Video Game Voice Actors Now on Strike After Negotiations Fail http://

[Tech614]

I don't get why people are arguing about game developer being overworked and under paid.

They are, and no one is saying otherwise nor are VAs saying otherwise. They should fight for theirs much like VAs are. The only people in the video game world getting compensated well are company and team leads, and they get paid way more fucking money then they should. They should all take a hint from Iwata when he slashed his salary in half to not only insure no one got fired, but everyone got a raise.

[Zenotetsuken]

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?

The difference is that the people working at the checkout aren't "Professional" checkout people, they just do it as a job. Voice actors choose to do what they do, because it is what they have decided that they are "Professional" at.

My issue isn't even with them, it is with the union. A union's power comes from the understanding that each member is an indispensable part of a workforce. A voice actors union is essentially based around racketeering. If you want a voice actor to fill a role, then you need to hire all union voice actors, even if the other voice acting parts aren't enough to actually require a specialist. So instead of paying this 1 person, you need to pay 30 people.

[Pendulous]

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?

Can confirm. Work in a place where saying the word "union" literally gets your store shut down.

[Nerraw]

Kel'Thuzad (and/or Kael'thas, whichever you mentioned) and Anub'arak have retained the same voice actors since WC3. Blizzard uses the same pool of voice actors for all of their characters and they never really change them. The only one they've truly lost is the one for Arthas from WC3, the others have all remained.

Anub'arak is NOT voiced by Steve Blum anymore.

[Lane]

Series of tweets by Tara Strong implies these people don't know how voice acting even works.

I can't imagine it gets more top tier than Tara Strong, she has amazing talent.

I'm still sad about losing the original Sylvanas voice actor.

Same.

The VA for Thassarian is different in Legion and it's such a stark change from Frank Welker's version in Wrath, it's almost like an entirely different character.

[Jimmy Thick]

I wonder what David Hayter feels about this?

Jimmy Thick-* in my solid snake voice * "Not getting paid? How does that work..."

[Zogarth]

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.

A game like Witcher 3 would lose a lot of its charm without Geralts deadpan voice and no-care attitude. Something like that cannot be communicated through pure text. One of my favorite games of all time is Bastion pretty much solely due to the beautiful art-style and the amazing voice-over and general audio.

Games have a lot of elements often taken for granted. A great soundtrack and/or voice-acting can take a good game and make it great, while at the same time take a good game and make it suck.