The Sound of Your Voice

bowler over at GGA has made the statement that voice acting in games just don't really matter:

I hate to say it, but the industry has numbers that prove that voice actors don't drive sales. They just don't. And these numbers are what they used to make their decision on this deal. Kids don't go buy Area51 because David Duchovny or Marilyn Manson are in it. To be perfectly fair and use a cross-industry example, there's data that proves that nobody buys a sports game because of the cover athlete, either. It's a game. People buy them for the gameplay. I buy movies for acting, story, and directing. I buy games for the game. Story and acting is second. Supplemental, influential, inspiring, hell, sometimes even as good as a feature film, but second. If there ever comes a day when the actors are more important than the game, we've failed as a community of game developers.

-- Residuals vs Royalties [gamegirladvance.com]

This is all in a relatively belated response to Wil's statement on the SAG deal ... noted here about a week ago. I still think that making this into a developer vs. actors debate is going to miss the point completely.

First, let's talk about the value of actors. As mentioned below, I saw a Miyazaki film last night - and I'm quite glad that Disney shells out good cash for quality voice acting and directing. I still shiver about the days when anime translations were done by whoever the production company could afford while trying to cram some Japanese work into a kid-friendly American VHS tape. Likewise, I'm glad that video games have moved beyond the point where half the voices in a game was voiced by the studio's secretary.

Acting in games do matter. You could reframe the points made about how graphics do make for a good game in a very similar manner. Since games are becoming more and more cinematic, the need for professional acting in them will become more and more valuable. So it would be a bit odd for a game studio to say that they need to use the Unreal 3.0 engine for rendering to keep pace with current demands, but they've decided to use Joe Janitor for the voice of the main character.

And if I'm wrong? Well, then the market will win out. If SAG pushes for too sweet of a pot and they don't result in profitable games, then SAG members will start losing work. Now if publishers start using lower profit margins as a means to starve smaller studios, we've got a problem - but then that doesn't really seem to be the SAG's fault.

So if bowler's right and I'm wrong - the market will work it out. If game developers are underpaid and overworked ... well gee, we already have a problem with that. If game developers want a better deal, arguing with SAG probably isn't going to help.