To be fair, it's understandable that more niche games like Fire Emblem are non-union. But perhaps your argument is that Nintendo does voice acting rare enough to where they should unionize the games that do have voice acting.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Is Nintendo not using voice-acting-unions unethical?
- Thread starter P-Tux7
- Start date
If Nintendo can't exist without supporting non-union VA, does it deserve to exist at all?
... But seriously, this is more common than you'd think. I can understand it when it comes to smaller publishers like Xseed, Atlus or whatever, but Nintendo doesn't really make any sense.
Union / Non-union isn't even really a quality thing. There's lots of tremendously talented voice actors that aren't union.
... But seriously, this is more common than you'd think. I can understand it when it comes to smaller publishers like Xseed, Atlus or whatever, but Nintendo doesn't really make any sense.
Union / Non-union isn't even really a quality thing. There's lots of tremendously talented voice actors that aren't union.
I think it's why basically no English Nintendo game has good voice acting. So, imo it's more of a stupid choice than an unethical one.
It's a shame there's such a limited window available to discuss ongoing exploitative practices of major corporations :(
Fire Emblem doesnt have unionized voice acting and is fine.
Nah, this is entirely about paying people equitable wages for their labor.
If you're going to do voice acting, hire union actors. If you think that paying voice actors what they're worth is too expensive, the correct play is to cut the voice acting, not to try to underpay VAs.
Not sure what Nintendo's history is on this matter, but I imagine a lot of places went with non-union VAs during (and, as a result, after) that year+ long strike a couple of years back.
Didn't the strike happen because unionized voice actors collectively thought they were worth more and deserved residuals on top of whatever payments they were receiving for the individual recording jobs (in addition to other issues).
Who gets to desire what they're worth in the end?
Didn't the strike happen because unionized voice actors collectively thought they were worth more and deserved residuals on top of whatever payments they were receiving for the individual recording jobs (in addition to other issues).
Who gets to desire what they're worth in the end?
Going union prohibits ANY non-union voice actors. That also includes developers.
Want to do a small voice cameo in your game? Can't do that if it's a union project.
"Fine" might be the summit of ninty voice acting. Botw is atrocious.
Is it unethical for non-union voice actors to exist? Do all voice actors have an ethical obligation to only work under the terms which others have chosen? Unless you think this is the case, I don't see why you would consider Nintendo's choice to use non-union actors to be unethical.
Getting hung up on definitions and arguing for large corporations is a pretty bad take.
And yes unions are largely good because they empower workers so they can be treated well. I'm not surprised youd make the argument considering you argued on behalf of shareholders.
Can you elaborate?
His point is that unions and corporations aren't really ethical actors either way, they just are. Corporations exist to create a return for the people who put forward the funding in return for partial ownership, and unions exist to monopolize a resource and increase the price of that resource to benefit the holders of it. It doesn't really make sense to try to prescribe ethics to those things, it's like asking if it's ethical that a toaster will burn toast if you leave it in too long.
There's a term that's used to describe non-union workers who choose to replace workers who are on strike. They're called "scabs".
And I'm not sure how "we just chose to use people we can get away with undervaluing because of labor action caused by us trying to be cheap" is supposed to be a justifiable excuse.
it's also worth mentioning that while I can't find a good set of struck companies lists from earlier in the strike, the one I found last updated 7 months before the end of the strike does not include Nintendo, so that might not be true in the first place.
The strike happened for multiple reasons, and that was misinterpreted to be one of the demands. Let me make clear: it should have been a demand. Voice actors, along with every one else doing the labor of producing a game, should get residuals. But, no, their request was bonuses based on sales figures, in 4 increments of $825 at 2/4/6/8 million copies sold, capping out at $3700.
I absolutely disagree with this. Dismissing criticisms of how large corporations treat their employees, and by all accounts Nintendo is better than most, by arguing about whether they can be ethical or not is missing the point. Also I know what the words mean, I don't need a refresher.
Large corporations in 2019 are some of the worst human rights offenders besides governments in my eyes. Acting like unions are anywhere close, or equal as you're trying to do here, is disingenuous. Honestly it's fucking gross. Whether they can be ethical, I swear Billy fucking Madison covered this 20 years ago, may be relevant to this specific thread, but ignores how much damage these companies do on a macro scale. Anyone caping for Nintendo over a union of voice actors should probably reevaluate their priorities.
Stating a system of ethics under which a business would be compelled to behave a specific way isn't a take or arguing for large corporations. A question of ethics was asked, not a question of support.
Unions being "largely good" does not make them intrinsically good.
You could actually talk specifics about why one thing is or isn't ethical as the thread asks or you can keep strawmanning it up.
scabs is a strictly derogatory term that's made to paint people who are working during strikes as opportunistic and lesser than workers in unions
when the fact of the matter is most non-union VAs are just simply that, VAs who aren't in the union. they didn't use the strike to snatch up roles from other actors, they were just doing their jobs and trying to put food on their tables like anyone else. it's insulting to people who aren't or can't be in the union to summarize their careers in a way that paints them as inferior to people who are in the union, especially when most of these VAs know each other in real life as friends, family, and coworkers.
I don't think everyone has a clear understanding of how Unions work in the entertainment industry in comparison to other Unions... if you're hiring non-union, it's more about saving money than it is anything else. There are pay differentials between being SAG and not and sometimes they're quite significant. It has nothing to do with Nintendo or anyone seeking "lesser talent" or because they're against workers' rights. Non-Union talent still have to audition just like anyone else.
Do you all think the big names we know today like Troy Baker, Nolan North, Laura Bailey, Tara Strong, etc. just walked into the SAG office, plopped down $3000 and said "I want to join the Union!". No. They just like everyone else and had to earn their eligibility to join. And joining SAG is a big part of an actors career and not always an easy thing to accomplish. If it was, then everyone would be joining for the better pay and benefits that come with it.
Do you all think the big names we know today like Troy Baker, Nolan North, Laura Bailey, Tara Strong, etc. just walked into the SAG office, plopped down $3000 and said "I want to join the Union!". No. They just like everyone else and had to earn their eligibility to join. And joining SAG is a big part of an actors career and not always an easy thing to accomplish. If it was, then everyone would be joining for the better pay and benefits that come with it.
I'm not saying it's okay to mistreat workers by any sense, I'm just don't really see those as being linked at all.
You shouldn't need unions in order to not have terrible work conditions or not fire workers if they're not willing to work 80-hour work weeks. In fact, Nintendo is a great example of a company that does just that, treats the employees with respect (at least by all public accounts we've heard so far) while not being unionized.
I never argued for unions being intrinsically good, which seems irrelevant and silly when factoring in your claim of strawmanning.
As far as talking specifics, I don't need to as I was responding to your post which empathized with a corporation and its shareholders which I would argue is plain shitty. Even if it's ethical as you argued it to be.
People really should not underestimate the clusterfuck that Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.'s casting turned out to be. NOA reached out for Hollywood talent and it bit them in the ass with the most toxic result possible. One that they could never have foreseen when they did the casting, and one that they couldn't get rid of after the fact, probably because of the union contract.
We shouldn't but then for every Nintendo there are tons of companies like Amazon. I feel like you're being naive and almost libertarian here.
I underestimated people's enmity towards unions. Do you have evidence that gives credence to your last sentence?
it's a damn shame too. If Baldwin wasn't in that game, i don't think there would have been nearly as much controversy.
it still probably would have sold incredibly poorly, but at least it wouldn't have had a certified Awful Person frontlining it
Well then I'm sure you'll be delighted to know that most of the AAA industry is looking with great interest at advancements in speech synthesis as a way to entirely cut out having to hire voice actors at all in the not-too-distant future. This is coming faster than you think.
Hell if they could press a button and have a game entirely generated automatically for them without any human interaction, they would. Thankfully, that's still much further off...
Hell if they could press a button and have a game entirely generated automatically for them without any human interaction, they would. Thankfully, that's still much further off...
Unethical because of what? Are you implying hiring union workers exclusively is ethical? Because it's easy to make the reverse argument.
"Everything I don't like is unethical."
What happened? All I know about Codename STEAM is that it bombed.
The game's lead character is voiced by Adam "coiner of the term 'Gamergate'" Baldwin.
If you only hire union workers you are excluding those trying to break into the industry. Therefore it is unethical.
(It's not really, and neither is this. Because of course my opinion of liking or disliking a practice doesn't make it unethical.)
Oh the horror, I'd never want to be that.
And as someone who works for a company with tons of both union and non-union employees, in a state that's been both right-to-work and had mandatory unions at different times while I've worked there... they're really not that efficient at doing much beyond propagating their own existence. The best thing for workers would be to governmentally or socially incentivize companies to treat them better from the start, not to force them all into these bureaucratic nightmare monopolies.
Interesting. So when Nintendo doesn't consider hiring an inexperienced developer for a position, it's also unethical?
Why are we talking about efficiency and bureaucracy? Now you're just changing the argument.
Also being libertarian is gross, I truly hope you're not.
Are you really comparing the hiring of a full-time developer employee with the hiring of a voice actor who will only be a part of a specific production for as long as their services voicing their role are required?
Ah I see you only respond when you feel your position is strong :p. And yes I am. Why is a voice actor intrinsically worth less in your eyes than a developer? I'd also argue that some VA are associated with characters, like a certain Italian plumber, and it isn't as simple as you're making this out to be.
Yea, by the thread's logic if someone is disqualified from a job for whatever reason it's unethical. I don't agree with it, but you'd have to consider both cases unethical.
I'm saying the ethics in this situation is related to how you treat the workers as individuals, not how big institutions interact. It's unethical to crunch a worker, it's not unethical to not do business with some behemoth bureaucracy. I know hypothetically unions are supposed to be a way to create better conditions, but they're not the only way to do so (and it's not exactly part of my original point, but I also don't think they're even very good at doing so.)
But anyway thanks for the deep insight on an ideology. I love big governments now.
Interesting. So you need to be accomplished and have a good record of work before you're admitted into the club, then? Even more reason calling this unethical is insanity.
There are a number of ways to become SAG eligible. As someone mentioned earlier this thread, of them to receiving a Taft-Hartley. Which means you received a few lines a in a tv show or movie, which makes you automatically eligible to join SAG. For Background Actors (Extras), you have to receive a minimum of three "golden vouchers" they call them on set to be eligible. That means you were paid Union for those times and thus, are also SAG eligible.
Now for voice acting, I'm not entirely certain how it works. I don't know if you have to work a certain amount of jobs or have a certain amount of dialogue per job or what. I would have to look into that.
As for eligibility, once you've become eligible, you have to pay a $3,100 deposit, choose what you want your SAG name to be (has to be 100% unique), and then you're good to go. Every 6 months there's a $100 Union fee plus 1% of whatever income you earned within that 6 months.
It had two big names, one that coined the term GamerGate and sided with them, and the other who was supremely against GamerGate. And yeah, contracts and all that preventing them from simply ending the deal. And even if they could have ended the deal, by the time they revealed the cast for Code Name Steam, everything was already likely dubbed up to a certain point that simply recasting wouldn't work without a very big delay. The game appealed to no sides out of principal of who was casted on top of people's disinterest with its art style. It was a mess all around.
I actually feel very bad for Paul Patraschu, since Code Name Steam was his directorial debut.
OP asked about ethics. There's many different ethical philosophies. Some posit one thing while others posit another. You apparently lack the ability to engage in a conversation about any of them without reducing it to taking sides. An observation of how one system supports a notion is not voicing support for that notion.
And if you agree unions aren't intrinsically good which you imply you agree with in your last post then you also agree that not working with them isn't intrinsically bad. Therefore you agree under some systems of ethics it's not unethical to not work with unions.
Thanks for playing though.
Last edited:
I absolutely hated the voice acting in BotW. They need to go union to get better quality.