of has to depend on reputation more than normal. If the lines are the same there will be a similar time spent for a trained actor or a guy off the street.

I guess what I meant was it is difficult to assign a dollar value for the baseline pay of a job which is very qualitative in nature. (Also that bonus's are pushing it)

 

[immortalfrieza]

(Japanese voice acting is uniformly worse than even the worst English voice acting)

I think you meant to say that a Japanese voice acting IN English is worse than even the worst English voice acting from an Englishman, right?

Because otherwise that would be just plain wrong, you would find that Japanese voice actors put more effort into their Japanese voice acting and sound more enthusiastic about it.

Nope, what I said was 100% correct. I have heard the entire spectrum from best and I have heard the worst of both Japanese and English voice acting and I can say without a doubt that unless a human being is completely tone deaf even the best examples of Japanese voice acting are UNIVERSALLY the worst voice acting of any language in existence, not just because it sounds like gibberish to me either, I've heard a lot of Spanish voice acting and even the worst of that is still better. All Japanese voice acting either has as much emotion in their performances as a rock, use voices that don't actually fit the gender and age of the characters they are portraying in the least, are either high and squeaky or harsh and old sounding that are extremely difficult on the ears regardless, as over the top with their emotions as they can possibly be with no attempt at subtlety, or all 4 at various times. Even the worst of English voice acting is still on a level miles higher by comparison.

 

[Silverbeard]

Hazard pay for vocally stressful performances? Bloody hell.
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.

Does simply doing your job damage your body in any way? I'm not talking about the potential for accidents. I'm talking actually damaging you just by donning the suit and handling the materials.

Aside from joint damage from moving around in what's halfway towards being a space suit and wearing an almost-SCUBA tank on one's back? Not really. It's about the same type of damage one incurs by doing typical office work: keyboard use, sitting in an awkward position at a computer and so on. I know I'm going to have a bad back in a few years but that's very much like a data entry worker knowing that carpal tunnel syndrome is almost a given.

But that's not the point. I don't spend all my working time in a biohaz suit, just a few extremely stressful hours in a day. That doesn't entitle me to higher base pay while I'm doing it. It's just part of my job. The allegory is that voice actors don't spend all their recording time doing stressful voice work. Some of it might be but most of the time they're just reading lines from a page while a director is giving instructions on how he or she wants the lines.
My point is that I don't see why voice actors deserve higher base pay while doing stressful work while people are doing much more stressful and acutely dangerous work without higher pay for that type of work.

 

[bladestorm91]

(Japanese voice acting is uniformly worse than even the worst English voice acting)

I think you meant to say that a Japanese voice acting IN English is worse than even the worst English voice acting from an Englishman, right?

Because otherwise that would be just plain wrong, you would find that Japanese voice actors put more effort into their Japanese voice acting and sound more enthusiastic about it.

Nope, what I said was 100% correct. I have heard the entire spectrum from best and I have heard the worst of both Japanese and English voice acting and I can say without a doubt that unless a human being is completely tone deaf even the best examples of Japanese voice acting are UNIVERSALLY the worst voice acting of any language in existence, not just because it sounds like gibberish to me either, I've heard a lot of Spanish voice acting and even the worst of that is still better. All Japanese voice acting either has as much emotion in their performances as a rock, use voices that don't actually fit the gender and age of the characters they are portraying in the least, are either high and squeaky or harsh and old sounding that are extremely difficult on the ears regardless, as over the top with their emotions as they can possibly be with no attempt at subtlety, or all 4 at various times. Even the worst of English voice acting is still on a level miles higher by comparison.

I don't know what kind of shit you've been listening to (probably some cheap anime), but I assure you that you are egregiously WRONG.

Japanese voice acting is some of the best in the voice acting industry. They put effort into their acting in almost everything and a lot of them have a wide range while still working for way cheaper than any other damn voice actors in western countries.

I'm supposed to believe what you're saying when even famous English voice actors (as an example among many) like Peter Dinklige phoned it in with his work in Destiny? You sir, are biased.

 

[FoolKiller]

I'm okay with bonuses being worked in if it makes sense.

The one I don't like is forced unionization. If a dev wants to use some of its own talent to voice work (maybe they like doing it) then I don't think they should be forced to join the union to do so. Who a dev/publisher hires is up to them.

This type of thing seems like it would divide the community

 

[Pinky's Brain]

The dev is "free" to do so.

What these guilds usually do is kick their own members out of the guild if they work on a project which doesn't only hire guild members (with guild approved contracts). It's a rather ingenious way to turn freedom of association on it's head.

 

[immortalfrieza]

(Japanese voice acting is uniformly worse than even the worst English voice acting)

I think you meant to say that a Japanese voice acting IN English is worse than even the worst English voice acting from an Englishman, right?

Because otherwise that would be just plain wrong, you would find that Japanese voice actors put more effort into their Japanese voice acting and sound more enthusiastic about it.

Nope, what I said was 100% correct. I have heard the entire spectrum from best and I have heard the worst of both Japanese and English voice acting and I can say without a doubt that unless a human being is completely tone deaf even the best examples of Japanese voice acting are UNIVERSALLY the worst voice acting of any language in existence, not just because it sounds like gibberish to me either, I've heard a lot of Spanish voice acting and even the worst of that is still better. All Japanese voice acting either has as much emotion in their performances as a rock, use voices that don't actually fit the gender and age of the characters they are portraying in the least, are either high and squeaky or harsh and old sounding that are extremely difficult on the ears regardless, as over the top with their emotions as they can possibly be with no attempt at subtlety, or all 4 at various times. Even the worst of English voice acting is still on a level miles higher by comparison.

I don't know what kind of shit you've been listening to (probably some cheap anime), but I assure you that you are egregiously WRONG.

Japanese voice acting is some of the best in the voice acting industry. They put effort into their acting in almost everything and a lot of them have a wide range while still working for way cheaper than any other damn voice actors in western countries.

I'm supposed to believe what you're saying when even famous English voice actors (as an example among many) like Peter Dinklige phoned it in with his work in Destiny? You sir, are biased.

Again, nope, just 100% correct. Apparently I'm biased for being able to recognize quality and a lack thereof. I didn't come here to get into an argument, but the fact is the only way Japanese voice acting, ALL of it, could possibly be any worse than it is is if it was nothing but a Japanese girl screaming as loud as humanly possible into a mic over and over again. Japanese voice acting is HORRIBLE, biased or not, that's all there is to it.

That's it. I'm leaving this thread before this turns into some big ten page long argument.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

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.

Wouldn't be a union without shit like this would it

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.

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.

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.

Ease up turbo; if someone doesn't want to be part of the Union and has enough confidence and experience to back themselves up and self negotiate for them, then power to them. I'm a member of a Union because I lack the skill set to negotiate on my own behalf so I'm more than happy to pay some dues (which I can claim back at tax time) that puts me in contact with people willing to argue or assist me with such matters.

However even as a Union man I would find it grossly offensive if a non-member was still required to pay dues; indeed I'm surprised that it's even legal to do so - pretty sure it isn't in Australia - and it isn't, if fucking shouldn't be.


As for the voice actors thing; I think they're perhaps overreaching on the hazard pay argument, in my mind it would be far less adversarial to request provisions for medical care in the event of damage to the larynx and/or vocal cords themselves incurred in the course of work would probably be okay: that way it's a claimable expense if the need arises but if nothing happens then the actor is not out of pocket and neither is the company.

The royalties thing is difficult since I'm reasonably sure actors who contract out their likeness, be it in appearance or voice, can request such compensation but it's usually negotiated during contract phase rather than after the fact. So by all means they can ask for it, especially if merchandising is involved - I'd like to think Mark Vanderloo got a few quid for some of the Mass Effect toys that bore his likeness.

 

[Dalrien]

Regardless of if it works, I do hope it works out for them. Whether it's "moral" to demand more pay than they are already getting Is irrelevant to me.

Again, nope, just 100% correct. Apparently I'm biased for being able to recognize quality and a lack thereof. I didn't come here to get into an argument, but the fact is the only way Japanese voice acting, ALL of it, could possibly be any worse than it is is if it was nothing but a Japanese girl screaming as loud as humanly possible into a mic over and over again. Japanese voice acting is HORRIBLE, biased or not, that's all there is to it.

That's it. I'm leaving this thread before this turns into some big ten page long argument.

You weren't contributing much either way, a part from putting forth your biased view and attempting to make it seem like factual information.