Sorry your browser is not supported!

Alright, I don't know (but I doubt it) how many of you have been following this. At E3 a few weeks back the Voice Actors Guild, were holding a protest about thier working conditions for computer games.

The question mostly is 'what exactly is this all about?'
And you'd be surprised that actually the issue is almost 100% money!
(oh go figure!)

So what is it that they're all griping about right now. Namely the problems stem from the fact that when they voice over Cartoons, they get paid quite a bit more than they do for Computer Games.

Another issue being had is that you get paid a flat fee for something on television, but that fee only covers a short time span. It used to be 20years, but now it's something closer to 5 years. Once this time is up, then any reruns shown see more money going in to the Voice Actors pocket. Kinda like belated Royalties or something.

Now, I would have a quite a bit of sympathy for these peoples plight.. if it weren't for the fact that I'm blindly enraged by the whole damn greedy nature of it all.

As a voice actor, on adverage you could expect to recieve around $270 (£120) per hour. Now what is more agrovating is that you can expect this per job, most voice actors have a few jobs on the go at once. So while only one job will be around 16 hours a week, you soon make up the hours for it to be full-time later.

It is bloody fair to say, that doing it as a living most definately isn't one of those poverty stricken jobs you'll have.

While you can claim that they only have a few weeks work and it all balances out, the fact is.. voice actors are RARELY out of work. You have a relatively small number of people serving a very large market demand.

Again I would feel slightly sorry if they were putting academy award winning performances into these games; but when is the last time anyone here went away from a game thinking 'wow, that was some good acting!'

Now being part of the other end of the spectrum, ya know those grunts who ACTUALLY do the [censored] work to get that game from design to your favourite console. I feel that what the Voice Actors Guild is asking for is beyond unreasonable.

Why? Because, I work 40 hours MINIMUM a week.
I do this for a $25 (£15) per hour.
I work on the same project sometimes for up to 24months at a time, with little chance for a break aside from Holidays which often aren't as long as you'd hope.
On-top of this if I happen to leave production at ANY stage of development, I can say good-bye to being credited for all the hardwork I've put in; And if I even tried mentioning the topic of royalties to a publisher, it's likely that everyone will have a very good laugh about it.

So... it does slightly more than tick me off how these voice actors are lobying for things that are just a damn pipe-dream to those people who are hardworking and dedicated to projects.

I think the recent artical over at GameSpy.com summed everything up nicely.

[html]http://www.gamespy.com/articles/619/619373p1.html
[/html]

Sweet jesus us developers need to make our own unions and start making ridiculous demands!
Though to be honest I don't mind the working conditions, never have. It's quite a bit of fun developing games, and can't complain about the pay or perks.

Still when you see unions acting like this you can't help by want to slap them around until they cry "uncle!" .. or maybe that's just me.

Well... It just brings the issue of 'how little developers get' compared to 'how much the publishers get'.

These actors should get real; believe me, the industry won't fail without them

That is all.

Trying to think of any cartoon character voices that are in games as well.

I mean it's surely relative to talent more than flat rates. I mean, everyone knows some examples of terrible voice acting, hell I could do better than a lot of the crud we hear (I did like 4 different voices for an adventure game a few years ago, imagine Gimli with a hangover). The only people that should get good money for their voice are cartoon characters that are long established - because simply nobody want's their favourite cartoon characters voice to change, imagine if they replaced Homer's voice. People mangling on in videogames should'nt compare what they do to what so many respected artists do. There are a few cases where talented people are involved, like the voice acting in Halo/Halo2 - they might have the right to demand a little more cash for their hard work, but the exceptions are few.

A lot of games have 1 star voice, and the rest are all filler - the kinda stuff that could be replaced by text and nobody would care, like in Fallout2, the narrator voice is Ron Pearlman (one of my fave actors), and when you hear his voice and recognise it you know you haven't spent money on some cheap piece of crud. Stars who can have that effect on software quality deserve good money, the gimp who performed the voice of henchmen 14 outta 78 deserves a slap for even expecting good money.


Van-B

Very rarely. As in "Never".

Ouch that sucks. I know at EA they put you in the credits if you work at least 1 month on the game in any way shape or form. I truly find it hard to believe they would remove you from the credits if you leave production just before the end.

When I think back on horrid voice acting in games (Resident Evil comes to mind), I just imagine the programmers probably did it themselves to save the ridiculously high amount of money it costs to get professionals. Some games are so bad it actually "adds" to the game (Resident Evil again comes to mind).

Don't worry Jeku, he's just setting up his next excuse.

Let's take a trip into the future, professor!

Raven: Oh, don't you remember? I said if I left at any stage of development I'd be taken from the credits. So when I took that 3 day vacation 2 months ago, well, that's why you don't see my name there as lead developer of Starcraft 2

Jimmy: You mother loving shazwomp.

What are they complaining about!!! Most voice acting in games is rubbish and just an annoying phrase repeated over and over again. The voice acting in Dumbo and Cool excels over most huge commercial games (not to say that won't be ) A few games do have brilliant voice acting - take Resi 4 - but how hard would it be for the developers to just get friends to do the voices if there is a strike.

Quote: "When is the last time anyone here went away from a game thinking 'wow, that was some good acting!'"

Wing Commander III
ftp://ftp.wcnews.com/files/wing3/wc3trailer.avi (14.9mb)

Wing Commander IV
ftp://ftp.wcnews.com/files/wing4/wc4trailer.avi (21.4mb)

Not exactly voice-over only, but the acting was better than 99% of the stuff out today.


/me loads DOS.


~zen

Yes, but they also had bigname (cough) actors like, uhhh, Mark Hamill, in the later Wing Commander games. They were also FMV games.

Wing commander used real actors though - I mean it was pretty groundbreaking for it's time, but it probably started the whole mess .


Van-B

I thought the acting in Command & Conquer Series and Wing Commander Series was CRAP.

Game I most liked the voice acting of was Beyond Good & Evil.
There was alot of feeling in the game.

Still can't really think of many others I've been too impressed with.

@raven

I understand your take on WC. But I guess it's all relative.

Look at a great game like "Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2". The acting, costumes, scenery etc.. reminds me of a local Elementary School production.

Considering the year each of these games were made, I would have to say that acting and voice acting for games is getting worse. And by that fact it makes WC look better than it did back then.

Although it's not part of the mainstream WC series

Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996)

Produced in England, The Darkening is the only non-mainstream Wing Commander game to feature live-action video. The cast includes Clive Owen, John Hurt, Christopher Walken, Brian Blessed, David Warner and Jürgen Prochnow (the latter two would appear again, this time in the Wing Commander movie).

I would love to see Christopher Walken's performance. One of my favorite acotor voices.

Does anyone have a clip from this game???

~zen

lmao, yeah.. it is worrying

I always liked the voice acting in StarCraft... All the different accents that each character gives, and all the different emotions ( especially when you keep clickin' the buggers! )...

It all just adds up to make for a really great, immersive experience!

Other than that... I'm not sure of any other voice acting that grabed my attention.

Jess.

The 7th Guest had atrocious acting, I thought, even though the game was great.

Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle had great acting for an early CD-ROM talkie

EDIT:

WCIII and IV were also live action. I remember because I used to have WCIII for my 3DO :-P

I thought RA2's voice acting was good. Tiberian Sun's was a little cheesy, but still above average. Psychonauts also did a fairly good job.

I've never played Wing Commander, but those trailers look sweet. *visits Ebay*