US voice actors approve strike action

[Asura]

I agree dogg, but everyone who worked on the project deserves to do well if the project succeeds. Not sure what makes voice actors more special than the programmers for example.

Spot on.

Nothing makes them more special - that means the programmers should unionise and make their own case, not oppose the voice actors doing it.

If games industry staff can't unionise (and the meagre previous attempts didn't seem to go anywhere) and do something similar out of (for all things) fear that it'll collapse the industry, then the industry is too fragile to survive and needs to collapse and re-form.

There's too much talk about how "IP" is the core of the industry, the thing that makes the money - there needs to be a big shake-up that buries that attitude and reminds investors that staff are what makes up the industry. Skilled labour. Without that a company is nothing.

This claim implies that creativity and risk are collective endeavours, so if you demand royalties for doing contractual piecework on the successful outcome of someone else's vision, presumably you would also be keen to forfeit your fee should that vision transpire to be a money-losing flop?

Well, yeah - that's what royalties do. That's what they're for. If you're on a creative project and you take a good royalty % in lieu of more pay up-front, you might make a packet if it's huge - but you'll make sweet-f-a if it's a flop.

[Golgo]

^ Fine, but unless I've misunderstood the grievance, it's 'as well as if successful' and not your 'in lieu of'.

[randombs]

More power to them.

Every group involved in the creation of a work should be paid accordingly but if one of those groups feels they're being mistreated then they have every right to do something about it and, no, they don't have to fight for everyone else as well. That would just dilute and generalise their arguments.

I agree dogg, but everyone who worked on the project deserves to do well if the project succeeds. Not sure what makes voice actors more special than the programmers for example.

What makes them special is that they can string lovely sentences together and caress management's ears with their flowing lullabies while they voice their grievances. Programmers will need to up their schmoozing game if they want a piece of that pie.

[QualityChimp]

I thought it would be like session musicians, where you're paid to do your bit, but you get paid for the job, not the success of the song you're working on.

There's loads of examples of people being paid a small sum on famous records:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/oct/21/little-known-musicians-famous-moments-baker-street

[BaronSqwelch]

What that article didn't say is that the 4% who voted against are Nolam North and Troy Baker.

They are now booked to do all voices in every game til 2067

They already are anyway...them being the only two voting to strike is probably the 96%!

[randombs]

They should all strike in character, then they'll be free to carry on doing voice-over work as themselves.

[Team Andromeda]

Think it's a load of nonsense myself and just more greed, and having to laugh at wanting to get stunt pay is just laughable. I really doubt these voice actors work anywhere as hard as some of the main development team that have to work 18 hrs shift 7 days a week at crunch times to get the game out . Have to say most of the time the development team do a better job with voice acting as Rare games can show

[fuse]

Re: stunt pay, it's a pretty valid concern IMO. There was an interesting bit about this in one of the recent 8-4 play podcasts where they talked about it at length, but in short if your voice is your livelihood and you're being asked to yell like evil maniac for hours at a time, that's not going to be sustainable. The team in charge of the recordings can do things to plan around particularly demanding sections and spread them out between sessions, but I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't taken into consideration often, and I don't think it's right to outright dismiss it.

And, to get to the bigger part of your post, some folks in the union may be motivated by greed but it's not wrong to ask for fair pay. No-one's disputing the work or pay of programmers etc here (and if they have their own concerns then they should be taking their own action), and I'm not saying royalty-based payment is necessarily the answer either, but getting paid right is important.

[Team Andromeda]

Re: stunt pay, it's a pretty valid concern IMO. There was an interesting bit about this in one of the recent 8-4 play podcasts where they talked about it at length, but in short if your voice is your livelihood and you're being asked to yell like evil maniac for hours at a time, that's not going to be sustainable. The team in charge of the recordings can do things to plan around particularly demanding sections and spread them out between sessions, but I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't taken into consideration often, and I don't think it's right to outright dismiss it.
.

Stunt pay for voice acting is really pushing it a little and at the end of the day these people choose to be in this profession . It to me is greed with people seeing some of the profits some games can make . I have to say the voice acting in most Rare games was brilliant and more often than not that was done by the development team, even while working all day and most of the night to get the game done ;the voice acting in Conkers was simple brilliant.

[Asura]

Think it's a load of nonsense myself and just more greed, and having to laugh at wanting to get stunt pay is just laughable. I really doubt these voice actors work anywhere as hard as some of the main development team that have to work 18 hrs shift 7 days a week at crunch times to get the game out.

As said above, TA, the solution is that developers should band together and ask for more money - not suggest the voice actors should make do with less.

Have to say most of the time the development team do a better job with voice acting as Rare games can show

Plus, this simply isn't true. Some developers are fortunate enough to have staff that can do this, but most of the time it isn't the case. Hopefully we won't go back to the Shenmue days.

[fuse]

I really appreciate you taking the time to completely ignore any points I might have made to then repeat your last post in slightly reworded fashion.

[Team Andromeda]

Plus, this simply isn't true. Some developers are fortunate enough to have staff that can do this, but most of the time it isn't the case. Hopefully we won't go back to the Shenmue days.

Shenmue dub was handle but voice actors and it wasn't up to much . In the old days the likes of CORE and Rare even Bungie would handle the voice work in house and I have to say the voice work was well done . Most of the time people skip past the cut scenes anyway or moan there's too many of them in games.

[randombs]

Re: stunt pay, it's a pretty valid concern IMO.

I think the reason they'll get criticised on here and other sites is because we're mostly nerdy guys who think programmers are cool and/or that they're underdogs so we root for them. There are plenty of programmers and people who appreciate game development on here but I imagine hardly any professional voice actors(or body actors).

There should be a program like wife swap where they take someone who dismisses a profession and make them try it for a little while to see if they change their tune.

[Asura]

In the old days the likes of CORE and Rare even Bungie would handle the voice work in house and I have to say the voice work was well done . Most of the time people skip past the cut scenes anyway or moan there's too many of them in games.

"In the old days" - i.e. not now; the industry and public tastes have diversified.

And Tomb Raider 1? Lara said about 12 words in the entire game! You can't compare that to Uncharted.

You might skip past cutscenes but you can't just apply that thinking to everyone.

[fuse]

Think we're dipping our toes in a whole other topic here - personally I do think games could do without so many studios chasing after Hollywood standards of cinematography, voice acting and so on, but the fact of the matter is that it is happening, and if you're bringing in professional voice talent you should probably treat them like it.

Think it says something about the age/maturity of 'the industry' though, as I'm guessing a lot of these standards are already established in more traditional voice work?