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VoiceGate: Videogame voice actors considering a strike, want to unionize

Hobo Elf

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Multiple companies offer TTS APIs to their customers to accelerate development of new applications utilizing TTS technology.
src

Depending on the application, TTS may be based on concatenation of pre-recorded material produced by voice professionals.
In more complex applications TTS will use more flexible techniques that accommodate large vocabularies and that allow the developer control over the character ("personality") of the system.
src

CUMING SOON the all new Elder Scrolls 7: Toddlivion. Explore a randomly generated world, populated by randomly generated NPCs NOW with new exciting randomly generated Voice Acting.

What a fucking industry :hearnoevil:
 

Ovplain

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Well there goes what little support I had for these fucks.


Yeah, these people don't exactly get paid PEANUTS. I recall the guy that voiced the GTA 4 protagonist making a lot of noise after the the game broke every record out there, how he didn't get paid enough 'n shit. Obviously due to the fact that the game made billions. But the dude still got like a grand a day, easy. IIRC he got 100k for 3,4 months work.

I do feel sorry for these big voice actors, that they're not bigger stars IRL. Nobody cares about these people, not really.:D We all like hearing a good voice in video games, I'm sure. But in the end, it could really be just about anybody. Is Nolan North voicing a video game protagonist an actual SELLING POINT? Will anybody go out and buy a game just because it features Troy Baker as the voice of the protagonist? Fuck no. '#PerformanceMatters', myeh, not really.:D Not when THOUSANDS of people can be just as good AND just as big a draw.
 

Wild Slop

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Kids that mow lawns should get a share in neighborhood homes sales too. Why not? However small or trivial the value of a slightly more presentable lawn adds to the home, it still matters! Also since the person hiring is now an employer in a whatever sense that makes them, like a business, or something, and therefore responsible for a health care, dental plan, maternity leave , on and on.
 

Job Creator

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Yeah, these people don't exactly get paid PEANUTS. I recall the guy that voiced the GTA 4 protagonist making a lot of noise after the the game broke every record out there, how he didn't get paid enough 'n shit. Obviously due to the fact that the game made billions. But the dude still got like a grand a day, easy. IIRC he got 100k for 3,4 months work.
All that while doing serbian lines with a hack job albanoid accent
Should have hired me instead, would have worked for brandy
 

Metro

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Yeah, these people don't exactly get paid PEANUTS. I recall the guy that voiced the GTA 4 protagonist making a lot of noise after the the game broke every record out there, how he didn't get paid enough 'n shit. Obviously due to the fact that the game made billions. But the dude still got like a grand a day, easy. IIRC he got 100k for 3,4 months work.

I do feel sorry for these big voice actors, that they're not bigger stars IRL. Nobody cares about these people, not really.:D We all like hearing a good voice in video games, I'm sure. But in the end, it could really be just about anybody. Is Nolan North voicing a video game protagonist an actual SELLING POINT? Will anybody go out and buy a game just because it features Troy Baker as the voice of the protagonist? Fuck no. '#PerformanceMatters', myeh, not really.:D Not when THOUSANDS of people can be just as good AND just as big a draw.
Most of these 'big names' aren't necessarily hired because of their actual voice (although it's obviously better than nasally employees/programmers) but, as someone mentioned earlier, they're done so much work that they can usually get in, do their work, and be done with it with minimal amounts of direction/retakes/etc.
 

Roguey

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So what these... people want is to be treated and paid like Hollywood stars?

:prosper:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-sag-aftra--voice-actor-strike-explained.aspx
Collective bargaining is a dance. It is never straightforward, and every piece of a well-crafted proposal is inflated. The reason for this is that negotiations are never about getting everything you want. They are about getting the things most important to you. That means you need to be ready to give up some of your requests. This could come in the form of reducing or adjusting the amount requested or entirely removing something from the table.
...
According to our anonymous union source, many SAG-AFTRA members see residuals as an “extravagance.” While some are in favor, many expect this to be removed from the bargaining table as a concession to publishers.
...
The union has requested that there be time limits placed on “vocally stressful” recording sessions. In a blog post yesterday, Wil Wheaton laid out what a day of voice over work entails. This includes how intense sessions impact an actor’s other job opportunities in the near and long terms.
...
As motion capture technology continues to grow in fidelity and importance in games, actors are playing a larger role in production. The union suggests that with swords swinging and fists flying (not to mention the occasional wire work), having a stunt coordinator on set is a safety issue with which publishers should comply.
...
The union wants more information about jobs up front. In addition to the title of the project, the union wants agents and actors to know how many sessions they’ll be needed, what the potential ESRB rating is, if there is offensive content, and if the sessions will be “vocally stressful.”

Not exactly the royal treatment.
 

Metro

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Wil Wheaton has job opportunities? I saw him on one episode of that low budget SyFy show Dark Matter. And then he does a shitty YouTube/stream plying on his 'nerd cred.' Had no idea he did VO work. Vocally stressful... firstworldproblemsman.
 

Hobo Elf

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Wil Wheaton has job opportunities? I saw him on one episode of that low budget SyFy show Dark Matter. And then he does a shitty YouTube/stream plying on his 'nerd cred.' Had no idea he did VO work. Vocally stressful... firstworldproblemsman.

pjEPcR6.png


:hmmm:

I'm not surprised to see him used by that hack Tim Schafer.
 

Metro

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So... basically he gets jobs because he was Wesley Crusher and not based on his talent.
 

Spectacle

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Wait, he was in Brutal Legend and FNV?
I barely noticed.
That's how I prefer my voice acting, it should sound like the character speaking, not the actor. You shouldn't know who is acting without looking at the credits.

Wheaton is probably getting jobs precisely because he can deliver that kind of performance.
 

J1M

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That's how I prefer my voice acting, it should sound like the character speaking, not the actor. You shouldn't know who is acting without looking at the credits.

Wheaton is probably getting jobs precisely because he can deliver that kind of performance.
If that were true he'd have more lead roles. Why do you find it so hard to understand that some of the nerdy employees want to meet a Star Trek actor?
 

Spectacle

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If that were true he'd have more lead roles. Why do you find it so hard to understand that some of the nerdy employees want to meet a Star Trek actor?
That level of dumbfuckery is honestly incomprehensible to me.
 

CthuluIsSpy

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That's how I prefer my voice acting, it should sound like the character speaking, not the actor. You shouldn't know who is acting without looking at the credits.

Wheaton is probably getting jobs precisely because he can deliver that kind of performance.

And yet they gave him a role in Brutal Legend that you will probably never hear, as the Watt-R-Boy unit only shows up in one level, and they will never live long enough to say anything.

The X-8 Robobrain only shows up once in a DLC, and only if you did a certain thing, and its a bit weak, imo



The generic robobrain voice was pretty bland too, and modulated, iirc.

So if by performance you mean low-quality filler, then yes, Wesley is certainly qualified.
 

Jick Magger

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So... basically he gets jobs because he was Wesley Crusher and not based on his talent.
Pretty much. Wesley type-casted him to hell and back (not that he had a chance to begin with, seeing as he was a child actor who made the fateful decision to continue acting, rather than get a real job once he hit puberty like most of them), all he really has to bank on now is his mad nerd cred.

Most 'nerd' celebrities do this. Felicia Day, as I've said before, started out a painfully mediocre actress starting out in a decade full of painfully mediocre actresses. Seriously, watch her guest appearance in House if you want to get an idea of her acting skills out of shitty nerd comedies. She managed to land a role in a shitty nerd comedy and worm her way into the 'gaming community', or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, and hasn't looked back since. It's especially hilarious that she's now claiming to be some paragon of feminist virtue in gaming and is now so scared of gamers she'll walk across the street to avoid them, seeing as she got her start as basically wank material for lonely, basement dwelling nerds who adored the fact that she played a fictional character who wasn't utterly disgusted by them. Go figure.
 

J1M

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Pretty much. Wesley type-casted him to hell and back (not that he had a chance to begin with, seeing as he was a child actor who made the fateful decision to continue acting, rather than get a real job once he hit puberty like most of them), all he really has to bank on now is his mad nerd cred.
Pretty sure he had a regular job until The Big Bang Theory made him semi-famous again.
 

pippin

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Most 'nerd' celebrities do this. Felicia Day, as I've said before, started out a painfully mediocre actress starting out in a decade full of painfully mediocre actresses. Seriously, watch her guest appearance in House if you want to get an idea of her acting skills out of shitty nerd comedies. She managed to land a role in a shitty nerd comedy and worm her way into the 'gaming community', or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, and hasn't looked back since. It's especially hilarious that she's now claiming to be some paragon of feminist virtue in gaming and is now so scared of gamers she'll walk across the street to avoid them, seeing as she got her start as basically wank material for lonely, basement dwelling nerds who adored the fact that she played a fictional character who wasn't utterly disgusted by them. Go figure.

Thing is she's 36 now. Imagine a woman in her 40s trying to appeal to the "nerd crowd".
I once saw a video where she said the people at her Ultima Online guild wouldn't believe she was actually a girl, so her mom took some pictures of her and mailed them to those people (all men, of course). She was still a teen. Imagine that in 2015.
 

Jick Magger

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Pretty sure he had a regular job until The Big Bang Theory made him semi-famous again.
He did work briefly with quality testing and promotion for some computer company in Texas in the early nineties, but he returned to acting pretty shortly after. Admittedly, he did seem to try his hand at non-sci-fi work from the late nineties to the late 2000's but he slid pretty heavily back into begging for nerd cred at around the same time The Big Bang Theory started, as you said.
 

CthuluIsSpy

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He did work briefly with quality testing and promotion for some computer company in Texas in the early nineties, but he returned to acting pretty shortly after. Admittedly, he did seem to try his hand at non-sci-fi work from the late nineties to the late 2000's but he slid pretty heavily back into begging for nerd cred at around the same time The Big Bang Theory started, as you said.

He isn't great in BBT either. He just lacks charisma and talent in general.
 

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