Remember when all the writers went on strike? It sucked. Television seasons were cut short and my television stopped being fun when I wasn't playing videogames. What if that happened to videogames, but instead of writers it was the voice actors? We'd have no more voice acting in our games or at least very low quality voice acting. Every game would either sound like Zelda or the original dialog track of Resident Evil. That is not a world I want to live in, friends. What in God's name would Kojima do (WWKD)?
Thankfully a massive strike on videogame voice acting will not be happening any time soon as the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have reached a tentative agreement on new contracts with the videogame industry. You can all breathe that sigh of relief you had built up over the last paragraph, since I'm sure most of you had no idea contract talks were even going on. Well, they were and some stuff that doesn't affect you has changed. For instance SAG and AFTRA are now in parity, meaning the two unions' members will be getting paid the same standard amount. Also they'll be getting paid more. Also, actors must now be warned of vocally stressful work beforehand or the developer will be fined $100. This be cereal business, people.
Don't sit too easy though! The end of voice acting could still be near as these contracts only run until March 30 of 2011. The s--t could hit the fan then, let me tell you.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
11:00 AM on 10.03.2009
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Another actor on Heroes. Nice.
Also, is it just me or is Hayden Panettiere getting excruciatingly hotter with age?
@Everyday Legend
Agreed
m8...woman are like wine: the older the better
Lets not take that statement to far shall we?
My phrase with NFL offensive linemen is "linemen are like wine: they get better with age".
If that were true the local nursing home would...AWW GOD! OH THE IMAGES! SHHIT! SHHHIT!!! OH HOLY MOTHER OF A FATHERFUCKER!
Yeah. Let's not generalize.
A lady-fap. :oD
Wait a minute, this was all a trick to get me to read a boring article about voice actor contracts. Even the stuff about the end of voice acting was trickery. I've been duped! >:(
It's Dr. Tran!
This is a tricky one. While I'm all for voice actors doing their bit, when unions get involved it can get very hairy (the games industry can be a bitch to work in). On top of that, I don't want games to become an open field for big name actors to ply their trade (I might be being selfish here), which would potentially also hurt struggling upcoming actors. Do you think someone like David Hayter would have a chance to be discovered and appreciated as much? Maybe not. There's also a question of money, and we all know many those in Hollywood can be especially greedy, as opposed to being reasonable. Kudos to those that do dip their toes in the games industry without going nuts, like the talented Ms Bell.
Think about a world where games are sold like movies, on the strength of the big name cast, as opposed to the game itself could be dangerous. Disney movies are a good example of this, but those movies are usually good enough to stand on their own while hiding the fact. Games don't need to sell this as much, kudos to those that do (cough ...Brutal Legend...cough).
So yeah, great to protact those actors, especially the small lesser known actors, and could be a nightmare for the creamy diva like big star actors. So long as they keep it real and don't be dicks, all is good.