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Sounds to good to me. My new dream (created the moment I read this thread) of becoming a part-time bad video game voice actor could come true! Heck, I'd almost be willing to work for free just to get my name in the credits. Also I can only name one game voice actor Troy Baker and that's all I remember so not good if even gamers have no idea. Also the fem shep voice actress is really good can't remember the name.
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Oct 23, 2016 07:38
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that would be jennifer hale i really don't understand why it came to this from a developer's perspective. a lot of the complaints on point with the strike would be handled if they just brought voice actors in at a later point in development, so you don't have voice actors wasting a ton of time with bad direction, wasted takes, and unclear requirements. as it stands, voice acting is one of the first things people go out and do, but it's absolutely orthogonal to actually making the game. if you absolutely must have wav files of appropriate length in there, computerized text-to-speech converters are widely available, frequently free, and command line ones are even batchable so you can fire-and-forget your entire script at once, with whatever your preferred stats like WPM and file name are. it's absolutely trivial. if you bring voice actors in when you have the game mostly done and are simply polishing, you can show the voice actors the exact situation their character is in, get exactly what you need out of them, and everyone is happier. as it stands a ton of places just hand people a script and say 'go nuts', then get pissy when it's not quite right later and put more demands on the actors. mocap is a little different since it is critical to animation, but still there are free mocap databases out there that you can just walk out and use during early development cycles until you refine what you need. is it going to be right? no, of course not, you will need to go out and do mocap anyway, but it'll be extremely clear to your mocap actors exactly what you need and they can take an active role in helping you get it so it's safest for them and looks best for you. if the environments are created and there's a sample of what something should be, that's a huge boon and from everything i've heard and read that poo poo just doesn't happen. they have this mammoth script as a primary design document and just say 'yeah, that's good enough to go do everything, right?' i dunno, just what happened to basic loving planning? these requests amount to poo poo most independent film coalitions have down, why are these AAA studios dropping the ball on the simplest poo poo?
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Oct 23, 2016 08:09
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Coolguye posted:i dunno, just what happened to basic loving planning? these requests amount to poo poo most independent film coalitions have down, why are these AAA studios dropping the ball on the simplest poo poo? Professional voice acting is still a very new thing for video games. I think a lot of game planning is built around the old days when you'd just grab someone from accounting to shout "Ahhh! I've been shot!" for your asset library. Companies are assuming voice actors would be happy to work in the same way, but they're...y'know...actors so they take this stuff a bit more seriously than even their employers probably do.
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Oct 23, 2016 08:15
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that seems really weird to me but by the same token it's also one of the only explanations that would make sense given the situation. maybe i'm just looking at this differently because my business is software-as-a-service which tends to be more iterative than games, which are monolithic, but like the first considerations i have when i look at a project is 'okay, how can i put off paying for these components as long as humanly possible?' it is not a matter of being a cheapskate, but a matter of prioritizing properly so you can absorb more requirements changes and modified conditions. if i don't have to pay for a fancy kind of calculator to show someone's business data in a helpful way until 80% of the way through the project, you can bet your rear end that i'm not authorizing the build 40% of the way through only to find that there's 2 more things they need to build into it, and 1 thing that isn't actually important at 60% progress. it seems absolutely inconceivable to me that there are these multi-million dollar gaming projects that do not have these basic good-practice policies implemented. but apparently they don't or half of the complaints on this strike statement wouldn't be there.
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Oct 23, 2016 08:27
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So this is why Star Citizen is getting delayed.
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Oct 23, 2016 08:57
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Coolguye posted:that seems really weird to me but by the same token it's also one of the only explanations that would make sense given the situation. maybe i'm just looking at this differently because my business is software-as-a-service which tends to be more iterative than games, which are monolithic, but like the first considerations i have when i look at a project is 'okay, how can i put off paying for these components as long as humanly possible?' it is not a matter of being a cheapskate, but a matter of prioritizing properly so you can absorb more requirements changes and modified conditions. if i don't have to pay for a fancy kind of calculator to show someone's business data in a helpful way until 80% of the way through the project, you can bet your rear end that i'm not authorizing the build 40% of the way through only to find that there's 2 more things they need to build into it, and 1 thing that isn't actually important at 60% progress. Old habits just die hard. Some long-standing entertainment companies still use fax machines just because that's how their "process" has always been. I'm sure a lot of dev studios are holding on to legacy ideas from back when they were huddled in a garage or whatever. Shake ups like this are the kind of growing pains every industry goes through (or at least should go through).
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Oct 23, 2016 09:17
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DropsySufferer posted:Heck, I'd almost be willing to work for free just to get my name in the credits.
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Oct 23, 2016 09:27
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Ride The Gravitron posted:there are thousands of people who think like this and that's why the strike it's going to fail. Expect the next 5 years of video games to have horrible voice acting until the union members come groveling back. Of course by that time the studios will realize that people will keep buying video games regardless and just turn them away. Considering that's what video game voice acting started as, it's safe to say this is something the studios already know. Game studios are willing to spend money and resources on talent as the budgets of their games increase. If they weren't willing to, they would never have sought to hire professionals in the first place. Even with outdated contracts, the big names don't come cheap.
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Oct 23, 2016 09:30
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I thought everyone hated dubs in their Japanese games. Does this include actors in EU? I could go for more sexy voice work like Xenoblade.
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Oct 23, 2016 09:34
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Lord Ephraim posted:I thought everyone hated dubs in their Japanese games. I believe the strike only officially involves people in the Sag-Aftra union which many of the major US and Canadian voice actors are a part of, people from elsewhere in the world are either non union or have their own things going.
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Oct 23, 2016 13:20
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Oh no what will I do without voice acting
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Oct 23, 2016 13:48
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It's really weird to me that there are people who don't feel anything whenever a specific actor or musician or whoever makes an appearance in a piece of media. I mean, it always brings a smile to my face whenever I hear familiar voices in my games, so I have to wonder why others would be so dismissive of VAs.
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Oct 23, 2016 14:21
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The only voice actor I can recognize is Liam O'Brien so that doesn't really factor in for me. I just enjoy a good performance.
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Oct 23, 2016 14:28
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HMS Boromir posted:The only voice actor I can recognize is Liam O'Brien so that doesn't really factor in for me. I just enjoy a good performance. As do I, which is why I get excited whenever I hear them in other stuff. Even as a kid I was always pumped when I heard a VA I liked in another show or whatever. Like, you'd watch TMNT and you didn't know who Cam Clarke was, but you knew that Leonardo sounded cool, so when you played MGS for the first time many years later you're all "Oh drat Leonardo is in this this poo poo just got better!" I have that reaction all the time, it's great.
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Oct 23, 2016 14:37
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QuantaStarFire posted:so I have to wonder why others would be so dismissive of VAs. I support this strike but it is tiring to hear Troy Baker, Nolan North, Liam O'brian, and Yuri Lowenthal voice EVERY single male character in my video games both western and anime Like E3 trailers one year every protagonist was Steve Blum, and the year after that every protagonist was Troy Baker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXPPFAwYzVs Lakbay fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Oct 23, 2016 |
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Oct 23, 2016 15:00
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I wish that this had happened earlier, and that it had the same impact, and also that it only affected Mighty No. 9.
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Oct 24, 2016 17:59
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Lakbay posted:I support this strike but it is tiring to hear Troy Baker, Nolan North, Liam O'brian, and Yuri Lowenthal voice EVERY single male character in my video games both western and anime This sucks even more when you realize how much range the most prolific VAs actually have but developers just want their Nathan Drake or Spike Spiegal. A lot of these guys have fantastic range that rarely goes to use. Just look at Nolan North playing the Penguin in Arkham City
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Oct 24, 2016 18:16
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Lakbay posted:I support this strike but it is tiring to hear Troy Baker, Nolan North, Liam O'brian, and Yuri Lowenthal voice EVERY single male character in my video games both western and anime this is less a problem with voice acting and more a problem with AAA games writing if AAA games had protagonists other than gruff 40-something white dudes, troy baker wouldn't be every protagonist ever
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Oct 24, 2016 19:32
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Please tell me Robin Atkin Downes will still be lending his voice to things. I don't think I can live without his comforting, dulcet tones. 
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Oct 24, 2016 19:38
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I bet Blizzard is wishing that Chris Metzen hadn't left now, who's gonna voice the next big glowing corrupted thing?
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Oct 24, 2016 19:43
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Ride The Gravitron posted:I just think the video babe companies are thing to ignore them and hire scabs because they know gamers will buy anything they poo poo out.
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Oct 24, 2016 19:45
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The problem is that most people outside the entertainment sphere seem to think that "royalties" means "free bonus money" when they should really think of it as a kind of conditional differed payment. Royalties lower the risk on the part of studios by tying the payout directly to profits, and they allow actors to have steady incomes which are more conducive to living like an adult than getting a big sack with a dollar sign on it every few months.
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Oct 24, 2016 21:41
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The only thing I've heard against this that sort of makes sense is that the people who develop the games might feel bad if the VAs get more money than them, but that's on the producers for being stingy, not the VAs.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:02
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K8.0 posted:Never again hearing the voices of the same people doing the same voices over and over sounds pretty good to me.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:17
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SunAndSpring posted:The only thing I've heard against this that sort of makes sense is that the people who develop the games might feel bad if the VAs get more money than them, but that's on the producers for being stingy, not the VAs. I don't think it's realistic for a game company to pay all it's developers $250 per hour or whatever these guys are asking for.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:19
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Chomp8645 posted:I don't think it's realistic for a game company to pay all it's developers $250 per hour or whatever these guys are asking for. lol gently caress off.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:20
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i wish them luck on general principle but alsoVakal posted:I'd be ok with every game just going back to dialog boxes.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:22
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Countblanc posted:lol gently caress off. I wasn't trying to be an rear end in a top hat, I specifically remember a number like this thrown around on whatever Destructoid article was talking about it.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:22
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Chomp8645 posted:I wasn't trying to be an rear end in a top hat, I specifically remember a number like this thrown around on whatever Destructoid article was talking about it. Everyone in this thread whose ever worked freelance is shaking their head at you right now. SilentW posted:Yeah, they're just going to hire nonunion people. Also, any work that was contracted BEFORE this strike started is apparently safe and will continue to be done. The main issue seems to be that one of the demands was for royalties, which, frankly, is just not going to happen in this industry. The VG industry is not going to give up on hiring big-name Hollywood actors for roles in their shootmans, which is what they'd have to do to shut the rest of them out. They'll concede the health and safety poo poo, and the union will gladly drop residuals for it, because that's the entire reason they're striking. Sankis posted:This sucks even more when you realize how much range the most prolific VAs actually have but developers just want their Nathan Drake or Spike Spiegal. Grunt from Mass Effect was probably the first and only time I went "That's Steve Blum?" and it's questionable whether that was him being allowed to use his range or if it was a krogan vocal filter applied to his regular tough guy voice.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:40
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QuantaStarFire posted:Everyone in this thread whose ever worked freelance is shaking their head at you right now. Hey man idk much about the industry sorry. From what I understand though the union only represents a small portion of video game voice actors (like 20% or less), with most of them being at the top. I don't think freelancers really factor into it. This is about the Blums, Hales, and Norths of the industry. I could see them making top dollar figures like that. Most video game voice actors are not a part of the union and so aren't really a part of this. Again this is all from a Destructoid article so idk tell me if I'm wrong.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:45
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you're wrong
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Oct 24, 2016 22:48
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Ok I can accept that.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:50
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Chomp8645 posted:I wasn't trying to be an rear end in a top hat, I specifically remember a number like this thrown around on whatever Destructoid article was talking about it. lmao gently caress off
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Oct 24, 2016 22:55
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So just for my own benefit here: is the issue that I somehow terribly misread the article, or was the reporting just poo poo and I believed it?
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Oct 24, 2016 22:57
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Chomp8645 posted:So just for my own benefit here: is the issue that I somehow terribly misread the article, or was the reporting just poo poo and I believed it? Because the nature of freelance work (and this applies to the union guys as much as the non-union) is that you're asking for more than what a typical salaried or hourly employee would otherwise get because you have no idea when or where your next paycheque is going to come from. You set rates for specific kinds of work, and the client decides whether they want to pay those rates (in this case, between $800-$1000 per 4-hour session or something like that). If they agree to it (and you'll probably negotiate over the price), then you get the job, do the work, get paid, and that's that; off to the next job, whenever that is. Otherwise, you go apply for a different job, working with what you've already made from previous work (and since you live in/around LA, poo poo's likely expensive as gently caress). Unfortunately, since you accepted a game job, you don't have any of the regular health and safety poo poo you'd otherwise get if you were working in film or television unless the publisher feels like providing it (and since there's a strike happening, it's safe to say they never loving do), so if you have to yell and shout and scream until your throat is raw, that's the job for that session. Got other jobs planned that day? Haha go gently caress yourself, you're not talking for the rest of the day. Coughing up blood? Suck it up, here's some tea, you've got 10 minutes before you have to make deepthroating sounds for 2 hours. Damaged your vocal chords to the point that you can't voice act anymore? Haha eat poo poo, get expensive surgery or else enjoy your poo poo retail job in retirement, fucknut. Unless it's a celebrity, then it's "HOLY poo poo IT'S A FAMOUS PERSON! WHATEVER YOU WANT, YOU ONLY NEED ASK, WE CAN ACCOMMODATE ANYTHING YOU NEED! HERE'S A DUMPTRUCK OF MONEY TOO! WE LOVE YOUR WORK!" Also, freelancing for any sort of work is a minefield of morons who have no idea what poo poo is actually worth, so have fun with people offering you $5 for poo poo you charge $500 for and then giving you poo poo because they have no idea the amount of work that actually goes into anything. Try not to drink yourself to death.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:30
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also freelancers do not get insurance, do not get benefits, etc.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:33
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Most voice acting for video games doesn't really pay that well anyway, voice actors do it because every job helps keep food on their table (and it's usually more fun than reading ad copy for another commercial) If they can make their conditions better, and maybe open the door to other developers asking why they don't also get some nicer conditions for working, I'm all for it
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Oct 24, 2016 23:44
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QuantaStarFire posted:Because the nature of freelance work (and this applies to the union guys as much as the non-union) is that you're asking for more than what a typical salaried or hourly employee would otherwise get because you have no idea when or where your next paycheque is going to come from. You set rates for specific kinds of work, and the client decides whether they want to pay those rates (in this case, between $800-$1000 per 4-hour session or something like that). If they agree to it (and you'll probably negotiate over the price), then you get the job, do the work, get paid, and that's that; off to the next job, whenever that is. Otherwise, you go apply for a different job, working with what you've already made from previous work (and since you live in/around LA, poo poo's likely expensive as gently caress). Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me instead of just telling me to gently caress off. So is the main issue with this strike not so much as the pay as it is the conditions? It sounds like that is taking the forefront.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:50
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Chomp8645 posted:Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me instead of just telling me to gently caress off. also, a way to price your work according to the product's budget and ambition, either through residuals or information about the project so you can price your work accordingly and know what you're signing up for.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:54
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Chomp8645 posted:I don't think freelancers really factor into it. This is about the Blums, Hales, and Norths of the industry. All professional voice actors are freelancers. They're not employees of studios like programmers are and don't get a steady salary, which is why voice-acting as a career basically couldn't exist without unions to give it stability. Chomp8645 posted:Thank you for taking the time to explain it to me instead of just telling me to gently caress off. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say that's probably true. corn in the bible posted:also freelancers do not get insurance, do not get benefits, etc. They do if they're in a union! Entertainment unions provide their own health insurance to their members! Another reason unions are necessary to VAs. Rocketlex fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 00:06
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