Video Game Actors Say They Don't Get Their Due

Dekortage writes "The New York Times reports today about Michael Hollick, the actor who provided the voice of Niko Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV. Although the game has made more than $600 million in sales for Rockstar Games, Hollick earns nothing beyond the original $100K he was paid. If this was television, film, or radio, Hollick and the other GTA actors could have made millions by now. Hollick says, 'I don't blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games. Yes, the technology is important, but it's the human performances within them that people really connect to, and I hope actors will get more respect for the work they do within those technologies.' Is it time for video game actors to be treated as well as those in other mediums?"

Keep fighting, but be realistic

[suso (153703)]

Yes, the technology is important, but it's the human performances within them that people really connect to, and I hope actors will get more respect for the work they do within those technologies.'

I respect the work that these people do, but come on. I think this guy might be stretching it a bit. People don't buy video games for an actor in the same way they go see a movie for an actor in it. It is a completely different medium. Besides, voice actors in video games right now are pioneers. They will have to fight for a while before they get the recognition and money that they expect. Just like Hollywood actors did.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[DrLang21 (900992)]

What about all of the creative programmers that create the interaction that drives the sales of these video games? What about their millions of dollars?

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[hansamurai (907719)]

Exactly, I bet per hour this guy made a ton more than any of the programmers on the team. If this game took three years to make they each could have pulled in 200k I'm sure but how many hours is that? 40 a week? 60 a week? 80 a week at crunch time?

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Cowardly Anonymity (1104529)]

Agreed. While in some sense video game voice acting is similar to animated films (especially with all the "ordinary" talk that is on GTA4), it's not exactly the centerpiece of the game. It's the animators, the game designers, and the programmers that create the bulk of the rest of the game, since games are interactive, rather than the almost half-half split that you see in movies: half acting, half animating. So for the amount of work he does and for the part that he plays in the creation of the game, Hollick gets paid pretty well compared to the other people working on it. Maybe actors and programmers could broker a deal that if a game breaks a certain threshold of sales, they would start getting small percentages of the profits above threshold?

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Hojima (1228978)]

Then you also have the fact that it took years of time and money to have the skill to be able to do those essential tasks. I honestly hate the fact that actors feel like they deserve more for doing less.

Actors get more when the studios want them

[jesterzog (189797)]

I honestly hate the fact that actors feel like they deserve more for doing less.

Personally I don't think this guy should get more than what he initially agreed to, and I also think he's sounding a bit more arrogant for wanting more. The fact is that his employer could hire someone else and get virtually the same result, because (as many people have already said) people don't buy games for the actors.

But I certainly don't have a problem with actors getting paid a lot if it's just a case of market forces. A really good example of this is the Simpsons' voice cast, who are now earning on the order of millions of dollars per season [scotsman.com]. That's a huge amount of money for the amount of time it takes and compared with other people on the staff (such as writers and producers and animators, presumably), especially considering it doesn't even prevent them from doing other work. The difference is that they're nowhere near as replacable. Fox can (and did) replace most of the original writers of the show to the extent that the plots and quality have changed hugely (imho), but it still makes money because the show's primary pulling point these days is the voice acting.

The reason they get this much isn't because they're arrogant, it's because that's what the studio thinks they're worth. The actors have been doing voices on this show for something on the order of 20 years! Nearly anyone would rather be spending their time doing something else by that time, and it's not as if the actors owe it to the show's fans to keep working at low rates for the rest of their lives. They've named a price that'll convince them to stay, and Fox thinks they're worth it. At some point it won't be worth it for Fox to keep paying the amount that the actors want, the show will end or they'll find someone else, and the actors will still be happy because they'll finally have time to spend on other projects they've wanted to to for ages. Meanwhile it's market-decided compensation for whatever else they're giving up which they'd much rather be doing.

If this GTA4 guy (whom I never heard of) reckons he's worth more than $100k then more power to him, but he needs to convince someone to pay him what he thinks he's worth. If a studio pays him more they'll probably be subsidising it by dropping alternative actors or talent somewhere else, which he'd be expected to replace. If he can't convince them to do that, he's worth less.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[kklein (900361)]

1) I think this guy was well-compensated, but I also think a royalty deal (a small one) would be fair.

2) For me, actually, voice talent is basically the make-or-break point for a video game. I'm serious. Here's a review of Mass Effect [gameosaur.us] to prove it. However, while I don't think I'm alone in that, I think it's fairly uncommon.

3) If acting is so easy, why aren't you doing it? It's one of the hardest things to be good at out there. That's why it pays. Anyone can do it poorly. But as a guy who does a little acting, writing, and directing, I have to tell you that most people are frickin' terrible. Even trained people are often terrible. It's partly a talent, partly an art, and partly a technical skill. It's really quite difficult.

4) Y'know, IT work is not the only job that requires expertise and skill. In fact, I've met a lot of dumb IT people. Really dumb. But the dumber they are, the smarter they seem to think they are. It's just a job, dude. We all have them. You couldn't do mine and I couldn't do yours. That's why we have jobs!

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[PrescriptionWarning (932687)]

the deal is as this, if the person doing the job doesn't feel they're getting enough money they should not be doing the job. simple as that. Economics 101 says people will only pay for what they're willing to pay for, and vice versa for the people being payed. The market, more or less, decides the pay rate itself by people deciding what they're willing to work at.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[rickkas7 (983760)]

The guy made $ 1,050 per day for about 95 days over 15 months to make about $ 100,000. Software developers probably made more than that in 15 months, but they had to work about 325 days. I'm feeling no sympathy.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[KevinKnSC (744603)]

Well, the question then is whether video game voice actors are underpaid, or whether other acting professions are grossly overpaid.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Cathoderoytube (1088737)]

You have no idea.
I'm a professional animator, and I have to say voice actors can be an extreme pain in the ass. They do about an hours worth of work but make more money than everybody else in the production. The last show I worked on the lead voice actor put well over 300 people out of work for 2 months while he re-negotiated his contract. They're so self absorbed and disconnected from the reality that they think they're the only important aspect of the production. On top of all that when the bleeder finally did agree to come back to work, they had to fire several people just to make up for the extra money they were giving this guy.

So really, I have zero sympathy for voice actors.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Dan667 (564390)]

Completely agree. Voice actors are a dime a dozen, but I am surprised there are not more rock star Programmers gaining fame like Carmack. The Programmers are the ones that make the entertainment in this medium and they should get their due and accolades.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[b96miata (620163)]

The game industry learned from the past mistakes of film and never let them reach that level.
Also, all due respect to your angry unappreciated programmer 'tude, but frankly they're not.

They're just one piece of a big puzzle. This isn't the 80s when squeezing a few extra polygons on the screen meant the difference between 12 and 40. Most of the type of work that the "rock star" people did back in the day is now handled by Engineers at ATI and NVIDIA, with some finishing touches by the DX team. Lately, with shaders to be written and what not, it's coming back a bit, but on the big console games more times than not they're using an engine that has most of that done already. (if you want to laud someone for the looks of GTA, check the credits for rockstar's ping pong game)

I'd argue modellers/graphic artists are just as important, and on a game like GTAIV, story writers are a big piece of the picture.

They could have had anyone with a decent eastern-european sounding accent and good delivery voice Niko. It's the situations he was in that made the game interesting.


*note: this is coming from someone who makes a living writing software, so I'm not just tearing down people's contributions out of spite for the profession or anything.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Back when John Carmack gained his fame, entire video games were produced by 3-4 people. It was entirely possible for the bulk of the work to be done by a single person. That is how they gained their fame. They did it all themselves. Now, with the complexity of games, it's impossible to do it all on your own. Therefore, it's impossible for somebody to claim all the credit, and impossible for anybody to become a superstar, just because they worked on a bunch of games. Also, there are no new video game guys, because the old guys are still going strong. Miyamoto, Carmack, Sid Meier, are all still producing games. GTA IV may sell a lot of copies, but it's still not a great game. I'm not sure if anybody will still be playing it 10-20 years from now. It will probably be forgotten about a week after GTA V comes out.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[merreborn (853723)]

Back when John Carmack gained his fame, entire video games were produced by 3-4 people.

I know a guy who worked at Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts) in the 80's. He recently went back for their 25th anniversary party, and talked about his experiences there at the time. He worked on some Commodore 64 games at the time, usually with maybe one other engineer. He was responsible for pretty much everything -- writing the memory manager, networking code, graphics, etc. etc.

At lunch, the kid he sat next to was responsible for wood and ice simulation in the new star wars game -- and nothing else. They said rendering a single pixel in that game required about as much memory as a whole commodore 64 had -- 32k.

So yeah, game development has changed dramatically.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[by Anonymous Coward]

Interesting because the games companies I've talked to say that 70% of the game is written by one lead programmer.

Intersting because the people I've talked to say that 99% of what LingNoi says is made up on the spot

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Rogerborg (306625)]

IME, lead programmers tend to believe that they write 70% of the game themselves. It's a role that requires a certain amount of Messiah and/or Martyr Complex.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Surt (22457)]

That is grossly untrue. I've worked for 3, including Blizzard, and that was not remotely true. I would guess that no single programmer has contributed more than 20% of the codebase for a AAA title in the last 10 years.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[hackstraw (262471)]

What about all of the creative programmers that create the interaction that drives the sales of these video games? What about their millions of dollars?

Yeah, everybody is entitled to life + 100 years of profit from every piece of work that they do. Thats what I get, don't you?

The thing is that the guy can't say this after the fact. If he wants a cut, then that needs to be in writing before he accepts the job. I mean, $100k is not bad for what I would imagine is a part time job for a while. I don't know the game, so I don't know the scale of his dialog skills in it, but I doubt it was 2,000 hours of work over a year of time (1 FTE in manager speak).

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[raddan (519638)]

Not to mention-- even if he gets royalties, it's probably not going to be the same kind of sweet deal that actors get. Video games are different than movies in one important respect: a good movie will continue to sell indefinitely, and this is where royalties really pay off. This is rare for a video game. Even if you want to keep playing the game, you have to deal with obsolescence of the hardware and software. MicroProse's F-19 Stealth Fighter was one of my favorite all-time games. Assuming if I can get it to run correctly in an emulator, forget about hooking up my old Gravis Analog joystick-- I don't even have a port for it on my computer anymore!

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[tmalone (534172)]

Video games are starting to sell like movies. Just look at Final Fantasy. How many times is Square going to trot out the old games? Now, there weren't voice actors in those games, but it does show that older titles do have value. Lunar, originally for the SegaCD was later re-released on the Saturn, and later still on the PS1. That game had lots of voice acting. I wonder who got the money for those releases?

If the video game industry wants to be taken more seriously, they should start taking their product more seriously. That means respecting the talent that actually creates the games. Programmers shoulld get paid like writers. They need to have a guild. The head of the team should probably be considered the director or producer. As actors become more and more integral to the success of a game,they should be paid like any other actor. Games will never be "art" until the people who make them start considering them to be art.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Fumus (1258966)]

Maybe more gamers are like me. I buy games for their content. Why the hell would I bother to even look up who did some character's voice?
It's the same with films. I don't give a rat's ass about who plays which role. I just watch the damn film and enjoy it or not. I don't even know more than ten actor names. I just don't care enough.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[suso (153703)]

Right, the only games where you really connect with the actor playing a character is when the game is based on a movie. And then its annoying when its not played by the same actor.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Divebus (860563)]

If there was a percentage option, most people would look at video games and say "I'll take my money up front, thanks" and be bitter about their poor choice after the project hits paydirt.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Critical Facilities (850111)]

That's it exactly!

This guy has the nerve to complain that he was ONLY paid $100k to essentially do voice over work. Apparently, he has absolutely no frame of reference for the entertainment industry (or at least, no frame of reference that's grounded in reality). Furthermore, the comparison in the article which says:

Had this been a television program, a film, an album, a radio show or virtually any other sort of traditional recorded performance, Mr. Hollick and the other actors in the game would have made millions by now.

That is such crap. By that rationale, eveyone who had ever done voice-over work for documentaries, or was a guest on a radio show would be a millionaire. The problem here is that this person a) maybe didn't negotiate well at the onset of the project and b) is confusing the success of the game with his success. These games didn't succeed and become wildly popular BECAUSE of this person's voice (or simulated gait for crying out loud). Rather, this person gained popularity due to the game's success (due to the design, art work, marketing, R&D, etc etc). This just sounds like a whiney guy who can't find other work....maybe because he isn't that great as a "voice actor".

By the way, before you flame me or mod me troll, I am a composer for TV and movies, and am fully aware of each deal I enter into. If I make a choice to negotiate a set price for a project, and that project subsequently takes off and becomes wildly successful, I have no one by myself to blame for not negotiaitng a piece of the back end and making sure I get residuals/royalties. This guy need to learm the business if he's going to progress any further.

He was over-compensated.

[wireloose (759042)]

That first Tauren actor that Blizzard hired only received 3 coppers and a stack of Peacebloom for a snack.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[elrous0 (869638)]

He had better be careful. Rockstar might just decide to kill him and get their money back.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[Lumpy (12016)]

Exactly, I say to these actors.... A GREAT BIG WAHHHH.

read your fricking contract before you sign it.

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[suso (153703)]

they don't highlight the actors the way they do, say, on a movie DVD box.

Last time I checked, my copy of Shrek 2 had a picture of a two green ogres a donkey and a cat on it, not Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas

Re:Keep fighting, but be realistic

[actiondan (445169)]

I mean, actors doing voice overs still get paid millions of dollars for doing a Disney/Pixar movie don't they? How is that any different than what's being done in the video game industry?

It's different because those actors being paid millions by Disney/Pixar are _already famous_ - Disney/Pixar think that by having them working on the film, they will get bigger audiences and sell more DVDs.

This guy's name on the credits won't sell any more copies of the game so he is paid for the work he does rather than the value of his personal 'brand'

If he wanted more, he should have demanded it before he signed the contract but he didn't because he knew that if he did, they just would have got someone else to play the role.

Keep the greed contained

[YojimboJango (978350)]

You were hired to do a job and you got 100k for it. Shut up and be glad you have a job in this economy. It always pissed me off how actors say that they 'deserve' millions on millions of dollars for their 4 hours of work a day. I'd be happy to see this trend not extend into the video game industry.

Sorry but...

[blahplusplus (757119)]

... voice actors don't add that much to a game, the fact that he got 100,000 (more then most people make in a year) for the teeniest amount of work compared to the average worker, is just fucking appalling.

I'd rather give those bonus's to the dev's that actually deserve it who spend 60-70 hours a week, then to some greedy VA, who does jack shit, when compared to the massive engineering that coders and artists and others on the team have to do.

VA's do not add anywhere near the value that the actual team does, they're spoilt and the game industry should not cater to these fucks. I'd rather hire amateur VA's off the street then some hollywood fucktard.

Oh the poor bastard

[amazeofdeath (1102843)]

$100k? How can you expect anyone to live on that? Where's the union when you need it the most?

How long does it take?

[phorm (591458)]

How long does it take to do the work? 6 months? A Year? Two to three years?

I'd say that for a year or less of work, 100-grand is good money. If it's more than a year, then depending on the actual work/hours involved, perhaps he should be getting more. However, a million bucks? Maybe big-name actors make this much, but that doesn't automatically entitle video-game actors to the same. Moreover, I'm not really sure how much movie voice-actors make, but that would be a closer comparison.

Sorry bud, but that's the way the industry works. If I write a piece of software for my company which they resell to clients, all I get is my original paycheque (perhaps a bonus if they're feeling generous). Just because some other overpaid smoe is making a million buckazoids or more doesn't automatically entitle you to that type of cash any more than it does me or the various others that work their butts off for a living.

In other news

[Rosco P. Coltrane (209368)]

Fat short italian plumber dresses in red and stages protest in front of Nintendo office in Rome to claim unpaid billions.

When your name can...

[Hangtime (19526)]

bring in hundred of thousands in unit game sales with your name then you can whine. Right now, you could sub that voice out with any other and it would not make one difference in sales. For the closest approximation think Mark Hamill who did video cut scenes for the Wing Commander games back in the mid-90s. People bought that game because he was a part of it, he can ask for royalties. If they made another GTA IV with the same Niko character but with a different voice actor would it matter? Heck no because I don't play the game for the voices, I play for the gameplay.

Re:When your name can...

[grm_wnr (781219)]

I bought Portal for Mike Patton.

This is not television, film, or radio

[Schnapple (262314)]

If this was television, film, or radio, Hollick and the other GTA actors could have made millions by now.

Simple, this is not television, film, or radio. You, as actors, are not what is driving this vehicle. People play these games because they want to play GTA4. If the character was mute and you had to read text (as is the case with a number of other games) the game would feel different but I think it would have sold just as well.

Contrast that to movies or television where people go to see movies and watch television shows because of the actors and actresses involved. People will go to see a movie with Angelina Jolie in it because she's so damn hot and the studios know this so they hire her, and she knows this so she charges $20M.

Now to this guy's credit as near as I can tell he's not saying "I was robbed and deceived", he's just saying "gee, I was the main actor in a game which has made $500M, it would be nice if I had been paid more." With all due respect, you didn't get paid more because you're a nobody. I'm not trying to be mean - but you're not George Clooney, you're someone who did soap operas to this point. You did an excellent job, and you were helped by the "Pixar Effect" of using a high quality but unknown actor to avoid distractions. But you were paid the amount you were because you're an unknown. Heck, you got paid a lot more than the average person does in a year, and I doubt this was the only gig you had. If they ever make a sequel to this game and reuse your character (unlikely, since like the Final Fantasy franchise they change characters and settings entirely from game to game) then renegotiate for more money. But in the meantime, just enjoy the fame and likelihood of getting future work.

What bullshit

[el_munkie (145510)]

He signed the contract. He knew the terms going into it. He is actually very lucky since voice actors are pretty easy to find and have low standards for compensation. His role in this game will get him all kinds of work he would not have gotten otherwise.

And his voice is not an integral part of the game. Any halfway competent voice actor would have sufficed. The real stars are the programmers and designers.

Re:What bullshit

[Bogtha (906264)]

He signed the contract. He knew the terms going into it.

Exactly. Which makes things like this laughable:

I don't blame Rockstar. I blame our union

How about blaming yourself for agreeing to terms you apparently find unconscionable? Oh but wait, once you've got the gig it's easy to bitch about how you deserve more, but I bet if you had said to them up front that 100K wasn't enough, they'd have laughed in your face and hired somebody else for 100K. Because let's face it, no matter how much money they made, you aren't worth more than 100K to them. And if that's not acceptable to you, you shouldn't have accepted the job.

If he did not like the terms...

[InvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837)]

... then why did he sign the contract? Had he not heard of all the previous GTAs enough to know that GTA IV would be a huge success?

Sour grapes

[bconway (63464)]

I don't blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games.

Have you considered negotiating for yourself? That's what I do when I get a job.

Boo hoo. poor little spoiled brat

[sm62704 (957197)]

Although the game has made more than $600 million in sales for Rockstar Games, Hollick earns nothing beyond the original $100K he was paid.

A hundred thousand fucking dollars for reading out loud? How long did he have to read to earn that hundred thousand dollars? Poor little baby. I work all goddamned year long for half that much. That's twice what my house is worth!

I've never seen a hundred thousand dollars!

How much did the programmers get? I'll bet they didn't get a hundred grand each!

The asshole signed a contract and he was paid what he was offered. If he thinks a hundred grand isn't enough, then he shouldn't do any more video games.

I'm sick of the God damned money worshiping greed today. Hollick can kiss my ass.

Re:Wrong

[Da Fokka (94074)]

With the notable exception of Day of the Tentacle...

Tentacle 1: I don't think you should drink that, it looks bad for you!

Tentacle 2: Nonsense! It makes me feel great! Smarter... it makes me feel like I could... like I could... TAKE ON THE WORLD! (cue ominous organ music)

Then again, I wouldn't have a clue who were the voice actors.

Re:100k...

[Squapper (787068)]

Indeed. I am a senior 3d-artist working in the game industry, and my salary for a game is nowhere near 100k

because those guys at the end

[Shivetya (243324)]

of the credits DON'T COUNT.

Amazed people haven't figured it out. These "actors" are the center of the universe, the rarely having completed high school know it alls", the ones who will solve all the worlds problems by jetting there and handing out candy bars"

The people with the grunt work, the programmers, cameramen, gaffers, q&A, and such, well they are just doing a job any chimp could do.

Honestly why should we expect any less of a comment from the likes of this guy? It is quite possible he is good person and generally fun to be around, but the number of these dicksperts that get on the tube and tell us how wonderful they are and how special they are and such and such is beyond number. Hell I take many of their recommendations in the completely opposite fashion...

Re:"creative people"?

[Rosco P. Coltrane (209368)]

If Hollick's union wanted to play silly buggers, someone would have to explain to me why I would want to employ a union actor.

Successful unions usually do all they can to ensure everybody in their fields joins them, and those who don't get no work. I deal with unions all the time and often they are worse than the mafia. In many places, you can't hold a job for long or get promoted if you don't join the union and obey.

In short: if a video game actor's union is created, you quickly won't be able to employ a non-union actor at all.

Re:"creative people"?

[by Anonymous Coward]

As game developers, we're already bound that way if we use any Screen Actors Guild members. If you use one, you have to use only SAG talent, or you'll be blacklisted and never get to use any SAG talent ever again.

Unions suck. Please don't get them any deeper into my industry than they already are.

As far as being paid points off the back end goes, if you're not that central to the project, don't expect a slice of the profits.

Re:He's being paid what he agreed to.

[QuantumPete (1247776)]

Voice actors are unionised. So he can't haggle for his own contract, but he has to agree to one that the industry and unions have worked out previously. If he wants percentages, he'd have to leave the union (and then be fairly unemployable) or get the union to renegotiate its contracts (which I guess is what the whole point of the article is).

Re:oh please

[by Anonymous Coward]

Not russian, serbian. I am serbian. His accent is ok. They need to tone it down otherwise no one understand him!