NakedSushi

…forcibly insert it into your anus.

I don’t know how much public media coverage has been shed on the voice actor’s strike. Basically, both the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) were complaining that they didn’t get paid enough for lending their voices to video games. They want about 6% of video game profits. The industry offered them a 35% wage increase over a 3.5 year period (about $400 per hour), which AFTRA and SAG first agreed to, but now SAG changed their mind and wants more.

To all this, I say, “Fuck off. We’ll stick to plain subtitles.”

First of all, I don’t see what the voice actors are complaining about. They currently get paid $200-300 per hour to talk. The voice actors claim that the money is actually very little because they only get offered to do that two or three times a year and it usually lasts only a few hours. Well tough. If they’re relying on 2-3 gigs a year or a month or whatever and they don’t work the rest of the time, that’s their fault. They need to find another part time job.

Second, according to AFTRA president, John P. Connolly, “To deny working class performers their fair share of the tremendous profits their labor helps to generate is illogical, unreasonable, and unjust.” (emphasis mine) There’s at least two problems with thos statement. I don’t know where these “tremendous profits” are because that’s about the first time I’ve heard of that phrase in regards to the game industry. This isn’t Hollywood we’re tlaking about. Connolly has the gall to claim that the voice actors’ work helps generate this “tremendous profit?” I’m sorry, but I don’t remember the last time I saw a game and said, “Wow, I don’t know anything about this game, but it features Sean Connery doing voice, so I’m going to spend $50 to buy it!”

I think it’s silly for voice actors to want a claim in the royalties for one day of work when there are at least ten other people for every one voice actor who spends years on the game, including long hours and overtime, and don’t even get paid half as much by the hour and certainly don’t get any royalties. Before the voice actors get any more money for their couple hours of “work,” I believe the game designers and developers should get wage increases and better benefits; they actually use their brain.

The voice actors are becoming more and more greedy. We should go back to the days where games were subtitled because there were no voice-overs. We can all read. Besides, there are plenty of people out there willing to pick up a $20/hour gig doing some voices for a video game. They might not be the best, but it’s a video game not a movie.

I would just rather buy a $40 game with crappy voice-overs which I can turn off, than buy a game that cost $60 because they had to pay Keanu Reeves royalties for lending his voice.