Age of the Geek

Voices heard
     It's over.
     For better or worse, this terrible election is over.
     Or at least it will be by the time you read this. Right now, as I type this, there is an approximately 75 percent chance I will be breathing a sigh of relief and a 25 percent chance I will be refreshing myself on passport requirements. If you're reading this, then you already know the results of the election. Lucky you.
     I, on the other hand, have to write a column for a world that will, one way or the other, be fundamentally changed before it sees print. It's frustrating. The election is the one topic worth writing about, but anything I write at this point will be seen too late to matter.
     So, ignoring the pink elephant in the room, what else is there to comment on?
     Well… how about the video game voice actor's strike? That's something that likely won't be resolved before Wednesday.
     Here's the scoop. More than a year ago the Screen Actor's Guilt (SAG-AFTRA) entered into negotiations with a conglomerate of major video game publishers to update their contracts for video game voice work. Among their demands were shorter sessions for vocally strenuous recording, stunt coordination for roles that utilize motion capture, transparency over what game they are working on before taking the part, and residual payments for successful games.
     Most of these conditions aren't very controversial. Nobody wants to see a voice actor face plant on the ground during motion capture because a stunt coordinator wasn't around to properly secure a harness. Likewise, when your recording session involves hours of screaming, yelling, and grunting, it makes sense to break them up into shorter sessions. A hoarse voice actor isn't good for anybody.
     But, not surprisingly, the issue comes down to money. The voice actors guild has asked for up to four secondary payments of 25 percent of their original session payment, to be paid out whenever a game sells 2 million units of a game.
     Residual payments like these are common for movies and television, but less so for video games. Instead, representatives of the game developers offered a nine percent raise to the base rate. It was not accepted.
     Unable to come to agreement, the voice actors are now on strike.
     This is a tricky conundrum. On the one hand, voice actors are asking the games industry to adapt themselves to the Hollywood model. Developers don't get residuals and the amount they contribute to a game's success is far and away more substantial than voice acting. Moreover, it's not like voice actors have the kind of leverage they do when it comes to other forms of voice work. Creating a compelling animated feature without voice actors would be pretty difficult, but video games got along without voice acting just fine for years.
     On the other hand, the kind of video games that these publishers make don't really exist without voice acting. Warner Bros. Interactive released the best Batman movies ever made. Those movies just happened to play out between segments of gameplay. Likewise, nobody ever played a Mass Effect game because it was a great shooter, they played it because it was a compelling work of science fiction driven by professional grade voice talent.
     And while developers may not get residuals, they do get steady salaries and benefits. Voice actors may only get paid for working for a few hours a month, but in between those recording sessions are hours of auditions, research, and training.
     On the other other hand, that's really just an argument for paying the voice actors more up-front. Doing the job has to be worth their time. If the developers are willing to offer higher base pay, then shouldn't that be enough?
     On the other other other hand, getting residual payments for successful games may net voice actors more money, but only on the games that can afford to pay them more. This leaves the upfront cost lower, making voice acting a feature smaller games can afford to include.
     There is certainly room to see both sides. Voice actors are demanding uncommonly generous compensation for the video game industry while providing a service of questionable value. On the other hand, you get what you pay for. Unless these developers want to go back to text boxes or having programmers and relatives do the voice work for their games, they might have to play ball.
     I'm sure a compromise can be made that works for both sides. And if it can be made here, maybe there's hope for the future resident of the White House.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and doesn't have a problem with text boxes.