So voice actors for games want something that actors behind cameras don't get?

Sure, I'll let them work for royalties... I hope they don't want anything up front though.

Reality is that royalties are a chance thing. They're not recording an album, they're not close to the main attraction of what they're in. Like the other guy said, they're like icing on a cake. They *maybe* get a line in the credits (which nobody reads) and most of the time they don't get that. It's your 'saga' type games that take hundreds of hours to complete that have even that much.

Good voice acting can help sell more of a good game, but nothing like good gameplay will.

like I said, I'll let them work for royalties... I hope they don't want anything more than maybe a penny per copy sold, probably less.

erm, if the people whom actually make the game come to life (eg all the developers and artists whom bring stuff to the screen) do not get royalities (and I believe most of them do not), then why the hell should actors whom can "provide the voice of several characters during a single recording session" get such a big piece of the action? Esp when they already get paid "$375" per hour according to that article. You know any developers that get paid $375 an hour?!?!

Sometimes I think "Team America" actually did make decent points about actors, because many just seem like whining greedy sons of bitches. I certainly would not be bitching about $375 per hour. For a 37.5 hour week, that would be $14062.5! Many people would be lucky to make that in months!

If actors should get anything, they should be on some kind of bonus scheme similar to that of the developers and artists whom may work years (rather then hours) on a project - and their rewards awarded in that context.

1. Voice actors breathe life into characters, especially in story-driven games. Voice actors are game developers just as the composers and the other audio slaves are game developers.

2. Voice actors who provide their voice(s) for an interactive entertainment product are providing their property at the behest of the game license or development studio. Providing original property allows the provider to license their property with or without a royalty payment system. Developers, such as programmers, usually do not provide original property; they provide time which is not subject to the same laws and regulations as licensing contractors. (Academic research suggests that licensing without royalties delivers more short-term benefit than licensing with royalties; however, licensing with royalties accumulates per project thus providing increasing long-term benefit.) Voice actors do not "get such a big piece of the action". They'd be extremely lucky to get a 40-hour gig. The typical earnings for a voice actor per project is a few thousand dollars, and that's it.

3. Non-celebrity voice actors are paid anywhere from $300 to $550 per hour while other developers are paid less per hour. The issue you haven’t considered is scale. How many hours do voice actors work? Certainly not 80 or more hours even during the crunch periods. Moreover, voice actors are usually not employed for the entire project. They are contracted for performance of a role or more, and then leave the project. The standard game developer might work at a studio for one to five years while the standard voice actor might work with a studio for a few hours, a few days, or a week.

I suppose a primer on payment methodologies is necessary.

Upfront payments are usually debated as this system presents the most risk to the licensee whereas the licensor will view an upfront payment as a commitment to the project and will likely be the only compensation the licensor will receive if the project is unsuccessful. [Note: This issue is contentious in the GDNet Help Wanted forum.]

Milestone payments reflect the diminishing risk associated with the project and reward the licensor receives during the contract. The negotiation therefore tends to focus on the level and frequency of the payments.

Royalty rates are the most flexible of the various payment systems as these are being taken from the revenue stream when there the only remaining risk is the product’s commercial performance. The royalty rates are often set and agree upon before the cost of goods is finalized, and therefore are subject to what is considered the eventual profitability of the product. Double-digit royalties are rarely given, even in the music industry.

The standard rate for a marketing communications firm, the people who design the promotions for a product, is around $80 to $300 per hour with $80-120 per hour being typical. A 40-hour brochure will yield $3,200 at the minimum average. Video production studios will likely charge around $10,000 for a 5-minute promotional film. Business-to-business business always deals in bigger numbers. There really is no basis to complain as an employee about how much more money is being exchanged at the B2B level because the trade-offs are significant. Contractors are like project vultures having to always seek out new income whereas employees usually have job stability, steady income, a daily routine, less responsibility, and advancement opportunities. Enterpreneurship is a crazy life. Entrepreneurs exhibit more control over their livelihood and portfolio, but they also take on more responsibilities such as to employees, contractors, investors, stakeholders, and shareholders. The point is that contractors, like entrepreneurs and voice actors, deal in bigger numbers because the strengths, weaknesses, risks, and benefits are scaled in favor of employees.

[sarcasm]Great! Money that could be put forth for better gameplay will instead go to... voice acting. Gee, just what I've always wanted.[/sarcasm]

It's like the article says, "They have no leverage".

Quote: Original post by Access
I mean,..need a thug's voice? Go get a thug off the streets,..I'm sure you'll find lots of hoodlums that'll take a fiver to say "gimme your money bit**"

Need a whiny teenager (Tidus, FFX) get one of the programmer's kids.
Seriously,..from my point of view these people are extremely replacable.
Screw em.

Anyway, quality of voice acting hardly even makes it to my list for deciding whether i like a game or not.

I know you're not entirely serious, but if you were serious, then I'd say you've obviously never heard a game when it still has its placeholder audio in.

Placeholder audio is usually comedically bad! :)

Cinema voice-actors are well-payed? I think it's only the famous ones.

Hi you all. Okay. (deep breath) Here's the thing:

In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists fought long and hard to win residuals for actors for the re-use of their likenesses, images and voices. Our bodies and our voices are, in essence, our product. That is what we sell. When someone (i.e., a producer) buys our "product," he pays a residual payment -- a royalty -- every time he uses our image, voice or likeness to make MORE money with it. It's a concept that is not new. It's more than half a century old. It's the way actors, writers and directors do business. It's as simple as that.

Now...

If the video game business wishes to use professional actors to bring their games to life, they are certainly welcome to do that. We welcome the work with open arms (and mouths in this case). However, the price of doing business with professional actors is the payment of residuals. (And remember...we are talking about a VERY, VERY small amount of money when compared to the amount of money a game is making. The actors' guilds have actually given video game producers an easy ride for many years now, allowing for the industry to "grow". Even now, the actors' guilds only asked for a small fee for the actor AFTER the FIRST 400,000 games have been sold! This residual payment would actually have only applied to THIRTY games last year, out of the hundreds, if not thousands, that are sold!)

Anyway, notwithstanding the very small residual payment the actors' guilds are asking for, THAT is how actors survive. On residual payments. (Of course, we are talking about the lesser known professional actors, not the stars, who are often paid upwards of half a million dollars to do a game!) Writers and directors are the same. Residual payments are our life blood. It's how we feed our children, send them to school, get health insurance, etc. (Would you rather that actors receive residual payments on their work and support themselves, or not receive residual payments for their work and get public taxpayers assistance...from YOUR wallet?)

Anyway...like I stated...video game work is certainly welcomed by actors. But why should video games be the ONLY MEDIUM exempt from paying residuals to actors? TV pays residuals. Radio pays residuals. Movies pay residuals. Cable pays residuals. Cartoons pay residuals. Even the Internet pays residuals! Why should video games be exempt?

If video game producers don't want to pay residuals, that's fine. Then just do what about 70% of the games do anyway...use the office workers or secretaries sitting around the company to do the voices. You know the games I'm talking about...the ones where the voices sound REALLY, REALLY bad. Cheesy is actually the word that comes to mind. That's fine. No problem whatsoever. Actors will be fine without video game work. (Of course, nobody sitting at home should complain about them!)

BUT...if you want professional actors who are going to breathe fantastic life into the characters on your screen -- actors who are going to bring passion and excitement and humor and irony into the characters -- then video game producers have to pay actors residuals. That's the price of doing business with professionals as opposed to amateurs.

Thanks for reading...very much appreciated. Take care.

Id assume to be working with a professional at "375" dollars a hour or somthing is seriously wrong, you can have a cry about royalties all you want, but while programmers, artists, etc arent recieving any, your going to have to do better than pull out some fancy talk bullsh!t to convince your average stubborn, tightass gamedev studio manager that you deserve more than the people building the game for the years of there life.

Have a nice day

I never said that the game developers aren't entitled to residuals themselves. They have every right to organize themselves and refuse to work without residuals. Who's stopping them from doing that? Certainly not actors. If game developers don't want to work without residuals, they shouldn't.

Actors don't work without residuals. We haven't since 1948.

Are you saying that we are obligated to do so? Are you saying that we MUST work for the pay that is being offered? I don't think we're obligated to do so.

Like I said -- if game producers don't want to pay the price of working with professional actors, then they shouldn't. They should just grab the secretary or the office cleaning crew or the vice-president of the company and have them do the voices for free. If gamers are happy with the quality of that voicework on the game that they've paid $30 bucks for, then go for it.

It's really as simple as that. I don't see what the big argument is.

Thanks.

The problem is that some people think that the difficulty of a job, the hours required to perform a job, and how much a job contributes to a product should affect the wage amount and payment type. That's not how it works in capitalism.

The basic rule: A fair and reasonable price is the amount the buyer is willing to pay. The willingness of a buyer to pay a certain price can be affected by various factors such as economics (e.g., supply and demand).