AFTRA, SAG negotiate new contracts for video game voice actors

Not to Steve Blum; have you heard him in his normal voice? Its practically the same.

awesome, maybe now we'll hear more than 4 people

Name your favorite celebrity actor in a videogame! The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Seth Green in Mass Effect.

HAH!
....sag.

You know what it means? Higher dev costs...aka higher prices in the long run.

"vocally stressful work."

-dubbing any dragonball game.

As a composer who gets SAG money for putting vocals into his work... this doesn't affect me. Still, it's great for actors.

Quality is your Dignity? What?

If you post one more time, I will punch Bobby Kotick.

Post another one!!! DO IT!!

"Dear Sir/ Madam,
I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Prince Deadpool, the Chairman of the "Contract Award Committee", of the "Marvel Delta Development Commission (MDDC)", a subsidiary of the Latveria National Petroleum Corporation (LNPC).

The company holds 100 million in money and is very rich! The company is experiancing troubles transfering our fortune and we need your help!!! Wow I can not believe it either! We are so rich and we are having this much trouble?! Yeah it is very mind bottling!"

But seriously dude...STOP SPAMMING!!!

@Deadpool

That'll work.

*punches Bobby in the face*

"Vocally stressful" work is being an army commander, barking out orders, for hours on end in the booth. Or doing a death rattle over and over and over again, screaming, falling.

VO folks don't do one take and that's it; even if a director likes a given take, they'll get another one for security. And then there are redirects for a particular line. The more vocally demanding (ordering, yelling, screaming) the work, the more stressful.

What can happen is, for VO people, if you do this work daily, you can potentially blow out your voice...meaning you can't speak properly or do any other type of voiceover work, which includes commercial, promos, movie trailers, narrations, and so forth.

Video games is very NON-lucrative for a voiceover artist. It's a lot more work than doing a 30 second commercial that runs on radio or television, and a LOT less money. There's also the potential for residual checks on long-running on-air commercials, whereas videogames pay a VO artist absolutely $0 once the game is published, no matter how well it does.

The joint Union contract for voiceover artists on video games is a very small, small step. Given that many games are recorded non-union anyway, it's impact will be minimal until the unions can get game publishers to pay residuals when a game sells exceedingly well.