Very this. Comparing games vs movies in terms of who's who is absolutely apples to oranges, as is looking at it as a % of opening revenue. Games are not movies
Major movie actors bring starpower and prestige to a movie. Video game voice actors don't, at all.
I agree with 100% you say except for the bold part. I don't believe they have a large part in making the game at all. I mean there are plenty of games out there made without any voice actors and those games perform very well.
A lot less people can do it to an acceptable standard than you think let alone do it really well. It's a talent that requires a lot of training and financial commitment early on in life for no guarantee that you'll actually get work.
That isn't fair and this is what is wrong with capitalism. We only award investors and not the people actually responsible for producing the product. The investors didn't crunch 80+ hours a week for a year or more to make the game. And I can assure you that the devs weren't compensated "fairly."
He was essentially the lead actor. These games make like a billion dollars. Voice actors should be paid appropriately for their critical roles. $100,000 over several years is WAY too little for a GTA game.
These days it's not just about voice acting. Which again, is also demanding work to put in a good performance. For the majority of AAA games actors don't just sit in a booth to record their lines, they have to act out the role. It's a lot of very physical work and everyone involved treats it like they're shooting a movie because in essence, they are. With props, sets, etc. especially for games with bigger budgets and lengthy cinematics. Loads of people can do it, but there are a lot of stories from people not used to this sort of thing having to get used to it.
Over several years for a lead role in the biggest video game on Earth? Yes. That is bad.
This is going to become muddier and muddier over time, though. We've been doing mocap since the PS2 generation, actors are getting their faces scanned in and doing facial mocap, and there's still general woes about the voice actor industry in games like Troy not being called back for Rhys in Borderlands 3 because Gearbox went non-union. Everyone should be treated well, as everyone on all fronts is putting in more and more work to make these projects a reality at cost to their own health more often than not in the AAA space.
It's honestly like Andy Serkis syndrome taken to it's logical extreme, with, way less recognition than Andy Serkis.
I mean, you spend 2-3-7 days working on VA and its over and you move on to other stuff, 100000 $ for 1 week is great. Even if it is for the biggest thing on the planet.
Lmao you think it takes one week to record a game when you're the lead character in a Rockstar game? Or any AAA game released in this day and age?
Can you please enlighten me about the time needed please? 1 month?
There's a reason VAs/SAG went on strike in 2017.
www.polygon.com
My main takeaway from that is you probably shouldn't pursue a career in voice acting if you strain or damage your voice in just 2-4 hours.There's a reason VAs/SAG went on strike in 2017.
Voice actors speak out about their 300-day fight for basic needs
‘I wish the new agreement were stronger’
www.gamesoundcon.com
www.gamesindustry.biz
I am not sure about the success of a muted Rockstar game.
Wdym, forcing yourself to cry on demand to do an emotional scene is not demanding work.
Consider the following, AAA games tend to have over an hr and a half of cinematics at the very least. That's usually the average. Most AAA games these days feature extensive performance capture and have larger casts than what we used to get. Scenes are not recorded in a linear fashion. And each scene has to have, a shit ton of takes. That's not counting reshoots or rewrites. Sets and props have to be built. And again, we're only talking about the performance capture, not the time spent in the booth recording lines for in game dialogue, which again, is a shit ton of takes. We're long past the time where say, Nolan North would record literally all of his lines for Desmond in a single day and be done with that project until the sequel. Especially for lead characters. For some perspective, TLOU Part 2 was announced in 2016. So all the tech and mocap was being worked on, in that timeframe. They wrapped up shooting for cinematics three years later.
Actors put in a ton of work to bring these characters to life, (the animators and everyone else involved to). It is absolutely not average work or the result of a lack of prep. It's not just, "Ok let's record the scenes k done."
You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. Holy shit.
Their roles are not critical though. 99.9% of people buying the game couldn't care less who the VA's are.
(1) He worked for 15 months, (2) was paid far above the industry standard for an unknown VA, and (3) I'd love to hear a case for why contracted talent should be paid residuals when salaried developers are not.
