The only effective answer to organized greed
October 26, 2016 10:06 AM   Subscribe

SAG-AFTRA, an actors’ union, represents a number of voice actors in video games. And on October 21st, they went on strike against video game employers: Activision, Take 2, Electronic Arts, WB Games, and several talent agencies, including Blindlight, Disney, and VoiceWorks. They've been tweeting with #PerformanceMatters since before the strike started.

Actors are striking for two main issues: bonus pay for games that sell lots of copies (over 2 million), and better working conditions so they don't kill their voices. (Instead of shorter sessions, they've been offered tea with lemon and honey—which most studios have been providing.)

Wheaton posted a while back in support of the strike; he outlined a bit of how these jobs work and the demands the studios are making.
Our employers want to be able to fine you $2,500 if you show up late or are not “attentive to the services for which [you] have been engaged.” This means you could be fined for almost anything: checking an incoming text, posting to your Twitter feed, even zoning out for a second. If a producer feels you are being “inattentive,” they want the option to fine you $2,500.
Other articles focus on the dynamics between different kinds of employees:
Paying voice actors bonuses for games that sell millions of copies won't impact video game companies' bottom line much. By the video game companies' own admission, voice actors are less than 1 tenth of one percent of all the people who work on a video game. The issue is that if video game companies agree to SAG-AFTRA's demands, it would only be fair to offer similar deals to game developers, which could seriously cut into their profits.
Reactions are mixed. Some responses focus on the average rate the actors are paid. (They don't seem to notice that $825 for a four-hour session may be the whole week's pay.) Some grumbling boils down to, "well, devs don't have unions and bonus pay if the game sells great, so why should actors?" And that may be what the companies are balking about – not that they feel the bonus pay or better conditions would horribly curtail profits, but that visibly giving in to union demands may make their other employees realize the value of a union.

Official documents: Why We Strike PDF flyer; official strike notice PDF.
posted by ErisLordFreedom (29 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Former game developer here, and I agree with the voice actors.

There was talk of game devs unionizing back when EA Spouse got some attention, and I still think it's a good idea.
posted by Foosnark at 10:15 AM on October 26, 2016 [26 favorites]


Some grumbling boils down to, "well, devs don't have unions and bonus pay if the game sells great, so why should actors?"

Lets not re-litigate this dumb argument with an obvious solution. I think we did that the last thread.

Does this cover actors or athletes doing performance capture? That's where the real pain point for production may lie. So many companies use performance capture now since hand-scripted animation is impractical in many cases and procedural animation is tricky at best.

In any event, essentially everyone in the production process except for the publishers are underpaid at the moment. Working as a game dev makes little sense since typically you can make better money elsewhere with more reasonable work expectations.
posted by selfnoise at 10:17 AM on October 26, 2016


Does this cover actors or athletes doing performance capture? That's where the real pain point for production may lie.

Well, the real pain point for voice actors is having to spend hours doing death cries of various sorts -- being stabbed and dying, being shot and dying, being shot and hurt, being tackled, being pushed against a wall, etc.

These sorts of vocal cries are extremely straining on one's voice, and one of the things that the voice actors are on strike about is the lack of concern for doing real damage to the actor's vocal chords by making these sounds for several hours ("can we do one more take on that?") and being expected to not "be inattentive" at the fear of being fined.

I've been hearing coverage about this strike and the union interests for a while now, and there is nothing in any of the strikers' demands that makes me feel they are being unreasonable.
posted by hippybear at 10:21 AM on October 26, 2016 [18 favorites]


To clarify, I meant the pain point for the developers in terms of not having actor access. I have no doubt that working VA is difficult.
posted by selfnoise at 10:22 AM on October 26, 2016


I was the voiceover editor for Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, and have worked with a lot of these people (the professional voice actor community is small and in some corners surprisingly tight-knit). I've also directed numerous sessions, with emphasis on those involving systemic VO/combat barks, where all the screaming takes place.

I support the strike. The actors deserve a better deal than what they're getting.

This is also true of the developers themselves, many of whom are putting in several hundred to a thousand times more hours of *creatively demanding* labor on a given project than any actor save the protagonist. IIRC I averaged 65-70 hour weeks on Infinite's 4.5 years of development, put in dozens of 80+ weeks and at least a half-dozen 100+ (counterintuitively, these were always the most productive per hour). I should probably point out here that these were for-realsies voluntary, and not typical software development "voluntary". It's just how I roll: doing something you're good at and passionate about is the ultimate drug.

I don't think the developers are less deserving, and bonuses for a lot of AAA are in the range of three months' salary, no matter how many hours you work. There is never overtime except at the most absolute junior level (Production assistants & QA contractors).

As someone who just finished incorporating his first indie game studio startup a couple months ago, and as someone with a couple years' producer experience I am keenly aware that the math on larger payouts to all of these parties simply doesn't square: as it stands virtually no studio in AAA sees a burn rate under $12M/yr.

I don't see any good answers here.

Oh and in response to above: FWIW we always do our best to keep the screaming stuff compressed to one 20-30 minute session where possible, with the exception of pickups where ADR is a requirement due to animation sync. Honey-infused tea was always immediately available whenever I was physically present.

Unfortunately I really can't stick around this thread for followups, as I'm marrying my favorite art producer in three days and shit's crazy right now.
posted by Ryvar at 10:54 AM on October 26, 2016 [55 favorites]


god the video game industry would die without troy baker and nolan north
posted by poffin boffin at 11:06 AM on October 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


I'm surprised that the game studios don't just acquiesce to those safety demands that are reasonable (the listed requirements seem reasonable, from a layman's point of view), and lower compensation accordingly to cover the increased costs of the additional breaks/scheduling gymnastics/etc.

I'm sympathetic to people not wanting to take jobs that will adversely affect their ability to do that type of work going forward. But, again, as an outsider, it's hard to see why compensation for freelance work shouldn't be based on what the market will bear (with reasonable minimums, but $825/week is more than $40,000/year).
posted by sparklemotion at 11:07 AM on October 26, 2016


It's contract work, not a salary.

Good for them. I sure hope the public doesn't go all crab bucket on them like they do.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 11:14 AM on October 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


god the video game industry would die without troy baker and nolan north

Only worked with Troy but have edited thousands of lines from him across tens of thousands of line reads in dozens of sessions.

Nobody in the industry works harder. He's always there on time, knows his lines, takes direction without ego, has a ton of interesting alternate reads ready to go, catches quest error logic that the writer or level designer really should've fucking caught beforehand, and produces the cleanest lead in/out breathing you'll ever hear because he's spent time in the pit chopping audio himself.

He also has incredible range, ie the Scoundrel from Diablo 3, but in an industry replete with Generic White Protagonists, he gets saddled with "Nolan North variant 3a" demands far, far too often. Criminal waste, that.

So, yeah, he's everywhere. But he earns it and if I'm ever in the position to afford him again, I would without a second thought.
posted by Ryvar at 11:19 AM on October 26, 2016 [27 favorites]


Ryvar has it right, everyone in AAA video game development is criminally underpaid for the actual amount of work and frankly shitty conditions they put up with. "Passion" is their shackles, it's the whip used to exploit workers in an industry that's built on the assumption that there's always another wave of passionate bright young talent dying to replace the ones that get jaded and leave, whatever the cost to their income/sanity.

This strike might do some good, as voice acting is one of the few areas in game dev where the talent ISN'T easily replaced. It's now expected that big prestige game will have a couple Hollywood-level voices involved, and there can be serious sales-impacting grumbling from fans if a studio replaces the actor playing a beloved series protagonist (ask me how I know). Voice actors have some leverage there, hopefully they can use it to put some cracks into a dysfunctional industry and benefit other game workers.
posted by Freyja at 11:20 AM on October 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't see any good answers here.

Devs may think they're white collar but they've needed to unionize for decades.
posted by Talez at 11:24 AM on October 26, 2016 [20 favorites]


Devs may think they're white collar but they've needed to unionize for decades.

Agreed. I'm lucky enough to work for a (non-game) software company that treats its employees well and compensates fairly, but I'd still unionise in a heart beat. Not everybody is as lucky as me, and fair treatment simply shouldn't be a matter of luck to begin with.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:44 AM on October 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


As a professional voice user for some 40 years, I just wanted to say that tea with honey and/or lemon won't do jack shit to protect or heal a voice instrument. I mean, hydration is important, sure. But tea with honey ain't going to help you with that any more than a glass of water. It's just some feel-good bullcrap subscribed to by people who believe in woo-woo and/or don't understand much about the physiology of the voice instrument. It is frankly shocking to me that "tea with honey should be provided" would something voice performers would insist on as a group, or that providing it would be something a company would hold up as an example of caring for voice performers.
posted by slkinsey at 11:48 AM on October 26, 2016 [16 favorites]


I have strong feelings about strikes - I'm automatically in favor, barring any bizarre circumstances that I've never actually heard of but posit could exist. Unions don't strike on a whim.

What I gather from this one is, the studios:

Don't want the hassle of calculating bonuses and figuring out how to pay them later (reasonable wish; my reaction is "tough"), and (very reasonably) often don't have the money up front to pay a bonus in advance to avoid that. Also, they really don't want to open the idea that devs, writers, and other staff should be getting residuals. They want video games to remain in the "toy" mental category: you work on it until it's done, and then they sell as many copies as possible; not in the "creative product" category like movies and books and albums, where the people bringing creative talent and personality are supposed to be rewarded for their copyrightable contributions.

Don't want to deal with shorter sessions with mandatory breaks for demanding voice work. Probably more than that, don't want to have to sort out standards for "demanding" voice work, which is more problematic than just throwing in a couple of extra breaks.

Really don't want to have to release any info about the game itself to the actors - and this is an issue where the game industry clashes with other creative industries. Actors know what types of movies, radio shows, music videos they're being portrayed in; they turn down roles they don't like. Video games often don't offer any information, including the name of the game itself. (Because why would you need the name or genre to yell, "CATCH THAT THIEF!" and say, "I'm sorry, officer, he got away" and nonverbal grunts and such during a fistfight?) Actors are demanding that at least their agency be given some info about the game being produced.

----
slkinsey - Sorry, I missphrased--the studios are offering tea & honey instead of actual changes to the working conditions, ignoring that it's already available in almost all cases. The union is rejecting this offer, because, as you noted, it's worthless as a matter of serious vocal care.

Tea and honey soothes your voice if you've yelled for two minutes and are going to stop now; that, and the renfaire concoction known as "bat sweat" (tea, gatorade, and something else) are good for short-term voice work. They're useless for a career - just like a wrist brace will keep your hand from hurting for a few hours with a badly-positioned mouse, but won't do a damn thing to keep you from getting carpel-tunnel if you don't change the arrangement.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:00 PM on October 26, 2016 [10 favorites]


Well, the real pain point for voice actors is having to spend hours doing death cries of various sorts

But them why does it take hours to record the one single line or cry that is repeated 4,000,000 times in the game?

(If I sound bitter, it's because I took an arrow to the knee once, which almost made me wish for a nuclear winter.)

My semi-serious point is that the value of good (and by god, various) voice acting in games is perhaps only already very underappreciated by game makers, so I imagine higher, actually fair compensation for the work will simply make the studios do even less of it. The same holds for writing. If half of the budget for graphics sizzle went to story and acting, we'd have much, much, much better games overall.

Of course, maybe we wouldn't have voiced first-person protagonists anymore, either. I could get behind that.
posted by rokusan at 12:04 PM on October 26, 2016


Every job should be unionized. By law.
posted by sexyrobot at 12:13 PM on October 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


I imagine higher, actually fair compensation for the work will simply make the studios do even less of it.

This is one of the basic anti-union arguments. The history of labor and industry in America would seem to argue against it.
posted by Etrigan at 12:13 PM on October 26, 2016 [16 favorites]


But them why does it take hours to record the one single line or cry that is repeated 4,000,000 times in the game?

Not the actors' call to make - the studio wants a bunch of variations to choose from.

I agree that higher writing and and acting budgets - hopefully, leading to better quality in both - would greatly improve the gaming industry.

I suspect that the industry is slowly realizing that they've shifted from a "toy" industry - a video game as something you play/play with, so physics and appearance are crucial but story is a thin framework, if that - to an "entertainment" industry, wherein a video game is something you experience and enjoy.

The studios want the money and acclaim that goes with being part of the entertainment industry; they don't want the hassles of having to treat the people who work on those games as creative influences, as potential celebrities, as people rather than interchangeable cogs. And I think they're worried that if they give in to the actors, devs and writers are next--and they're hoping that public opinion will side with them, because "$200 an hour! Why would you need more than that!"

Also, I am annoyed that tumblr has not provided me with a charming set of animated gifs in support of this strike.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:15 PM on October 26, 2016 [5 favorites]


I suspect that the industry is slowly realizing that they've shifted from a "toy" industry - a video game as something you play/play with, so physics and appearance are crucial but story is a thin framework, if that - to an "entertainment" industry, wherein a video game is something you experience and enjoy.

From what I can tell, it very much depends on which segment of the industry you're in. The AAA model, which drives a lot of Hollywood-like story and performances, took a huge hit with the recession. The industry hasn't recovered or entirely settled from the loss of over a dozen mainstream studios. Few people know what to do with the fact that worldwide, F2P web and mobile have insane gross revenue, at least for the lucky few companies at the top of what appears to be a power law relationship. The successful indie games get customer loyalty by delivering solid mechanics at a reasonable price point and resisting creeping featurism. A vehicle sim, a good strategy game, or a roguelike don't particularly need a narrative or voice talent.

I support the strike, but the games that ship with hours of voiced cinematics and environmental dialogue are not necessarily the future of the industry. My personal bias is that very little breaks my immersion these days as much as a fully voiced dialogue about the social justice implications of character actions in a game where mass homicide is the primary mechanic system.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:48 PM on October 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


the games that ship with hours of voiced cinematics and environmental dialogue are not necessarily the future of the industry.

It's likely I don't own a single game that's connected to the strike. I don't play AAA console games at all; most of what I play is indie games on Steam, in firmly nonviolent genres. (I play some hidden object games, which sometimes have voice acting. It ranges from mediocre to lousy, and is definitely not the kind that the actors are complaining about.)

I can see the possibility that heavily-voiced games are become more a fringe section of the industry--in which case, career protections for the actors become even more important.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:08 PM on October 26, 2016


VOs have been a crucial element of gaming for a good part of the last 20 years, and I doubt the industry is willing to risk going back to the laughable Shenmue and Jill Sandwich days to save money.
Maybe EA and Activision should have a look to their origins on why some of those companies begun.

Of course, maybe we wouldn't have voiced first-person protagonists anymore, either. I could get behind that.

I couldn't. Part of of the fun in Saints Row was making a complete playthrough with each different voice (which included regular voices, cockney, russian, zombie, and 4 even has, yes, "Nolan North") because each actor and actress had different lines. Plus, they have an autotuned pimp. It surely wouldn't be the same thing without voices.

But I don't think the issue here are protagonists, since a number of roles already went to movie or TV B-list people. Konami for some reason even decided to dump Hayter in favor of Kiefer Sutherland in the latest Metal Gear Solid. Who's more likely getting screwed might be the sidekicks and and secondary characters that still have a substancial number of lines in the script, but there's no budget to fit another B-list, and so far, the industry has gotten away with treating VO artists like cattle.

The whole AAA system is broken, and I don't think it is sustainable for long.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:11 PM on October 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


NPR continues their "must show both sides equally" coverage approach which does bring up an interesting point:
Scott Witlin, the lawyer representing the video game companies: "It's not about a lack of respect for these people. My committee loves these people and appreciates the work that they do. They're incredibly talented," Witlin says. "The problem we have is that their position doesn't fit in with this industry. It may fit in with other industries but it doesn't work for the video game industry because of the nature of the production and the way these companies are organized."
That's a fascinating way to say, "my industry is a special snowflake." Because of course he's not saying, "we don't want or need actors in video games." He probably respects and admires the talents of doctors, too, and their position doesn't fit into the video game industry either... but the video game industry isn't hiring doctors by the hundreds (thousands?) to make their games sell better.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:30 PM on October 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


As a gamer who plays both lots of indie text-based games, indie voiced games, and AAA games, there's an obvious difference in which games take voice acting seriously and which don't. But the larger problem is that for every meticulously and lovingly made Work of Art game, there at least 50 Pieces of Crap. And it seems the industry relies on Metal Gears of Battlefield War 15 to bring in the money from teenage and twenty-something boys with too much disposable cash in order to fund the less grunty games.

But honestly I think the industry as a whole needs to take a broader look at things. There are a lot of people out there who play indie games and more narrative-based games, for whom quality gameplay and good story beat out graphics and ....I don't even know....bloodier death scenes? I feel like the industry has poured so much money into hardware and MOAR RESOLUTION with such diminishing returns that it may be time to say "Yanno what? Maybe games look pretty good now" and put some of that money into voice and writing and gameplay to get more of the broader game-playing audience to part with their cash.

I'm part of the audience who will reluctantly buy a next gen system just to play one Really Great Game, but yanno, hasn't yet because there hasn't been That Game made yet for me.
posted by threeturtles at 3:55 PM on October 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


This is one of the basic anti-union arguments. The history of labor and industry in America would seem to argue against it.

And not just anti-union: "Increase gas milage? Too expensive!" "Reduce carbon emissions? It will cost too much!" And then they use they use the threat of lost jobs to tamp down calls for change.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:33 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Metal Gears of Battlefield War 15

OK but the Metal Gear series is a work of art narrative-based game though?
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 10:53 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


I don't see Naughty Dog listed on the strike flyer but multiple articles about the strike show pictures of "the Last of Us" does anybody know what's up with that? I have a friend who is a mid-sizedshot there, I don't know if its going to be a tender subject with her or not.
posted by Megafly at 11:45 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


That's an interesting point. I originally figured that TLOU's publisher would be on the list, but it was published by Sony Computer Entertainment, which is not actually named in the strike. Insomniac Games, which is mentioned in the strike flyer, has partnered with Naughty Dog in the past on other games, but I don't know whether there was any specific relationship between then on TLOU.

Seems most likely that the outlets publishing those articles are just using TLOU as an example of a critically-acclaimed game where voice acting was extremely important to the experience. (Personally, I'd go with Mass Effect instead, especially since Jennifer Hale -- providing further evidence that she's actually Paragon Shepard in real life -- has been particularly outspoken about the issues that that led to the strike.)
posted by tobascodagama at 8:48 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think it would be cool if developers as a whole got royalties. That way successful developers could use the profits of a few big games to fund or partially fund a riskier game, instead of having to go cap in hand to the publishers every time.

Also, given how often game companies go out of business getting royalties might be a useful way for devs to support themselves in retirement and between jobs.
posted by Canageek at 10:02 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's not a comprehensive list of AAA productions, but I suspect it's hitting all the big publishers. Insomniac are doing Spider Man for Sony, so that's them covered.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:03 PM on October 27, 2016


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