Sure. And because they’re unwilling to change anything, they should probably quit whining. At least actors took the risk when they were being taken advantage of by the studio system.
Is SAG unnecessary and too powerful? If you’re Tom Cruise, sure. If you’re Tom Chick, you’re probably pretty happy with the health plan.
The controversy over the VAs does make me wonder if any devs will start to rattle the old cage, too, particularly if the unions are successful here. Will the coming gen see the “developers’ union/rights” issue reach a boiling point, or will the aforementioned inertia continue?
Interesting reaction. Is everyone also this opposed to the actor’s unions?
I’m sure they have a case in there somewhere, but I gotta say, as someone who works for a living it’s really hard to feel sympathy for someone pulling $300 an hour.
Aren’t most of the big names also doing voice work for cartoons, anyway? Take Jim Cummings or Tara Strong. Now those folks have some talent, but how many voice actors have 100+ games and cartoons on their resume?
Different issue. An actor’s appearance fills the content of a motion picture and is usually directly responsible for box office sales. A voice actor’s performance is usually not a selling factor and figures considerably less into the development/production equation. Though part of the problem may be that language (stating that actors don’t contribute as much to a game’s success as developers, while true, suggests a dismissive attitude on the part of the game companies).
To make a tired point, games aren’t the same as Hollywood.
Personally don’t agree with the idea of the Screen Actor’s Guild trying to open up big-money royalty plans because it sets a dangerous precedent that could end up making all established voice talent (not just the top Hollywood talent, but any established game talent) prohibitively expensive for everyone except the big boys. Think about it for a second, if one card-carrying SAG member signs a big fat royalty deal (which SAG is apparently looking to make standard), every voice actor in town will want the same.
Maybe an EA or a Sony can keep tapping the movie talent despite an expensive royalty structure, but can a Bioware or a Firaxis keep up?
(For the record, to address an earlier point, referring to actors/voice actors as “talent” or “the talent” is a common entertainment industry term, not a veiled insult for game developers.)
So the criticism is based on absurd counterfactuals where big money voice actors shut all the small players out of the business? Yeah, that’s definitely a problem I see upcoming in the game industry.
I’m sure they have a case in there somewhere, but I gotta say, as someone who works for a living it’s really hard to feel sympathy for someone pulling $300 an hour.
On paid holidays, I technically make an infinite salary! Woo! “$300 an hour” is not an accurate description of your pay scale when you only work a couple hours a week, you know. It’s the same class of union-busting propaganda as all those references to “$100,000 a year dock workers”, which came from by estimating the annual pay of a dock worker who has a 52 week year of 40 hours + 20 overtime, when no such worker exists.
I blame madden.
There are some significant impediments to developers organizing. First, there’s a cultural one – a lot of developers are kids in their 20s who don’t particularly see a problem with the current system, and they don’t respect their “elders” and thus aren’t willing to say “Hey, they think this is fucked, let’s support them”.
Second, and this is the bigger reason, is that it is VERY fucking hard to unionize when you lack centralization. Actors and automotive workers benefit from their strong locality. Teachers tend to concentrate on much smaller unions (statewide, vs. nationwide).
Game developers are spread all over the place, so it’s tough to get people organized, if not impossible (granted, with the Interweb it’s a lot easier, but still – just getting the names of developers is tough, the visible few are a tiny, tiny minority of the whole).
That said, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of a game developer union either.
Every hour a week that they work (at the new rate of $278/hour) is worth over fourteen thousand dollars a year. So if they can find five hours of work a week, five, they bring in over seventy thousand a year, way more than a lot of people even in this country. I get where you’re coming from, but are you telling me that voice actors that don’t suck can’t find five hours of work in an average week, to net them a pretty nice salary? Or three hours a week to net them a comfortable one (43k+/year)?
While this is true, there’s a big difference between making 50k a year by working 60 hour weeks and making 50k a year by working 10 hour weeks, don’t you think?
[quote=“mouselock”]
While this is true, there’s a big difference between making 50k a year by working 60 hour weeks and making 50k a year by working 10 hour weeks, don’t you think?[/quote]
Jesus Christ, mouselock, ten hour weeks?! Even at the barely-legal new rates, that’s over a hundred and forty-four thousand dollars a year!
I don’t know if that’s what Jason is telling you, but I’ll tell you. Look, I’m not here to champion actors, and god knows, they can be a pretty reprehensible lot. But you guys really don’t understand how the business works. Example:
I can guarantee you that that an actor who gets 10 hours of paid work in a week spent a hell of a lot more time than that getting the work. It’s a serious grind, with lots of legwork required, lots of running around auditioning, lots of money spent doing, I dunno, demo reels or classes or whatever other moneysinks actors fall prey to. Then there are managers and agents who basically take a quarter of their income. Then there’s the fact that it’s usually long spells of nothing, particularly during the months this town sort of shuts down.
I don’t have a lot of first-hand knowledge of the voiceover business, and I’m not really involved in TV or movies or theatre any more, but it’s not like a normal job. It’s a silly exhausting chase and it’s brutal to most people. A guy who can wring 10 hours of work out of every week is doing incredibly well for himself.
Having said that, Jim’s post makes a lot of sense from the developer’s perspective. I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on with the give and take between the negotiators over this deal, but you guys are just doing a lot of knee-jerk ‘Those actors are greedy!’ hokum without understanding their side of the business.
-Tom
Heh, what Tom said.
It’s just like being a game developer, get paid to have fun and play games all day! :wink:
Do you realize how many people are competing for that work? And that the hourly figure is usually a rate for a day or two of work on a single project? And as Tom noted, the ones that do get the work have agents and managers that can take a significant cut. No one denies that it’s a great job. But it ain’t necessarily easy money, otherwise everyone would be raking in the bucks.
And I’m sure it’s a tough decision for a company whether to spend, I don’t know, $50K to get Samuel L. Jackson for day or $5000 for Sammy K. Jackson. But if signing Mr. Badass Motherfucker connects his character to his movie roles, gets your game mentioned on TV a few times, gets some mentions in mainstream magazines, and can be leveraged in other ways, maybe it’s worth the cash.
I’m not saying it’s easy, Tom. But if a guy gets five hours of game voicework a week at the new rates, even if he spent thirty-five hours finding that work, that still amounts to putting in a standard work week for over 70k a year.
I can see this being a problem for the guy that voices “Effeminate Guard No. 3,” but I have a feeling that guy has another source of income anyway, kind of like how I don’t imagine you had to sell your house when Living Single went off the air. But I just can’t imagine a professional voice actor, someone who dedicates all of their working time to it, doesn’t get paid for more than five hours a week, on average. Maybe I’m wrong. But it just seems unlikely to me.
[size=7]ThreadJack[/size]
So what are you doing now, radio? Have you put acting totally off to the side for awhile?
Just like game development. Just like game reviewing, in fact. It’s a job that appeals to lots of people, because it’s a job that, presumably, allows one to do something related to something they’re interested in.
But see my above posts. To make a decent amount of money, they really don’t need to work all that much. And if they can’t find enough, they might just not be cut out for that racket.
I haven’t been chasing the actor thing for many years now. I make a living as a freelance writer, mainly doing reviews. It’s not nearly interesting enough to jack the thread in any meaningful way, but nice try. :)
So what’s your point? That actors should be paid less? That the union is evil and is trying to bilk the game developers? That everyone should move to LA and become an actor?
I’m simply saying that your math is deceptive for a number of reasons, which I’ve already explained. Actors are many things – deluded, vain, dumb – but greedy isn’t really one of the qualities that you can infer from these negotiations, particularly if you don’t really understand their side of the business.
-Tom
Here’s a random thought I’ll throw out:
Does anybody think that a AAA, well-known actor or actress (the person from which video games are alleged to benefit the most) is turning in anything close to their best work when doing VO for a game?
(From what I’ve heard, the usual attitude is more along the lines of, “It’s just a game, it doesn’t really matter…”)
Did “Reporter Gordon” get fired?
Bruce