VoiceGate: Videogame voice actors considering a strike, want to unionize

[Higher Animal]

In my country, neoliberalism fixed this issue by allowing more than one union inside a particular business or enterprise. That way, if one goes on strike, the other can keep working. One of those unions will always be bought by the management.

In other words, neoliberalism fixed the issue in your third world country by destroying the power that unions have. I'm sure AAA quality titles are pumped out daily where you come from.

 

[Azrael the cat]

No idea what the specific circumstances of this are, but just noting a few things from experience (outdated experience, being 15+ years ago):

- voice acting is VERY well paid for the time worked. IF you are good at it. By 'good at it', I don't just mean the quality of the performance. I'm referring to the ability that the better voice over actors have to just walk into the studio, read their lines and nail it on the 1st go, do a quick 2nd one for safety, and get their paycheck. Congratulations, you just earned $2000 in 5 minutes. Obviously actual dramatic work doesn't pay as well (per unit of time) than ads, but I expect it's still very good money if you're efficient, and much less so if you need 20 takes, or if the director has to stop and explain the script to you all the time.

BUT

- it falls into the same trap as all professional acting work. The money is excellent per unit of time worked (even for minor parts - so long as you have a line, or can do something that classifies you as a 'minor character' instead of an extra, the money is good for the time spent), but even out of 'genuine professional actors' (i.e. not 20 yr old hipsters calling their indie co-op professional theatre while being supported by their parents) probably about 0.5% have enough work to avoid needing another job. That's okay, you're not heart surgeons, it isn't an industry where anyone can legitimately claim a 'moral right to be employed'. But it's a real problem when producers demand that you are available on their schedule. From a purely business outlook, if you're demanding that people have the availability and commitment of a professional, and who aren't going to call up and say 'sorry, my real boss needs me to come in tomorrow', you need to find a way of allowing them to make it their full-time job. Some employers (radio stations that deliberately use the same cluster of voice-actors for their ads, many cartoon producers) are really good at doing that - they'll actively try to fill the gaps in your work schedule in with minor parts, rather than hiring a different person for each such that none of them can make a living out of it.

AND

- the efficiency of the production team make a huge difference to working conditions. It's irritating as fuck to spend 3 or 4 times as long sitting around waiting for the lighting or sound tech to get their shit together, than what you spend filming. Fine if it's a big production and you're getting paid for that time anyway. Pretty shit if you're on a fixed fee, which a lot of voice acting gigs are.

Short version: it's entirely possible that the strikers are full of shit, but bear in mind that there's often more to this than the rate of pay.


Edit: just finished reading the thread, and I've noticed one thing that the developers have overlooked. If they want the voice-actors to get paid at proportional employee rates, like their own staff do, then they should put them on retainer as employees. All but the biggest names would jump at that chance. It isn't unheard of - BBC, some of the cartoon networks and others do it - that way the producer gets full control, doesn't need to pay residuals, and the actor gets security.

Otherwise they're bitching about independent contractors acting like independent contractors. If you hire a plumber to fix a tap, they'll charge an extortionate rate too. That's their fee for not knowing whether they'll have any work the next day. Employees get paid by the hour in return for flexibility, contractors want their pound of flesh. Yeah it seems silly that 'NPC 423' wants his residuals, but it's not his project, not his team, not his company - if they want him to work on their project, and aren't going to retain him as an employee, then of course he's going to demand whatever fee works best for his business.

 

[Renegen]

Sometimes you use too much logic Azrael without saying anything because you're out of your depth. Excellent money per unit of time worked? What does that mean, not every job is measured by how many hours you punch on the clock you should know that. If you look at VA credits they get paid like shit.

 

[J1M]

Or we could just put them all out of business by developing a voice acting robot that takes context from a markup language.

 

[Farage]

lol voice actors
one time i picked a good mic shouted a few times and it sounded a trillion times better than something like this

 

[Excidium II]

In other words, neoliberalism fixed the issue in your third world country by destroying the power that unions have. I'm sure AAA quality titles are pumped out daily where you come from.

Plenty of work being outsourced to thirdworldia thanks to unions. :^)

 

[Average Manatee]

How many games has anyone bought based on a voiceactor appearing in the credits? That's what I thought. I don't think there are more than 5 VAs that are important enough for me to take notice of their name, and at least one of them is dead. I still would never buy a game just because they were in it.

Better pay, sure whatever. I don't know their salaries, everyone can say they are underpaid and demand more.

But residuals and requiring that every VA be part of their monolithic union? Fuck right off.

 

[Neckbeard Shitlord]

If you don't know about it, why post?

My ex is an actress in SAG and also great at VO. I even do some work with her sometimes as extra.

Aside from what I posted about, with acting there is a fuckton of rehearsals. So you are really being paid for the 50 million times you didn't get the job.

 

[pippin]

In other words, neoliberalism fixed the issue in your third world country by destroying the power that unions have. I'm sure AAA quality titles are pumped out daily where you come from.

Rock of Ages, Zeno Clash and Abyss Odyssey were made by a small indie team based in my country. Not AAA games, mind you, but better than most of the crap that passes as "indie gaming" in the Northern Hemisphere.
At least they manage to be entertaining, creative and interesting.

But yeah, neoliberalism kinda fucked up our country, but beware: the USA is using us as a little experiment for all the measures they're expecting to implement in the future, and let me tell you, you're not as fucked as you think you are.

 

[Adon]

lol voice actors
one time i picked a good mic shouted a few times and it sounded a trillion times better than something like this

That's because someone made the mistake of putting a Japanese person in charge of the English VA.

 

[Metro]

One of the easiest jobs on the planet. Cry me a river.

 

[Adon]

ahahahaha

 

[Excidium II]

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

With all these VA going 'muh residuals' made think of those vocaloid programs, a vocal synthesizer for japs make silly songs with and masturbate to. What most people don't know about them is each version is that it's sampled from a real voice actor/res. Now granted that the technology is nowhere near sounding like a human, i'm just thinking how it could turn the logistics of game development if/when it does sound like it does.

The most oblivious one is being able to create new dialog on the fly based on play testing feed back would finally economically feasible just like text RPG had done so. Another is it could save money in the long term like using them as extras. What would probably be the holy grail is a program that to make the synthesizers in house provided that it's easy enough to use. Although that could open a can of legal worms, like those holograms of dead famous did.

 

[deuxhero]

That's okay, you're not heart surgeons

There actually is at least one prominent voice actor who became an orthopaedic surgeon (Mark Gatha best known as G Gundam's Domon and Megaman X's X).

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

I thought he became a dentist not a surgeon, eh what do I know. Anyway on the tangent of 'voice actors who got a better job' Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White from Breaking Bad, used to be a voice actor for dubbed chinese cartoons. Maybe some of these dregs view voice acting as a stepping stone to the sliver screen.

 

[deuxhero]

Edward The Mediocre

I remember YEARS ago we had a discussion on voice synthisis for dialog heavy video games. Someone came up with the rather novel idea of an RPG where everyone is a robot so it could be done with current technology.

 

[Metro]

He also did bad guy voices for Power Rangers.

 

[HotSnack]

To play devil's advocate: Just because devs are still being paid poorly should not be a valid reason why VAs shouldn't be able to request better pay. That kind of mentality is counter productive for the devs, and just makes them sound butthurt that their own efforts to get better pay/working conditions haven't gotten any attention like the VA's movement has.

Everyone who isn't in marketing or in a excutive postion is underpaid, and in the line of people who deserve to get paid more VAs are right next to the fucking brain dead 'Q&A' team.

It's "QA," and most devs I've talked to would say QA don't get paid enough for what they do (as in the competent ones that could be making 2-3 times their salary in a non-videogame company, not the more questionable ones they pull off the streets to work in some QA farm).

 

[Neanderthal]

End o day voice actors might ave a cushy number but trying to get a few more quid is natural, devs should be doing same thing and maybe they should be striking against publishers for a better share o profits and some retainment of rights over stuff they create. Can't fault VAs for doing what devs should. Then again publishers'd probably just move wholesale over to some other country where they can pay a pittance in comparison to first world salaries.

 

[Crichton]

I remember there was a VA strike back around 2000 that was blamed as the reason for Icewind Dale having lame PC voice sets.

WTF; Icewind Dale has the best voice sets! (though some of those were added later from Heart of Fury...)

 

[Neanderthal]

"Easy as Goblin pie," Tony Jay did best Dwarf ever. Much better than BGs voice sets, or any other really.

 

[pippin]

IWD has Tara Strong as well, she did Yxunomei and other characters.

But yeah, IWD had a more than decent voice cast http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0225966/ . If there was a strike, it wasn't a problem.

 

[Neanderthal]

Oh yeah, Yxunomei were a right fucking antagonist, more interesting and better presented than Poquelin if you ask me. So fucking creepy that entire segment, bet it were MCA.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

My usual take on strikes is to fire all the people who go on strike, and give their jobs to people who want to work.

Obviously there are some vulnerable people who go on strike because they have no other option. So I wouldn't want this for every profession. But for voice actors, who get paid $100,000 minimum per game they work on, they really should shut the fuck up.

There's plenty of VAs out there who disagree with the strike, so hopefully they'll get some more work out of this.

David Hayter is a bit shit so it's funny seeing that tweet back to him. Hayter is ok in some games, as long as he's not doing the Snake voice (Sanctuaraaaaaaaay).