Video game voice actors give the National Board "the green light" to vote strike if needed

[Guest]

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Don't argue about voices in games versus not, pointless argument...

[SpaceNugget]

Voice acting can also enhance games by a lot. Not all games are like COD where you say fuck it and rush in ignoring everything else.

 

yes it can, but that doesn't make it essential as they are proposing it is. I am not arguing against them being paid % royalties in games where voice acting makes sense. tie their earnings to the earnings of the game. It doesn't get more fair than that.

 

Don't argue about voices in games versus not, pointless argument...

 

Except thats the basis of their argument that they need more pay, because they are supposedly the make or break part of a game, the jimquisition piece acts like if the voices were gone the last of us would not be an amazing game. A good rule of thumb is to not give an ultimatum where you aren't the overwhelmingly obvious choice.

 

Voice actors simply don't deserve as much money as the dev team. They don't put in as much work, they don't have as much at stake. They don't need as much specialized training or skill.

 

Don't start with the weird sounds being straining on your voice shit. Take an average person off the street that can read and they can do voice acting. Will it suck? probably, but they can do it. Compare that to taking an average person off the street and setting them down in front of a computer with 3D modeling software and a game engine or god forbid ask them to code a game without a prebuilt engine and see how much progress they make without training.

 

PS:learn to multiquote. 

[patrickjp93]

so. lets take a minute to think about this.

how hard is the job. you know. talking into a microphone

sitting down or standing up.

What is bad about these conditions again ?

Embodying a character is much more difficult than you might expect, and it has to be perfectly in time with mouth movements which have to be studied for many hours to get the timing down. Then the directors get picky with subtleties and how the voice overlays with the background sounds including music and the environment. Screen acting is a fair bit more difficult than stage acting. In stage acting there's room for flexible timing of delivery and a certain natural change in flow. For games where the devs aren't going to re-tailor the animation to what the actor thinks is his/her best take of the voice, that flexibility doesn't exist.

[MrDynamicMan]

LOL at his claim that whoever voiced Vaas is what made Far Cry 3. The hunting and the stealth takeovers when taking down bases made Far Cry 3 fun to play. And the towers. The cutscenes were boring. The programmers, artists, and level designers are who I thank for Far Cry 3 being such an awesome game.

Vaas is probably one of the most iconic characters in video games, no? "Making farcry 3" was not literally. You need to comprehend that even if you don't care about the story it is an equally important as gameplay.And Vaas was the defining character in the story.

TlDR: Just because you dont care about a part of the game doesn't mean it is unimportant

[Misanthrope]

That's the stupidest fucking rant I have ever heard. I'm dying laughing listening to this guy. He looks like a broke Kim Dotcom.

 

You watch.

 

not everyone enjoys the same things in video games. I happen to be one of the types to enjoy, you know, playing them, not watching them. I don't care if morgan freeman narrates the damn thing, If its not fun to play I don't care about it.

[Misanthrope]

I am on the side of the voice actors, and I also agree its shitty the developers and coders dont get enough money either, its not fair, I mean I was sat playing MGS V yesterday listening to the tapes and I was thinking.. fucking hell I hope they got paid a lot for this, there is like 100 billion hours of dialogue, and the game would lost without it,

In story driven narrative games I would argue the voice talent is THE most important aspect of the game, outside of basic mechanics and graphics, games like Mass Effect, The Walking Dead etc, these are performance driven games, and its unfair if the voice actor gets a pittance for all their work making the character what it is

 

 

 

 

Lets not forget many voice acting roles now also involve performance and motion capture, sometimes the voice actor has to do this too, its 100% about bringing the game character to life

 

You're wrong: I told you this on the same thread I made about this before: You're a hypocrite since you enjoyed perfectly fine story driven games before there was any voice acting and I'm sure you also can enjoy a good old fucking book.

 

People who claim they can't enjoy a videogame without voice acting are as lazy as people who say they can't watch a movie that's subtitled: you either have a real problem with reading too slow or you're just arbitrarily not giving them a chance.

[ShadowCaptain]

You're wrong: I told you this on the same thread I made about this before: You're a hypocrite since you enjoyed perfectly fine story driven games before there was any voice acting and I'm sure you also can enjoy a good old fucking book.

 

People who claim they can't enjoy a videogame without voice acting are as lazy as people who say they can't watch a movie that's subtitled: you either have a real problem with reading too slow or you're just arbitrarily not giving them a chance.

 

I did not say I cannot enjoy a game without voice acting..

 

But if your game DOES have voice acting, I expect it A) to be of stellar quality and B) that the voice actor gets the recognition and pay they deserve

 

I actually do avoid RPG games that do not have voice acted parts - or if I do play them, i enjoy them less. Games like KOTOR, Mass Effect etc I think are defined by the voice work done in the game

 

 

Wrong? I am not wrong, its my opinion, it might differ from yours, and thats fine, but nobody is "more correct" here..

 

I enjoy games with good voice acting MORE than I enjoy games without voice acting, actually I would think 90% of my favourite games, and games I play, have voice acted parts

 

GTA, LA Noire, Mass Effect, Kotor, Metro, Half Life, Portal, Max Payne, Bioshock, etc etc - All made better through fantastic voice acting, and would be lesser without it

[Misanthrope]

Embodying a character is much more difficult than you might expect, and it has to be perfectly in time with mouth movements which have to be studied for many hours to get the timing down. Then the directors get picky with subtleties and how the voice overlays with the background sounds including music and the environment. Screen acting is a fair bit more difficult than stage acting. In stage acting there's room for flexible timing of delivery and a certain natural change in flow. For games where the devs aren't going to re-tailor the animation to what the actor thinks is his/her best take of the voice, that flexibility doesn't exist.

 

Can't remember the last time a video game had properly lip synced voice acting. I also can't remember the last time that took me out of the game. Their lips can flop about randomly for all I care in fact I barely notice this unless they keep flapping after a word or sentence is over and it will look good enough.

 

I also don't even mind this on movies because again, I had the advantage of growing up with English as second language so I can easily deal with lip syncing not being a thing that ever happens. You people just can't suspend disbelief at all it seems.

[patrickjp93]

Can't remember the last time a video game had properly lip synced voice acting. I also can't remember the last time that took me out of the game. Their lips can flop about randomly for all I care in fact I barely notice this unless they keep flapping after a word or sentence is over and it will look good enough.

 

I also don't even mind this on movies because again, I had the advantage of growing up with English as second language so I can easily deal with lip syncing not being a thing that ever happens. You people just can't suspend disbelief at all it seems.

It's the directors who allow for no error. I'm only saying what the standard is, not what the audience can tolerate.

[Dabombinable]

I did not say I cannot enjoy a game without voice acting..

 

But if your game DOES have voice acting, I expect it A) to be of stellar quality and B) that the voice actor gets the recognition and pay they deserve

 

I actually do avoid RPG games that do not have voice acted parts - or if I do play them, i enjoy them less. Games like KOTOR, Mass Effect etc I think are defined by the voice work done in the game

 

 

Wrong? I am not wrong, its my opinion, it might differ from yours, and thats fine, but nobody is "more correct" here..

 

I enjoy games with good voice acting MORE than I enjoy games without voice acting, actually I would think 90% of my favourite games, and games I play, have voice acted parts

 

GTA, LA Noire, Mass Effect, Kotor, Metro, Half Life, Portal, Max Payne, Bioshock, etc etc - All made better through fantastic voice acting, and would be lesser without it

From what I've seen, if you don't want voice acting, play multiplayer.

[Misanthrope]

I did not say I cannot enjoy a game without voice acting..

 

But if your game DOES have voice acting, I expect it A) to be of stellar quality and B) that the voice actor gets the recognition and pay they deserve

 

I actually do avoid RPG games that do not have voice acted parts - or if I do play them, i enjoy them less. Games like KOTOR, Mass Effect etc I think are defined by the voice work done in the game

 

 

Wrong? I am not wrong, its my opinion, it might differ from yours, and thats fine, but nobody is "more correct" here..

 

I enjoy games with good voice acting MORE than I enjoy games without voice acting, actually I would think 90% of my favourite games, and games I play, have voice acted parts

 

GTA, LA Noire, Mass Effect, Kotor, Metro, Half Life, Portal, Max Payne, Bioshock, etc etc - All made better through fantastic voice acting, and would be lesser without it

 

1) I don't think you enjoy them less. I think it's just a placebo effect, that's like saying you cannot enjoy a story if it's not an audio book fuck reading an actual book. In any case you're mostly arguing this out of your need to be contrarian as you often do around this part: you're the guy that loves to come in an say "I actually like paying a premium for Apple products!" and such just to get a raise out of people. So excuse me if I dismiss your arguments

 

2) Wrong = in my opinion, not subjectively. Stop exaggerating something that's pretty self evident.

3) GTA games, Bioware games and action games existed long before voice acting and are not any better due to it. You're unfairly tying all of the OTHER aspects that were improved (Except for Bioware games mind you) like the better graphics and gameplay elements and then giving the credit to the most insignificant part which is the voice acting.

Sure GTA III was an infinitely better game. But it wasn't the voice acting, it was the fact that it was an open world 3D fucking game instead of a top down 2D game. That's like saying "Oh Mario 64 is a better experience, not because it's now 3D but because you can know hear him say "It's a me! Mario!"

[Misanthrope]

It's the directors who allow for no error. I'm only saying what the standard is, not what the audience can tolerate.

 

So the director made sure that the dialog is lip synced for the spanish subtitles as well? Gee, thanks for reading my post.

[Dabombinable]

 

1) I don't think you enjoy them less. I think it's just a placebo effect, that's like saying you cannot enjoy a story if it's not an audio book fuck reading an actual book. In any case you're mostly arguing this out of your need to be contrarian as you often do around this part: you're the guy that loves to come in an say "I actually like paying a premium for Apple products!" and such just to get a raise out of people. So excuse me if I dismiss your arguments

 

2) Wrong = in my opinion, not subjectively. Stop exaggerating something that's pretty self evident.

3) GTA games, Bioware games and action games existed long before voice acting and are not any better due to it. You're unfairly tying all of the OTHER aspects that were improved (Except for Bioware games mind you) like the better graphics and gameplay elements and then giving the credit to the most insignificant part which is the voice acting.

Sure GTA III was an infinitely better game. But it wasn't the voice acting, it was the fact that it was an open world 3D fucking game instead of a top down 2D game. That's like saying "Oh Mario 64 is a better experience, not because it's now 3D but because you can know hear him say "It's a me! Mario!"

Quite simple. If you don't think games need voice acting, or don't want voice acting in the games you play, either don't play those games, or go to the menu and disable voices and be left to your ignorance of what the majority of people like in games.

[ShadowCaptain]

1) I don't think you enjoy them less. I think it's just a placebo effect, that's like saying you cannot enjoy a story if it's not an audio book fuck reading an actual book. In any case you're mostly arguing this out of your need to be contrarian as you often do around this part: you're the guy that loves to come in an say "I actually like paying a premium for Apple products!" and such just to get a raise out of people. So excuse me if I dismiss your arguments

 

2) Wrong = in my opinion, not subjectively. Stop exaggerating something that's pretty self evident.

 

 Its true,, its not a placebo effect, its my preference, and I don't read books, I do listen to audiobooks, and I have stopped listening to audiobooks that have voiced I don't like.

 

I am not being contrarian, I actually very much enjoy voice acting, to the point that I will buy games, or watch movies, or listen to books that have certain voices in. 

 

If you dont care about voice acting, thats cool, lots of games dont have it, I just dont enjoy playing them too much, 

 

EDIT : one reason I listen to dubbed anime, since I dont enjoy listening to Japanese voice acting, and I dont enjoy reading the text to get the story, if its a bad dub, I just wont watch the show at all

[patrickjp93]

So the director made sure that the dialog is lip synced for the spanish subtitles as well? Gee, thanks for reading my post.

That's an issue that comes up when going to different, lower value markets. Subtitling gets rushed.

[Misanthrope]

That's an issue that comes up when going to different, lower value markets. Subtitling gets rushed.

That did not deter from my enjoyment of the films. And neither does poor lip syncing. Go watch Skyrim cut scenes the actors mainly open and close their lips like fish, that's the extend of the "sync" you get for most videogames: you never see characters form an "O" or open their mouths wider for an "ee" sound or anything like that. And yet before people started defending the voice actors on this topics I never seen that as a complain about the quality of games.

[Misanthrope]

Its true,, its not a placebo effect, its my preference, and I don't read books, I do listen to audiobooks, and I have stopped listening to audiobooks that have voiced I don't like.

That invalidates your opinion on the subject (again in my totally and completely subjective opinion before you make a big deal out of that again) and it points out to an out of practice or below average reading skill on your part.

[Misanthrope]

Quite simple. If you don't think games need voice acting, or don't want voice acting in the games you play, either don't play those games, or go to the menu and disable voices and be left to your ignorance of what the majority of people like in games.

I am not repeating myself go back and read my comments on the subject: Not being needed doesn't means is not nice to get, just not if it's at the expense of basically not paying and recognizing the people who actually made the fucking game possible.

[ShadowCaptain]

That invalidates your opinion on the subject (again in my totally and completely subjective opinion before you make a big deal out of that again) and it points out to an out of practice or below average reading skill on your part.

 

I have perfectly fine reading skills, I just don't enjoy it as a past time, I occasionally read, but rarely, its just not a medium I enjoy

 

So if somebody doesn't enjoy something that invalidates their opinion? that means that your opinion is invalidated since you don;t care about voice acting, therefore anything you say against it, is because of your bias of not caring about it

 

See how that works?

 

 

I am not repeating myself go back and read my comments on the subject: Not being needed doesn't means is not nice to get, just not if it's at the expense of basically not paying and recognizing the people who actually made the fucking game possible.

 

Wait - i agree its not at the expense of the people who MADE the game

 

Programmers should get a fair wage too.. but that is a different union, differ net discussion and something else that needs addressing 

 

[patrickjp93]

That did not deter from my enjoyment of the films. And neither does poor lip syncing. Go watch Skyrim cut scenes the actors mainly open and close their lips like fish, that's the extend of the "sync" you get for most videogames: you never see characters form an "O" or open their mouths wider for an "ee" sound or anything like that. And yet before people started defending the voice actors on this topics I never seen that as a complain about the quality of games.

If you're forming a wide, thin mouth on an ee vowel, you're doing it incorrectly anyway, but that aside, different game studios and directors will have different expectations. For GW2 it's actually a big finishing touch that all the speech looks natural and is very nicely synced.

[Dabombinable]

That did not deter from my enjoyment of the films. And neither does poor lip syncing. Go watch Skyrim cut scenes the actors mainly open and close their lips like fish, that's the extend of the "sync" you get for most videogames: you never see characters form an "O" or open their mouths wider for an "ee" sound or anything like that. And yet before people started defending the voice actors on this topics I never seen that as a complain about the quality of games.

Skyrim is buggy AF without mods-mods actually fixed issues like that as Bethesda couldn't be bothered. Even with the DLC they later released.

[Misanthrope]

If you're forming a wide, thin mouth on an ee vowel, you're doing it incorrectly anyway, but that aside, different game studios and directors will have different expectations. For GW2 it's actually a big finishing touch that all the speech looks natural and is very nicely synced.

Ok so going back to the original point: It's something that while is nice to get is not needed for your overall enjoyment of the game. I must point out the Maddox video since he's pretty on point for this: you're playing a game for the main reason of it being a game. The elements that enable the gameplay mechanics are the most important. And even the elements that enhance it's presentation, voice acting is further down the line than visual fidelity and art style for example. I never seen someone say "Oh this game looks dated, the controls are fucking broken and it's repetitive and boring to play overall and the story was just atrocious cliche I saw coming since 5 minutes in, but I kept playing because I was captivated by the voice of James Earl Jones on the audio!"

 

That is to say, I never seen people made that argument before this voice actor strike story broke out.

[Misanthrope]

Skyrim is buggy AF without mods-mods actually fixed issues like that as Bethesda couldn't be bothered. Even with the DLC they later released.

 

Never seen a "Proper voice lyp synch" mod on any Skyrim top mods list anywhere though. And I do follow up on Skyrim mods a lot.

[Misanthrope]

I have perfectly fine reading skills, I just don't enjoy it as a past time, I occasionally read, but rarely, its just not a medium I enjoy

 

So if somebody doesn't enjoy something that invalidates their opinion?

 

For the purposes of discussing that specific topic of conversation, yes familiarity and enjoyment is key. I do not make it a habit of considering the music taste and opinions of someone who listens to pop music when discussing Death Metal and why should I? That doesn't means that you're intrinsically wrong for not reading books, it's just means that I don't consider your opinion on the subject of reading books vs audio books valid.

 

Wait - i agree its not at the expense of the people who MADE the game

Programmers should get a fair wage too.. but that is a different union, differ net discussion and something else that needs addressing

Ok this is at least a separate point being addressed. 

 

1) Voice actors getting residuals before game developers just because of outside intervention from a Hollywood actors union is basically insulting

 

2) Having Unions is not necessarily in anyone's best interest: nobody wants Unions. Not even most workers

 

2) Every time a part of a business is unionized, it affects all non unionized works as well as their ability to negotiate a Union agreement if they were to unionize. Basically, Publishers will only agree to give up so much of their profits and it will be a first come, first serve basis meaning that this adds to 1 and also ensures that game devs will be mostly underpaid compared to the guy who comes in to read lines out of a sheet of paper the last 2 months of development vs the guys who have been working 15 hour days without rest for the past 3 years.

[Dabombinable]

Never seen a "Proper voice lyp synch" mod on any Skyrim top mods list anywhere though. And I do follow up on Skyrim mods a lot.

Look under animations.