Gaming Voice Actor Strike?

I'm still with the voice actors as well. I'm far more inclined to believe them on this kind of thing than I am the publishers.

edited 29th Oct '16 10:57:41 PM by LordVatek

In particular the "vocal stress" part of that chart is interesting to me. There's an argument to be made, that they should be compensated more for work that could be damaging to their voice, because it effects their ability to do the work in the first place.

Instead, the companies wanted to space out those sessions more. I think that's a big point where the negotiations broke down.

edited 29th Oct '16 11:14:56 PM by xanderiskander

On the subject of the "multiple smaller sessions" bit, I can kind of understand why the union would've shot it down in spite of the company side's line of thinking on how it'd relieve stress.

For one, it could be interpereted as "smaller sessions means less pay," and even if that weren't the case it wouldn't mean much for someone's occupation where you're bounce from one contract to the next anyways. It's shorter sessions per individual contract, but still all the same strain as ever when you put 'em together.

...does that sound about right? I've only been tangently keeping up with the strike for the time being, but the chart caught my eye.

If the chart was patently false, you would have expected them to say so by now. This site has been up for a few days.

edited 30th Oct '16 12:37:19 AM by burnpsy

I thought was interesting, its a video of Crispin Freeman outlining the arguments SAG is making:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__oKJxJwagA

Though I wonder one thing in regards to the residual plan put forward, do the sales of the games that trigger these payments apply to sales in non Anglo countries where the game may be dubbed into a different language?

I saw one chucklefuck journalist on Twitter claiming that the V As were being entitled wanting more than 800 dollars, apparently leaving out that they were only being paid once for their entire bit of work, rather than being paid 800 dollars a day.

No they didn't. Under the terms they were trying to push, all the Publisher wants to do is tell the actor the "type" of game they will be working on. That still doesn't give the actors or their agents any negotiation power.

The voice actors lost the right to complain about that when they started leaking games via resumes and social media, even when under NDA. They're simply not getting that no matter how harsh the strike gets.

Part of the transparency issue was so the voice actor doesn't have to be associated with sexual or offensive content they disagree with. The stuff the publishers have agreed to reveal to them will allow them that. But stop shy of allowing them enough information to leak games.

Again, you do not go into a negotiation expecting 100% of what you demand. That's not how a negotiation works. Obviously the union knows this.

edited 30th Oct '16 6:08:14 PM by burnpsy

The problem is that they're actors, and actors are used to being treated a certain way (ie: knowing what the heck they're actually working on). It's kind of hard to get in character when you're not allowed to look at the scripts ahead of time and don't even know what role you're playing in the larger story. I would consider it part of their working conditions too: it creates a needlessly stressful environment for them to work in.

Have they slipped up in the past? Sure, but part of me just has to wonder why the publishers feel the need for so much cloak and dagger in the first place. And, well, it works out for movies, so why can't it work out here? It all comes down to being treated as tools, rather than performers.

edited 31st Oct '16 6:12:22 AM by Clarste

"Again, you do not go into a negotiation expecting 100% of what you demand. That's not how a negotiation works. Obviously the union knows this."

I beg to differ on that last sentence.

edited 31st Oct '16 6:23:48 AM by Grounder

YMMV on that. The age of social media severely changed how movies are promoted, and nowadays the fact that public can get to know all sorts of behind-the-scene fact has changed movies in ways the studios like (easy buzz generation) and dislikes (It's impossible to conceal a movie with a troubled production).

The entire concept of Alan Smithee (Though they were now using different name ever since An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn made the name unusable) is basically unworkable anymore, because it's impossible for a director to NOT be tied with a film. Even if they remove their names from the credits, nowadays everyone knows they worked on it.

Even in video games there's plenty of reasons for the Cloak And Dagger approach. Consider how one game can annihilate another one's sales due to similarity (Perceived or otherwise). Ask Bloodborne how Overwatch hit their sales. It makes sense a company would want to keep control on when and how a game is revealed.

I mean, I do believe there's a middle ground they can reach with the Voice Actors there.

edited 31st Oct '16 7:04:53 AM by Ghilz

You mean Battleborn?

Well those on the co-optional podcast went into length on all this, the VOD should be up on You Tube later today. I gotta say there are some things I agree on with the strike and some things I really don't.

The biggest thing is hazard pay for scream sessions, if it's that harmful why arnt they fighting for restrictions on time in these sessions instead of asking for more money? Save the voice.

As for royalties and bonuses... they are aware that not even the devs get that or are tied to some bullshit like metacritic score I hope. A voice isn't everything for games. A VA needs to build a name and a voice then they will pay you big bucks up front to be in their game, just look at Japan's V As, 90% of V As arnt bothering to and really it's partially the union's fault.

Wanting to know what game they are working on... They do know that V As leak an unannounced game all the damn time right? Maybe if they added a really serious fine to the NDA like no pay what so ever.

Also the union is just bringing these up now? It's been 20 years since union V As have been doing games.

edited 1st Nov '16 5:07:11 AM by Memers

ha ha ha ha I'm not even going to bother making the comparison I want to make here

whoops

edited 1st Nov '16 5:30:32 AM by PhysicalStamina

Pretty sure that podcast is never made available the day after, but instead two - usually on Thursday. So unless they specifically announced the change to go with the one-day earlier podcast this week, it looks like you were wrong about that too.

Anyway, to prevent this from becoming a "dogpile Memers" thread, I'll point out that the issue that the strike doesn't have any immediate leverage. Voice recordings can be delayed until a later stage of development, and until these games start all hitting that, the strike is just spinning its wheels. Next year's major game conventions, particularly E3, is when this is going to start catching up.

So, the question will be: are the union and/or the VAs that patient? Time will tell.

edited 1st Nov '16 7:29:01 AM by TotemicHero

"So, the question will be: are the union and/or the V As that patient? Time will tell."

Depends on if the union leaders are more interested in money or employment.

I'd be surprised to learn that the little people decided to revolt against their superiors.

I'm hearing rumblings that EA senior management may not actually have signed off on that anti-strike site. Nobody's willing to actually come forwards to say that, though.

@ 163 Memers, the voice actors are striking now, because the contract they had been operating under ended recently. It would have been illegal to strike before the contract ended.

Also if the voice actors manage to get bonuses for super successful games, maybe it will result in the door opening the door to developers getting the same consideration.

Can you post a link to that podcast when it is ready?

edited 1st Nov '16 10:58:19 AM by Overlord

A few Canadian VAs weigh-in. Admittedly, nothing particular new for anyone who's been paying attention on the topic, though David Hayter saying he's seen people burst into tears after meeting him, "which indicates there's some sort of entertainment impact occurring there." is fun.

Hayter is an exception, not a rule.

And, you know, Kojima was always trying to replace him, regardless of his merit.

You know, maybe Konami should stay the f*** away from Metal Gear.

They own it,it's hard not to.

Let's not turn this into a FucKonami ^note I've probably been following Jim Sterling a little too closely lately debate, please? This strike is a little bigger than just a single company, regardless of what else they've done or haven't done.

Anyway, one thing of interest is that I decided to do a quick search for which major news networks reported the strike. The answer? Fox News, and only Fox News did a bit on it right around Halloween. As for who else touched it - not CNN, not MSNBC, not BBC...not a good recipe for getting attention. I guess tunnel vision on the election and the fallout thereof is a huge part of that, but overall it doesn't help their cause.

edited 21st Nov '16 4:58:58 PM by TotemicHero

-sigh- The media and their priorities.

Might be because Fox News is more right-wing and doesn't really need to continue talking about the election.