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  1. #61
    Over 9000! Poppincaps's Avatar
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    There's no doubt that the voice actors are talented and it is certainly true that what they are doing takes a lot of talent and not anyone can do it, but people referencing things like Movie or Animation are horribly out of touch. Many games don't even use voice acting and even in games that use it extensively like The Last of Us, there are still huge sections of time where little to no voice acting occurs. An actor in a movie has a MUCH larger impact on the quality of the movie. A voice actor in an animated show is the same way although to a somewhat lesser extent.

    If you really break it down the amount of work the voice actors do in a video game in comparison to everyone else is very small. So, even something like 1% commission when they realistically haven't even done 1% of the work is a lot. I certainly feel as if they are talented enough to be paid more, but the reality is that they are significant enough to be paid more. At least in comparison to Hollywood actors.

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    If you really break it down the amount of work the voice actors do in a video game in comparison to everyone else is very small. So, even something like 1% commission when they realistically haven't even done 1% of the work is a lot.
    You're pulling numbers out of your ass without anything to base it on.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Helryx View Post

    Crazy, crazy indeed.
    was actually shocked when I found out he played mccree. It's night and day, makes me want to play mccree more but I suck at him (can't aim for shit on console)
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  4. #64
    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    There's no doubt that the voice actors are talented and it is certainly true that what they are doing takes a lot of talent and not anyone can do it, but people referencing things like Movie or Animation are horribly out of touch. Many games don't even use voice acting and even in games that use it extensively like The Last of Us, there are still huge sections of time where little to no voice acting occurs. An actor in a movie has a MUCH larger impact on the quality of the movie. A voice actor in an animated show is the same way although to a somewhat lesser extent.

    If you really break it down the amount of work the voice actors do in a video game in comparison to everyone else is very small. So, even something like 1% commission when they realistically haven't even done 1% of the work is a lot. I certainly feel as if they are talented enough to be paid more, but the reality is that they are significant enough to be paid more. At least in comparison to Hollywood actors.
    the funny thing is... you don't even realize that there is still voice acting happening. every grunt, yelp of pain, dying noises that enemies make, breathing changing when running, or swimming or falling etc? what do you think THAT is? moreover, how strenuous it is to make all of those noises, how long it takes... and the last of us doesn't have nearly as much voice acting as say an RPG where are a lot more conversations. you take something that has conversation options? and voice acting becomes even more major. but back to something like the last of us.. you know the game where actors did actual full on physical acting. in mo-cap suits. in a way that you act in a TV show, but with minimal props so they didn't even have the help of costumes and environments to get the performance out... its like perpetual green screen acting, but even with green screen, you at least have a costume and a more realistic prop - we praise Andy Sirkis for his work, but the reality is, he is just the most well known becasue he does that for movies. more and more companies are using motion/face capture in conjunction with voice capture. and not just for cutscenes. for movement sets as well. its a LOT of work. a lot more work then even working on a cartoon voices... and there ARE residuals off the cartoon voices.

    in any case, voice acting in video games nowadays is a very different animal from what it used to be. while I'm still not quite sold on the whole residuals thing (although apparently according to Blum's calculations its something like $3k for an average game that may sell up to 8 mil copies in its lifetime, which... is not at all that much :/), dismissing voice actor's contributions to how well the game works is shortsighted.
    Last edited by Witchblade77; 2016-10-24 at 03:03 PM.

  5. #65
    Over 9000! zealo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Well, Blizzard has like 502 characters voiced by one dude, how hard can it be?
    A lot of video game voice acting is no longer just sitting in a booth and reading lines at this point, aside from the ones who have an absolutely ludicrous amount of voiced dialogue to go through, like Bioware rpgs. It requires more acting talent than just being able to project and shape your voice convincingly while just standing there.

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by zealo View Post
    A lot of video game voice acting is no longer just sitting in a booth and reading lines at this point, aside from the ones who have an absolutely ludicrous amount of voiced dialogue to go through, like Bioware rpgs. It requires more acting talent than just being able to project and shape your voice convincingly while just standing there.
    Being able to convincingly say a line of dialogue, with the appropriate level of inflection, tone, volume, emotion, etc... is what acting is all about. That's why famous actors from the big screen, or even the small screen, usually do amazingly well when voice acting..because they know how to ACT.

    Just because you don't see the character/ person doesn't mean voice acting takes less skill or ability than acting in person. I'd imagine it takes even more skill to VA, simply because of how nuanced a character voice can be, acting in person can cover some errors/ flubbing on the voice nuance because you can SEE what's happening so the voice doesn't have to be spot on for the emotion to be conveyed.

    Just re-iterating the point you're already making.

  7. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Katchii View Post
    Being able to convincingly say a line of dialogue, with the appropriate level of inflection, tone, volume, emotion, etc... is what acting is all about. That's why famous actors from the big screen, or even the small screen, usually do amazingly well when voice acting..because they know how to ACT.

    Just because you don't see the character/ person doesn't mean voice acting takes less skill or ability than acting in person. I'd imagine it takes even more skill to VA, simply because of how nuanced a character voice can be, acting in person can cover some errors/ flubbing on the voice nuance because you can SEE what's happening so the voice doesn't have to be spot on for the emotion to be conveyed.

    Just re-iterating the point you're already making.
    actualy funny story. voice acting requires slightly different set of skills from live action acting. in that... it helps a LOT to have live action experience, becasue it means you can act, period... but contrary to your statement, live actors don't actualy always do well in a sound booth. unlike movies - you get less time to figure things out, fewer takes, you have to full on pretend/use your imagination, becasue you get no props or costumes, voice acting IS acting, but it requires just a touch.. MORE from an actor. actors who tend to do well in voice booth are almost always someone with live theater experience.

    aka you are correct in your assumption that it takes more skill to be a VA.

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Witchblade77 View Post
    actualy funny story. voice acting requires slightly different set of skills from live action acting. in that... it helps a LOT to have live action experience, becasue it means you can act, period... but contrary to your statement, live actors don't actualy always do well in a sound booth. unlike movies - you get less time to figure things out, fewer takes, you have to full on pretend/use your imagination, becasue you get no props or costumes, voice acting IS acting, but it requires just a touch.. MORE from an actor. actors who tend to do well in voice booth are almost always someone with live theater experience.

    aka you are correct in your assumption that it takes more skill to be a VA.
    Yeah, wasn't trying to portray myself as an expert. I was interested in becoming a VA (still kind of am, not seriously, but the idea intrigues me) and have a buddy who's dad IS a VA so asked some questions and this is the basic answer I got.

    TL;DR from it was, you have to understand and have acting skills to be a VA, but like any craft, there are nuances within it that truly make you great.

  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by Katchii View Post
    Yeah, wasn't trying to portray myself as an expert. I was interested in becoming a VA (still kind of am, not seriously, but the idea intrigues me) and have a buddy who's dad IS a VA so asked some questions and this is the basic answer I got.

    TL;DR from it was, you have to understand and have acting skills to be a VA, but like any craft, there are nuances within it that truly make you great.
    yeah pretty much. i was at one point interested myself, so i did a while bunch of research, realized that I don't have anywhere near enough talent or drive to start developing those skills, but awareness of what it takes still remains. incidentally - this is a fantastic free resource https://iwanttobeavoiceactor.com/

  10. #70
    Over 9000! Poppincaps's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sydänyö View Post
    You're pulling numbers out of your ass without anything to base it on.
    My game development experience is what I'm basing it on. Let's say a voice actor does a full month of 8 hour days doing VO lines (that's excessive for anyone other than a MC and pretty overboard even for a MC). Compare that to a single dev who does 36 months of 8 hour days. Then multiply that by the number of developers on the team.

    Also Skyrim, which has a pretty large amount of VO dialog for a video game, clocks in at around 20 hours of VO total. Even if one person did all the VO, it shouldn't take you 240 hours (8 hours x 30 days) to get everything right.

  11. #71
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    Is this the reason for the awful Voiceacting for those male Suramar Guards? I mean seriously.

  12. #72
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    I am 100% in favor of not having any VO in games. VO is almost always entirely disruptive for me from an immersion standpoint. I am a talent snob, i admit, and a harsh critic to boot. And i would rather have no voiceover at all and just read the plot in subtitles than have to endure some other person's half-assed attempt at "acting" thier part. One of the very first things i innevitably do in most new games in turn off character dialog in the sound menu.

    The focus on (usually terrible) voice-over acting as a major "feature" in new games has been perpetually disappointing to me since the practice began gaining traction in the late 90s. It is especially bad in the indy game scene.

    Games that do VO right are so few and far between that the only ones i can think of off the top of my head are the Portal, Borderlands, and Saints Row games. And even then if im being honest, i think its the humorous writing that gets me more so than the caliber of the VO. I will say though that the comedian who played the little eye robot in Portal 2 was amazing. Stephen something.

  13. #73
    dont care about the rest but the gurl who voiced serana/jaina deserves to be paid more, her voice is gorgeous <3 <3 <3 <3 <3<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    My game development experience is what I'm basing it on. Let's say a voice actor does a full month of 8 hour days doing VO lines (that's excessive for anyone other than a MC and pretty overboard even for a MC). Compare that to a single dev who does 36 months of 8 hour days. Then multiply that by the number of developers on the team.
    Part of the rub is the voice-acting requires you to be there in-person. You can't be a remote contractor and send in art assets or whatnot. Video games probably pays a bit better, but last I heard for anime they paid like $67/hr for VAs. That sounds like a lot, until you consider they're contractors so they have to pay for their own insurance. They have to live in Dallas, LA, Vancouver, NY, or Chicago for the majority of the voice-work. They have to come in for auditions, of which they might not get the part. And when they land a part it might only be for a few hours or one week's worth of work. So you either need another job on top of the VA work, or you need to constantly be running yourself around scheduling new auditions and taking bit work here and there.

    It's not a very sustainable profession for all but the very top tier VAs.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Leyre View Post
    dont care about the rest but the gurl who voiced serana/jaina deserves to be paid more, her voice is gorgeous <3 <3 <3 <3 <3<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
    that would be Laura Bailey. and she is everywhere nowadays, starting to catch up to Jennifer Hale when it comes to being prolific http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1154161/

  16. #76
    Over 9000! Poppincaps's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by stellvia View Post
    Part of the rub is the voice-acting requires you to be there in-person. You can't be a remote contractor and send in art assets or whatnot. Video games probably pays a bit better, but last I heard for anime they paid like $67/hr for VAs. That sounds like a lot, until you consider they're contractors so they have to pay for their own insurance. They have to live in Dallas, LA, Vancouver, NY, or Chicago for the majority of the voice-work. They have to come in for auditions, of which they might not get the part. And when they land a part it might only be for a few hours or one week's worth of work. So you either need another job on top of the VA work, or you need to constantly be running yourself around scheduling new auditions and taking bit work here and there.

    It's not a very sustainable profession for all but the very top tier VAs.
    I've definitely heard of VAs doing Skype calls with a director and recording their audio in their own personal studio. You don't always have to be in person. Obviously for Mo-cap stuff you do, but not all games use Mo-Cap.

    I want to make it clear. I respect the work that VAs put in. I also respect and agree that they are incredibly talented. If this strike results in better pay for VAs with little to no effect on game devs, then that is great, but no one should be under the illusion that VAs are the most essential or put in the most work when creating a game.

  17. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by Tech614 View Post
    No, WoW as a whole has terrible VAing because they typically don't even hire actual actors to read the lines.

    I also hope you're joking with that "massive amount of VA work". The entirety of WoW from 2004-now doesn't have as much voice acting in it as a single JRPG like Persona 4 has. WoW has like on average 2-3 lines per boss fight, very rarely has a voice acted cut scenes and has a few lines NPCs repeat over and over to you. MASSIVE indeed lmao.
    Yes but due to being around for 10 years, it has accumulated a lot of VA work nonetheless.

    If it was released today it'd probably be fully voiced.

    You can call it terrible if you want, I disrespectfully disagree

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    I want to make it clear. I respect the work that VAs put in. I also respect and agree that they are incredibly talented. If this strike results in better pay for VAs with little to no effect on game devs, then that is great, but no one should be under the illusion that VAs are the most essential or put in the most work when creating a game.
    Actors don't put in the most work when making a film either. That's not how it works though.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Poppincaps View Post
    My game development experience is what I'm basing it on. Let's say a voice actor does a full month of 8 hour days doing VO lines (that's excessive for anyone other than a MC and pretty overboard even for a MC). Compare that to a single dev who does 36 months of 8 hour days. Then multiply that by the number of developers on the team.

    Also Skyrim, which has a pretty large amount of VO dialog for a video game, clocks in at around 20 hours of VO total. Even if one person did all the VO, it shouldn't take you 240 hours (8 hours x 30 days) to get everything right.
    Hey if you want to say that game devs are overworked, underpaid and under-respected you have no arguments from me there.
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  18. #78
    The Lightbringer DesoPL's Avatar
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    This is last call for changes in whole gaming industry, if this strike fails... Seems people kinda like what bigger companies such EA, Activision or Ubisoft doing right now an mess. And then i will lose my faith to video games...
    .

  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Zenotetsuken View Post
    Going to play devil's advocate here for a second... We are talking about the same 10-15 voice actors that have done every single video game voice for the past 15 years. If you are being treated like shit at a job, you don't spend 15 years doing it, then bitch one day that you are NOW above being treated like shit. This over dramatic whipping people into a frenzy is what unions do, and have always done.
    If you can't see this as nothing more than grandstanding, then you haven't been paying attention.
    People are complacent and defeated under pretty shitty work conditions.

    Go to a fuckin Supermarket and look at the guys at the checkout. Do they look happy? No. Are they going to complain? No.

    Complaining about your job is the last fucking thing you do in this era when it could take you months, years, just to get a menial job, and companies take advantage of that.

    Perhaps only now they feel safe enough with enough job security to actually fuckin complain about the crazy shit that goes on?

  20. #80
    Quote Originally Posted by Vjnzen View Post
    Is this the reason for the awful Voiceacting for those male Suramar Guards? I mean seriously.
    Maybe you should stop hiding things with illusions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    Look Batman really isn't an accurate source by any means
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    It is a fact, not just something I made up.

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