Troy Baker talks about residual cheques in gaming.

[Chance_Boudreaux]

EDIT: For the people who can't watch the video, here are the bullet points...

I don't have time to watch the full video, but what are the unfortunate points that get brought up?

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• Troy said (although he understood his position) the actor complaining about residuals was not a good look, as $100K is a lot of money.
• For every Red Dead, GTA, Call of Duty, Apex Legends or Fortnite, there are thousands of games that barely ship/break even, so mandating residuals would only tap into those top-selling games.
• Infamous Second Son was a big wake-up call as it had to sell 3 million units to break even, it sold 2.5 - 3.5 million when the PS4 had 7 million users. Although it was successful, it barely captured 50% of users with zero competition. In other words, people didn't buy it just because (like they do CoD, GTA or Red Dead) and if that game barely broke even what chances do smaller games have?
• A residuals mandate would cause developers to scope their games and hire less actors.
• The legal department would put calls out for non-union actors as a workaround.
• Composers are in the same boat as actors but with none of the leverage, so they had to give up this dream ages ago. Performance Rights Organisations help them receive residuals in TV/movies through "secondary market income", as each showing is considered a public performance. In games, however, developers typically only make money off of the initial sale, therefore there is no secondary market income.
• PROs are exploring the idea of Twitch being comparable to TV networks. Sort of like Spotify, the residuals from Twitch would most likely be far less than what they get through TV networks.

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On the latest episode of the 'Play, Watch, Listen' podcast, hosts Alanah Pearce, Austin Wintory, Mike Bithell and Troy Baker briefly discuss the reality of voice actors receiving residual cheques.

After talking about GTA games, Troy mentions Niko Bellic's voice actor only getting paid $100,000 for GTA IV, despite it selling millions of copies. This leads Alanah to ask if residuals should be mandated for voice actors, to which Troy and Austin bring up good (albeit unfortunate) points as to why this system does not and would not work in games, and how it could ultimately result in less actors getting hired.

It's not the most topical of subjects, but I thought it was an interesting insight. The discussion begins at 4:40 and only lasts a few minutes, however the entire episode is good if you have some time to kill.

 

[Sign My Guestbook!]

Wonder what the arguments were in early Hollywood.

 

[TheUnseenTheUnheard]

Your link brings me to a scam

 

[kinoki]

I don't think voice actors should be regarded as different in the rights to residuals, as say developers. Perhaps this is a controversial opinion but if one doesn't get it neither should the other.

 

[Nome]

"Only $100,000"

 

[MegaBeefBowl]

I understand the argument, but at least they have SAG representation that works to get them decent pay.

Meanwhile game devs are continuously fucked for longer hours for much less pay.

 

[Chance_Boudreaux]

Your link brings me to a scam

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Odd. Sorry about that. I linked to the NY Times article that I got from the Kotaku article. Should be fixed.

 

[onpoint]

I understand the argument, but at least they have SAG representation that works to get them decent pay.

Meanwhile game devs are continuously fucked for longer hours for much less pay.

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A thousand times this.

 

[Terbinator]

"Only $100,000"

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This was my thought, even if it was GTA4.

There's nothing to stop people juggling multiple VA gigs at once to increase that number.

 

[Dark Ninja]

Only 100,000 Reminds me of the anime industry where everyone gets fucked except the voice actors. Luckily games isn't in that situation yet other than stability for devs.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Only 100,000 Reminds me of the anime industry where everyone gets fucked except the voice actors. Luckily games isn't in that situation yet other than stability for devs.

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Not surprising, given the overlap in voice actors in games and anime regardless of dubbed language.

 

[Deleted member 46804]

"Only $100,000"

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The reality is that it is a really low number in comparison to film or TV when something is as successful as GTA IV was. I think everyone on the dev team should get royalties for life BTW. Instead only execs at R* and T2, along with shareholders reap the benefits. Everyone working on GTA V past and present should be rich but the reality is that they aren't because the pay structure isn't fair.

 

[HMD]

"Only $100,000"

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In comparison to the success of the game and the involvement of the VA in every part of that game, it is a very low number.

 

[strang]

The reality is that it is a really low number in comparison to film or TV when something is as successful as GTA IV was. I think everyone on the dev team should get royalties for life BTW. Instead only execs at R* and T2, along with shareholders reap the benefits. Everyone working on GTA V past and present should be rich but the reality is that they aren't because the pay structure isn't fair.

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Yea for real, a relative of mine acts in a streaming show on a lower-tier service (not Amazon Netflix or Hulu) and they made like multiple times this amount of money for a season.

 

[TP-DK]

The reality is that it is a really low number in comparison to film or TV when something is as successful as GTA IV was. I think everyone on the dev team should get royalties for life BTW. Instead only execs at R* and T2, along with shareholders reap the benefits. Everyone working on GTA V past and present should be rich but the reality is that they aren't because the pay structure isn't fair.

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I agree the pay structure isnt fair, but I dont think it can be compared with tv and movies. Tv and movie actors give up their private life but voice actors can still keep theirs. Of course hardcore fans recognize them, but its no where near the same level.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

I understand the argument, but at least they have SAG representation that works to get them decent pay.

Meanwhile game devs are continuously fucked for longer hours for much less pay.

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Kinda sucks though because a bunch of game companies switch to using voice studios that aren't union to go around it

 

[Trup1aya]

I don't think voice actors should be regarded as different in the rights to residuals, as say developers. Perhaps this is a controversial opinion but if one doesn't get it neither should the other.

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I'd generally say there's no equivalence between the work developers put in to create a game and the work voice actors do to lend their performance. It would be cool if everyone got royalties, but it's perfectly reasonable for pay structures to be different for different crafts.

 

[giapel]

Can argue for and against all day but can't compare to TV/Movies. TV/Movie stars are often the main commercial draw of the product. VA are not.

 

[Agnostic Priest]

From what I read, the VA for GTA only worked "parts of 15 months" for $100K. That is a really good pay for the time worked, in my opinion.

The reality is that it is a really low number in comparison to film or TV when something is as successful as GTA IV was. I think everyone on the dev team should get royalties for life BTW. Instead only execs at R* and T2, along with shareholders reap the benefits. Everyone working on GTA V past and present should be rich but the reality is that they aren't because the pay structure isn't fair.

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I highly disagree. I believe the people who invested the 100 million into GTA IV should be entitled to the profits. Everyone on that project was paid for their time, that isn't fair?

 

[TheCrackedJack]

For better or worse, voice actors rarely are a major reason why people buy a video game. Whereas actors can be a huge draw or reason why a movie makes so much money, so their compensation is much higher.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

I don't think voice actors should be regarded as different in the rights to residuals, as say developers. Perhaps this is a controversial opinion but if one doesn't get it neither should the other.

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They absolutely should. Voice actors don't spend years of their lives on creating a video game and unlike film the vast majority of gamers doesn't care about who reads the dialogue in a booth. Sure, it would be great for VAs to have a better deal, but in no way they're as important for development as actual devs.

 

[TechnoSyndrome]

"Only $100,000"

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From what I remember it was a gig that took place over multiple years, it's not like he recorded for two weeks and went home with six figures.

 

[Vilam]

100k seems more than reasonable for Nico.

 

[Death Penalty]

While a good voice acting performance can be an excellent part of a video game, I don't see why they should earn more than what they were originally contracted for to do the job initially unless they do more work. I could see a better argument for devs getting residuals than VAs, and I don't think that's a thing either, really?

Laughing a bit at "only $100,000" as well.

 

[Clay]

The reality is that it is a really low number in comparison to film or TV when something is as successful as GTA IV was. I think everyone on the dev team should get royalties for life BTW. Instead only execs at R* and T2, along with shareholders reap the benefits. Everyone working on GTA V past and present should be rich but the reality is that they aren't because the pay structure isn't fair.

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Video games are very different from film and TV though. They're not the face of the product the same way an actor is. People will see a movie solely because Tom Hanks or some other celebrity plays a starring role. I would never consider for a second playing a game just because Troy Baker voiced a character, and he's one of the few voice actors I can even name.

I don't think voice actors should be regarded as different in the rights to residuals, as say developers. Perhaps this is a controversial opinion but if one doesn't get it neither should the other.

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This just seems ridiculous to me. Rockstar games tend to have amazing voice acting and I'm not insinuating there aren't some very talented actors in the industry, but again, I'm playing RDR2 because I like exploring the world, not because the voice acting is so enthralling. Many games that are considered classics have no voice acting at all.

I know this is an extreme scenario, but if a game like Rocket League added an announcer would you really argue that that one person contributed to the game's success as much as the developers? There will always be exceptions, and there's game like Firewatch with de-emphasized gameplay where I think you could make a stronger argument that the acting talent plays a larger role in a game's success, but by and large people play games because they're fun to play.

 

[skeezx]

i'm all for re-purposing of royalties/pay structure but it's never or rarely "fair" in any career field

 

[MetatronM]

"Only $100,000"

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GTA IV's opening week revenue was over $500 million.

$100,000 is 0.02% of just the opening revenue alone for the game.

 

[Agnostic Priest]

GTA IV's opening week revenue was over $500 million.

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The VA got paid to do a job, regardless of how successful the project was.

If the game flopped, would it be fair for him to retain his full 100K pay or would it be fair for him to return some of that money?

 

[MetatronM]

The VA got paid to do a job, regardless of how successful the project was.

If the game flopped, would it be fair for him to retain his full 100K pay or would it be fair for him to return some of that money?

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I wasn't really making a value judgment. Just that economies of scale can mean that "only $100,000" really is "only" $100,000 sometimes.

 

[Segafreak]

Can argue for and against all day but can't compare to TV/Movies. TV/Movie stars are often the main commercial draw of the product. VA are not.

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For better or worse, voice actors rarely are a major reason why people buy a video game. Whereas actors can be a huge draw or reason why a movie makes so much money, so their compensation is much higher.

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For real, no one is buying games because a certain VA is in that game, comparing them to movie or TV stars is crazy.

In fact, I'd love if games(anime too btw) used less of the all star VAs, it feels like they're in every game and I'm getting fatigue from hearing the same voices.

GTA IV's opening week revenue was over $500 million.

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A lot of people are part of something that makes a lot of money elsewhere too, take the credits scene for a blockbuster film. How much work did they put in? $100,000 is still a lot of money.

 

[N_Cryo]

For better or worse, voice actors rarely are a major reason why people buy a video game. Whereas actors can be a huge draw or reason why a movie makes so much money, so their compensation is much higher.

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Makes me wonder how much the guest voices for CoD Black ops zombies maps got paid. Like how much does it cost to get Robert Englund Vs a regular like Steve Blum to be in the game.

 

[TSM]

He basically spelled out why it will never happen when he said that games would just use non union talent if residuals were a thing. Gaming is a situation where good voice acting is nice to have, but generally not make or break for most people.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

Fact of the matter is that the games industry is not Hollywood.

Actors are perhaps the biggest selling point of any given movie. In games however? Nobody gives a toss about who does the voice acting.

Hell, voice actors typically have a better deal than the actual game developers themselves, who nobody gives a toss about unless you are the extremely rare "auteur" figure, like Kojima or Sakurai.

The video game industry is a giant lump of shit for all involved, and will never be the equivalent of Hollywood.

 

[MetatronM]

A lot of people are part of something that makes a lot of money elsewhere too, take the credits scene for a blockbuster film. How much work did they put in? $100,000 is still a lot of money.

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Robert Downey Jr. made $75 million to star in just Avengers: Endgame, and I'm willing to bet that more people overall were involved in the production of Endgame than were involved in the production of GTA IV (unless you really go down the rabbit hole of music credits in GTA). Of course it's apples to oranges in that the people who worked on GTA IV likely had to be paid over longer periods of time than on Avengers, but $75 million is still 750 times $100,000 despite only bringing in a little over 2 times the revenue.

Obviously, Niko's actor shouldn't be making RDJ money as there's lots more to it than that including marketing, etc., but you can see why an actor might not consider it a lot of money relative to the business generated.

Hell, I worked on a supermarket commercial once where one of my jobs on the day was to deliver the celebrity talent's paycheck to her agent. The check was for $600,000, and that was only a 50% payment for the job. For a regional 30 second supermarket commercial that she worked on for about 6 hours.

So no, $100,000 really isn't a lot of money at all when you're talking about a starring role in a major piece of commercial media.

 

[Wing Scarab]

From what I read, the VA for GTA only worked "parts of 15 months" for $100K. That is a really good pay for the time worked, in my opinion.



I highly disagree. I believe the people who invested the 100 million into GTA IV should be entitled to the profits. Everyone on that project was paid for their time, that isn't fair?

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This is exactly my opinion also. If you were paid to do a job, why should I continue to pay you after said job was done. You don't see a builder get residual income every time a house he built gets sold.

 

[SpokkX]

Only 100 000$?!

...uh reality check? Compared to hollywood actors that is low - but compared to most people for.. that is a lot for a single project

 

[Armadilo]

Can argue for and against all day but can't compare to TV/Movies. TV/Movie stars are often the main commercial draw of the product. VA are not.

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That's the big main difference, to this day we still have games without voice actors and they are still amazing games.

 

[Rosenkrantz]

So no, $100,000 really isn't a lot of money at all when you're talking about a starring role in a major piece of commercial media.

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The thing is RDJ kickstarted MCU and Tony Stark and Cap were de facto faces of the franchise. The dude who voiced Niko isn't any of those things, the logo of R* in a trailer made a bigger marketing push (coupled with it being the first HD GTA) than any of the lines Niko said in a course of the entire game. The industries simply not comparable.

 

[skeezx]

hollywood "talent" pay gradient is very atypical. aside from professional sports and executive board positions nothing else will net you 10s of millions of dollars upfront

 

[Vilam]

I highly disagree. I believe the people who invested the 100 million into GTA IV should be entitled to the profits. Everyone on that project was paid for their time, that isn't fair?

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What are you, some kind of capitalist??

 

[GMM]

Voice actors shouldn't be any more entitled to residual checks than the development team itself, it's everyone or no one.

Residuals are a very tough thing to figure out because they should also be connected to the risk that the particular person took in order for the project to be completed and incentivize success.

Until the industry workers set up a Union and have actual leverage against their employers as a collective nothing will change, standardized rules for how residuals can earned and be paid out must be established.

 

[Nintendo]

Voice actors shouldn't be any more entitled to residual checks than the development team itself, it's everyone or no one.

Residuals are a very tough thing to figure out because they should also be connected to the risk that the particular person took in order for the project to be completed and incentivize success.

Until the industry workers set up a Union and have actual leverage against their employers as a collective nothing will change, standardized rules for how residuals can earned and be paid out must be established.

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Agreed

 

[fanboy]

Infamous had to sell 3 mil units to break even. It sold 3,5 mil in launch week according to troy? Wow

 

[Chance_Boudreaux]

Infamous had to sell 3 mil units to break even. It sold 3,5 mil in launch week according to troy? Wow

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Ya, I was going to add that in the OP but honestly wasn't sure if it was a known thing or not.

 

[mindsale]

If the industry issued residual checks, Troy Baker would stand nonstop at a bank teller for the rest of his natural lifespan.

 

[FakePlasticTree]

It's interesting that many people in this thread keep saying "voice actors aren't entitled to residues more than developers" I mean arguing for voice actors getting better payment isn't the same as saying developers should get nothing. Surely we are on the same side? They both deserve better. Come on people.

 

[Deleted member 13155]

The thing is RDJ kickstarted MCU and Tony Stark and Cap were de facto faces of the franchise. The dude who voiced Niko isn't any of those things, the logo of R* in a trailer made a bigger marketing push (coupled with it being the first HD GTA) than any of the lines Niko said in a course of the entire game. The industries simply not comparable.

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I don't even know who the VA of Niko Bellic is. Would I play GTA if it was someone else entirely, would the masses buy it if it was someone else? It wouldn't make a difference. Games get an announcement, gamers get hyped and pre-order. Much later we hear about the voice cast.

Movies are different. Mission Impossible without Cruise as Ethan Hunt would probably hurt profits. MCU is now ready to let RDJ go, because they built an established ensemble, but this would be unthinkable about 10 years ago.

 

[Jobbs]

Voice actors in games are immensely replaceable. The numnber of really talented people out there, whose names you've never heard of, who have the chameleon like ability to sound like a variety of characters if not *any* character is staggering. Many games could probably get away with hiring one or two or three actors to perform the roles of the entire cast and with talented hires no one would be the wiser.

Some of us enthusiasts recognize and appreciate particular actors in our games, but generally no one cares, and people don't buy games because of an actor being in them (unlike with movies) so you can understand why they don't get a big piece of the action or any piece of it. Like with anyone else they should be paid fairly for their talent and hard work, of course, but it's just not comparable to movies if anyone ever suggested it should be.

In the case of Niko, you could go find hundreds of unknown actors who could do the russian accent voice just fine and none of the players would have cared one way or the other. $100k sounds like a good paycheck for one role. Lots of other people probably worked harder and longer on the game for less money than that.

 

[TSM]

It's interesting that many people in this thread keep saying "voice actors aren't entitled to residues more than developers" I mean arguing for voice actors getting better payment isn't the same as saying developers should get nothing. Surely we are on the same side? They both deserve better. Come on people.

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It's just a reflection of the fact that little value is seen in voice acting all the way from the customers to the publishers. As long as the voice acting is serviceable most people are happy. So any energy they have to spend on residuals would be spent pushing for developers to be rewarded, and that is understandable.

 

[Deleted member 61326]

"Only" $100000. For how many hours of work?