Why game developers would pay more than they need to for celebrity voice actors is beyond me, but Hollywood actors are getting into the game business and coming away with five figure paychecks -- for talking!
A Reuters article says that voice actors are paid about $760 according to Screen Actors Guild rules. That's not bad for half a day's work, but big name celebrities are earning much more.
Lev Chapelsky, the general manager of production company that contracts screen actors to do game voice work, says that it is common for these celebs to get paychecks in the high five figures for a single session. One unnamed star received $500,000 for a single session, and another demanded $750,000 for his voice -- and that was for an hour's worth of work!
Sure, actors like Keith David (Halo's Arbiter), Terrence Carson (God of War's Kratos), and Michael Ironside (Splinter Cell) have added some real value to the games they've contributed to. But I would say that it had little to do with their level of screen celebrity and more to do with the quality of their performance. And who's to say that your $760 per session guy couldn't bang out an equally compelling performance?
Is any voice performance in any videogame by any actor worth $500,000 to your ears?
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
5:20 PM on 02.02.2008
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And, assuming it was quite a bit, I wonder if the guys who made XIII would like to tear their hair out for casting him.
Would love to do voice acting but could never imagine even asking for salaries like that and feel like it's justified.
Sometimes, it pays to get the best.
Tiffany-Grant gets way too much credit in every sense of the term. Laura-Bailey doesn't get enough.
I feel the cost might be justified if their performance was stellar and added to the overall feel to the game so much that you just couldn't see anyone else doing it, i.e. David Hayter as Snake. Granted these are few and far between for most games. But good voice work can make a good game more immersive, imagine if Heavenly Sword didn't have that kick ass voice work. I think companies do it just to add a famous person's name to the game credits and generate more buzz for it.
I have to say, Keith David has done a lot for video games. I've heard his voice in a lot of games. The guy does a good job.
But, I would like to see companies find actual good voice actors, as well as voice directors on games today. There are still way too many games that have very subpar voice acting. Video games are on the same level as Funimation anime dubbing, and that is not a compliment.
There are games the break the standard of crap though, and if they have to pay money to get it, I think that it will be worth it.
The huge figures you're talking about for big names have absolutely nothing to do with performance. They're paying to attach the celebrity name. So yes although I personally think it's bullshit the of extra press and sales a celebrity attachment can bring to a project can be huge.
What do you think will a company do with the money they "save"?
Sell cheaper games, invest it into other parts of the game's development, pay higher wages to their development staff, give the high level executives a nice bonus, or give it to shareholders?
The answer is probably none of the above as the game's development is planned in advance and not after the game is finished, meaning that they (development team, producer, executives) see some sort of value in this investment.
And why should voice actors not take as much as they can? To help a company finance their game, or to support the shareholders, CEO and other highly paid executives? Not really.
Or to support the development team?
Lets say the 500.000$ get spend on the development team of 200 people instead of the voice actor (who works for free in this little theory). If you were willing to spend that much money for a voice actor the you are probably working on one of the bigger games(Triple-A game (or AAA or however it is written these day)). So 500,000$/200 = 25,000$ for each team member. Now if this is a really big game they probably need at least two or three years to create something (at least in some way) unique. So now we have 25,000$/3 = 8,333.33$ per year (or 694.44$ per month). Some part of that goes to taxes and the poor developer sees even less.
Now do you really think a company has more to win from a highly paid (and probably mainstream popular) voice actor or from paying their team more?
Or another version: 500,000$ pays roughly five low to mid level programmers for two years (depending on location and other details).
Which one is a more attractive solution to risk averse, and highly paid, executives?
I agree that big name stars sometimes detract from the immersive experience because I tend to see the actor. Like with David Duchovney in Area 51. Except it did kind of make the game a lot funnier than it was supposed to be.
Either way, 750,000$ per session is way too much for anybody, I don't care who you are you aren't worth that much for your voice alone.
Most gamers seem to be proud of the fact that the gaming industry gets bigger revenues than Hollywood these days. They also spend alot of time making the case for games as art, "an upcoming medium that may one day garner as much respect as film". They also tend to complain very loudly when the voice acting in a game is bad.
So the point is: You want decent voice acting? You want your beloved games to be taken serious as a medium? You want your industry to continue to grow and gain more mainstream appeal?
Yes? Then suck it up.
I doubt this extra cost even drives up the price of the game very much from our end. Last I checked, games still aren't very expensive, especially when you consider the incredibly low price to entertainment ratio. So a triple A is going to cost maybe $10 more than a second rate game with poor voice acting. That's a minimal cost for the consumer, which is made up to the publisher in increased sales.
"but acting is acting, and voice-over work is not."
Oh god, you completely fail. Do you have any idea how much harder an actor has to work to make the lines convincing when he/or she has to stand 4 inches away from a mike all day? An actor is essentially robbed of 90% percent of his tools and has to "act out" every gesture and emotion with just his voice. It may be not as much busy work to you, where I guess in your estimation someone should be paid by the jumpkick, but it is a lot harder.
If you said that to a working voice actor they would immolate your face with hellfire screams.
These guys earned every penny. Here's something for you to think about: Who was a better actor, Hayden Christensen, or some random cg alien with a line in Ep. 1-3? Who got paid more? Who should've been paid more? Who made you suspend disbelief and believe that something that looked like a three legged vagina speaks? let's not even get into how under paid the animators are...
OK, that wasn't totally the voice actors' faults, since it was written so badly. Still...
The long answer: Experienced voice actors aren't needed unless you have to localize a foreign-made game. It seems that animators have to work around the actor now instead of actors working within the animation. Because of this, you don't necessarily need to hire someone that the general public hasn't heard of just because they know how to work dialog from one language into the mouth movements of another.
You also have to consider that people might feel better about paying $60 for a 20-hour game if the characters are voiced by actors from the big screen. It's even better when the characters are actually modeled after the actors themselves.
Are they being paid to much? Hell, I don't know. I don't know how much time goes into the whole gig vs. what goes into a movie. They don't have to deal with all the makeup and wardrobe bullshit, but they still have to do take after take for both voice and motion capture.
"Celebrity" voice actors... well, how to put it... they only try to make the most out of their celebrity-ness, I guess.
Also, I don't believe any game publisher shelled out 500k for just an hour of voice acting. C'mon.
Take an analogy from the music industry. Most bands/musicians tour to get paid, spread their name, etc. But a large number of them also have methods by which you can hire them for events, parties, whatever. For example, a friend of mine in college raised $5-$10K to hire Ben Folds to play a show in our SU. That's cheap because Ben Folds is a cool guy. But many bands will charge upwards of 50K if you want to hire them for a show.
So, I could hire some local band for my event whose music might be absolutely amazing for a reasonable price, or I could hire REM for 250K (or whatever) because everyone knows REM and it will draw more people.
Same thing goes for voice acting. I'm sure there are plenty of decent voice actors out there who will work for a reasonable rate (and no, it is not an easy art). But if you want the name recognition, the familiarity of the voice, and possibly the rights to use the actors face in the game or box art, then you should be prepared to pay that actor's particular fee.
As I mentioned above, publishers are likely willing to do this if they think it will bump up sales high enough to make it profitable. Don't forget that this is a business after all.
I had to stop playing Mass Effect and look up who was the voice of Joker because I knew I recognized it.
The ONLY case where it helps, is if the game is a licensed property and there is a real life analogue to the characters in game. Otherwise it's a waste of money to buy a name, when you can hire a professional for much less AND often get superior work.
What, no Steve Blum love? That guy is in EVERYTHING.
If it's the case that it's not actually working (I don't personally keep track of sales figures), then maybe you can take your figures to the developers and publishing companies and tell them to stop wasting money.
One time I was at a convention where Steve Blum was holding a seminar. I got kicked out because I asked him if he knew David Lucas.
One thing you must recall... unlike animated films, the people who do the voice acting are NOT advertised with the game. Whenever you see an ad or commercial for a animated film, the ad does well to mention the names of all of the famous people doing the voice work... People hear the celebrities name and it rings in there ears... However, when was the last time you saw a video game ad that mentioned the voice actors involved? i know i damn well never. If the voice actor is not advertised then his "famous" name adds NOTHING to the video game's fame.
I for one never actually knew that Keith David (Halo's Arbiter), Terrence Carson (God of War's Kratos), and Michael Ironside (Splinter Cell) did voice acting work in those games... it was never advertised, no one thought it was important enough to mention online on forums and what-not, and i quite frankly didn't care enough to actually look up who did the voice work... i think the only game where i heard talk of the famous voice actors involved was the first Kingdom hearts; and that was from forums, not advertisements... come to think of it, i think there was quite a few "famous" voices used in that game that i damn well did not like... Really, all of the games that used big name voice actors could have probably found cheaper lesser known voice actors, got a similar quality voice acting, and still came out of with same exact sales figures and fanbase for the game...
Another thing to consider is that while the money saved on voice acting won't go to the workers or lower the game price, the money COULD go to another part of the game. The money that is wasted on unnessarry famous voice actors could instead be used to generate new content for the game, or polish some of the iffier spots... or hell, they can just hold on to the money and add it on to the budget for the next game
So now the question for me is, why would developers choose to go this route if there are better alternatives?
One plausible explanation is that they think it will be profitable. I'm not saying that it would be. But surely it must be something they consider if they're going to lay down $500K.
Maybe they think it's what gamers want. Maybe they think that it's an important step for games as they become more mainstream.
I think it's a much more interesting question to consider why developers would go this more expensive route (i.e., underlying motivation), than to just say "omg, celebrities are stupid, and no good at this anyway, and shouldn't be paid that much money".
You missed my point entirely. If an actor is on a stage or in a film he has to think about positioning, movement, gesture, interaction, reaction, trying to remember his lines whilst trying to move about the place and pull off a convincing character. THAT is acting. He is trained to do all that stuff. Sure, there might be shit actors, just like there might be shit voice actors (hayden whatshisface especially....jeez that guy needs a smack round the face with acting hammer). The point is if your speaking into a mic all you need is a small guideline in the script, or a video of the scene - "Ohh so my character looks like this or is doing this...piece of piss, ill just have him say it like this" He doesnt have to actually act because in a game acting is second to gameplay. So one minor alien character pulls off a line a bit badly? The animation that the animators and game designers made will fill in the blanks, not the actor who is behind the mic. Of course a professional voice over actor is needed, to know how to talk to himself without making it seem like hes talking to himself in game, but you dont need a guy who is famous for acting on stage & film just because of the fame their name brings. A normal guy with voice training could pull off a convincing character and be paid far less than a guy who is known through his performance as a person on stage & film.
Its a bit much but are the stars worth that in films anyway?
David Hayter (Solid Snake)= better than kurt russtle. Thought bad example as Kurt would be pretty cheap compared to Hayter nowadays anyway.
However, that's not to say that I feel these voice actors should make a crapton of money just for talking.
However... if they do something like Andy Serkis and provide all of the motion captures for their role, such as they are practically acting, then they deserve a bit more dough.
As far as pay goes, fuck, I'd do voiceovers for free.
Hell Yeah, So would I.