Actors Get Fat Paychecks For Video Game Voice Work
By Stephany on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 11:05 AM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games, Games Industry, Portable
Apparently actors who lend their voices to video games can get paid in upwards of five figures just for sitting in a booth and reading a script. Roughly 1,200 to 1,500 lines of dialog per character are recorded for most story-driven games, and game with a large amount of narrative can exceed that number greatly. In accordance with Screen Actors Guild rules, actors get paid about $760 for a single four-hour recording session, and some actors can book two or three sessions per day, which equals to a much larger paycheck than on-screen work for some. Upon hearing this, I bemoaned my career choice almost immediately. Who wouldn’t?
While we are all aware that actors lend their voices to video game, some of us might have been unaware that they make a decent living out of it. Keith David, Michael Ironside, Patrick Stewart (among others) are the more familiar ones and from a recent article on this subject, it has been mentioned that one actor in particular claimed half a million just for lending their voice to a game. Which one was this? No name was given, but feel free to guess for yourself as I have my own ideas on who I think it was. Regardless on how much they get paid, they lend a bit of credibility to a game, and make it more enjoyable for everyone involved. It can also help an actor or actress who is past their prime or no longer a lucrative draw at the box office to continue to work without resorting to embarrassing commercials like adult diapers or the latest mattress/diet craze. However, this being said, I do not think any actor’s voice is worth half a million no matter how cool they sound (Patrick Stewart is my guess on this one) or how familiar they are to the masses.
Source: Reuters
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Well, if it were as easy as “just sitting in a room reading a script” everyone would be doing voice-overs. The large paychecks you’re describing are not the norm, and doing video game work well requires tremendous skill and a lot of energy.
For more information on this topic see this article just out today: http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/2008/02/state_of_video_game_voice_acting_2008.html
Cheers
MCM
Thanks for the blog fodder. I wrote about your blog in my blog today on Voiceregistry.com. I agree with MCM. If you only knew how many steps it takes, hurdles to jump through and false starts to finally land the coveted voice over job you’d understand the money we get for “reading a script.” However I do agree the celebrities get the gigantic fees and create even more competition in a ridiculously competitive market. Can wait to book one of those gigs!! Tracy Pattin
I myself never mentioned that actors went into a room and just started “reading a script”. Acting is acting no matter if you are doing it for radio, a commercial, or a movie. Look at the radio actors of the bygone era and try and tell me that it did not take a great amount of talent to do such work – it took loads of it mainly because they had to convey all emotions present in the human body without listeners being able to see facial expressions or body language.
The same could be said for video game actors, and if you re-read my post, I hope you realize that when I said “lending their voice” to a VG script, I was in no way shape or form being sarcastic nor was I belittling anyone who does this for a living. If you have read any of my other posts on this site, you would figure out very quickly that there was not an ounce of sarcasm in my tone – this time. This post had nothing to do with regular voice actors, it was the amazement I felt upon reading the Reuters article which gives the figures for “famous actors” landing such a job -ESP. the 1/2 million dollar paycheck the unnamed actor received.
“If you only knew how many steps it takes, hurdles to jump through and false starts….” yes, I am sure it does. So does a job in journalism and many other job markets. Most want loads of experience or a name familiar to the masses, but on the same hand, so does getting a job as an Administrative Assistant. Where I live, you can take a woman with over 15 years of experience and one with a 2 year Associates Degree with zero experience and have them both apply for the same job and the gal fresh out of school will get it. Granted, acting is an art form and cannot technically be compared to secretarial work, but the example is still the same because there will always be competition in the job market whether you are and actor, a scullery maid, or a receptionist.
I do not belittle voice actors very often when reviewing a game, because 9/10 times the actors do a bang up job no matter how silly and contrived the script was. I do however feel that money given to big name actors to do such work could be better spent whether it is on the graphics or the gameplay mechanics. If a company would spend in upwards of 1/2 a million dollars on just one actor to do some voice work in a game, they better make damn sure that they can recoup that cost in sales, and with the amount of rushed games, horrid gameplay, boring scripts, and just plain bad games that have come out lately, gaming companies need to stop relying on voice recognition and instead focus on talent. Not only will it save them money or give them extra money to spend elsewhere on the game, it will give regular actors a chance to pay their bills and continue to work in their chosen job market. Yes, it was cool hearing Patrick Stewart play the Emperor in Oblivion, but the game would still have been wonderful without him – there are loads of men with British accents that would have done just as well as he did.
Maybe I should have titled my post “FAMOUS Actors get Fat Paychecks for Video Game Voice Work” and I would not have been accused of considering this line of work as nothing more than sitting in a chair and reading a script.
Stephany, no criticism of your post intended – it’s great to have the comments option available to get this kind of discussion going. Voice actors are not alone in being called upon rather frequently to defend their rates – we are among the vulnerable in that we do something that “anybody” can do (that’s the perception – we just talk). Photographers are another vulnerable group (they just push a button!). You used a phrase that pushed some buttons for us: “just for sitting in a room and talking” (that’s what Tracy and I were responding to), but now I see (correct me if I’m wrong) that what you really meant was “just because they’re celebrities they’re getting a huge paycheck.” I also don’t in any way mean to criticise a casting choice, and if somebody wants to hire a celebrity and pay half a million dollars, I don’t think there’s anything the rest of us voice actors can do to talk them out of it. But one can’t help but wonder, as you have, what that 500 thou has really purchased and whether it’s worth it. What really matters is what the customers think – the gamers, and I think it’s really interesting that you don’t seem to feel the cost is justified (are the people spending that money listening?). So, many thanks for responding to these comments to bring out some important points.
If anybody is curious about what does go into the process of setting rates in voice-acting, I’d be pleased as anything to send you to an essay I wrote about it recently here: http://mcmvoices.com/blog/2008/01/setting-rates-in-voice-over-business.html
Again thanks for clarifying your position and being receptive to discussion. That is one of the great things about the blogosphere!
Do you also object to the amount of money paid to professional athletes? Those guys are only playing a game. At least with the voice actors, they are helping to CREATE a game.
Here’s the real deal: getting a star in to voice a part in a video game helps us all in the voice biz. When studios can latch onto the star power of a great actor, they’re more willing to spend the money to develop games, and that means more roles for more voice actors.