Risk has never been a requirement for allocating royalties. Royalties are paid for continued use of an artistic performance or composition, everywhere except the gaming industry.

EDIT - I think where some of the confusion lies is in how we have monetized art. For actors, their performance is the product they produce and sell. In the past, when all acting was done live, each performance got paid. With recorded acting, be it in movies, TV or video games, each broadcast, theater showing, DVD sale, etc. is a performance, but in video games, the actors only get paid for the initial recording, rather than each performance like they do in all other media.

Some changes to the working conditions, sure. Royalties? As contractors? Uh. no. I don't claim royalties from my customers when my particular highly-specialized talent installs a machine that will help them earn millions in revenue over the long haul. They have 150,000 of them in the union that can do the job (along with all of the people outside the union who can do it), so there's not exactly a niche with a lot of leverage.

I highly doubt those 143,000 members saying "yes" are all working in the video game industry in the US. That seems too high by a factor of 10. The other 90% are not affected but vote Yes for reasons of solidarity or whatever.

Further, a game with 2 million in sales doesn't happen overnight. Bare minimum, one year and more likely three or more. The point is, the game developer has a pretty wide opening in the calendar in which voice acting can occur. Are they expecting to strike for three years?

No, that would be foolish. They make it work (IF it works) by A) bringing the issue to the public via news releases and articles, B) asking for more than they actually expect to get (royalties is the throw-away, because it's ridiculous), and C) they collectively start writing this stuff into their contracts. But they still have to get around the fact that developers can simply wait them out. "Our VA contractors are striking." "No problem - the game isn't due for another 18 months. Plenty of time." It ain't like JIT production at a factory...



HOWEVER, I do not mock or minimize the effect that good voice acting has on a game. As a prime example for me, would Bastion be the game that it is without Logan Cunningham doing his part as wonderfully as he did?

That's because you expect to be paid up front for the work.

Royalties are generally paid because they provide the actors with a more stable source of income and the company can somewhat reduce it's costs in cases where the game flops. They're really the best way to handle the problem of work that's done rarely, but is high value and where the worker needs to be able to pay for things like food and housing on a regular basis.

As far as due dates go, it's not 18 months, most of those games are going to be released either in the near future for this Christmas or next year. I'm guessing there's going to be enough projects caught up in this to be worth dealing with the problem now. Seems a bit much to assume that they haven't considered that.
Screen and TV actors get royalties mostly because it's easier to get the royalties right than to guess how popular a program is going to be. There's a huge amount of risk that comes from making a one off payment. Sometimes you get it right and you save money, other times you wind up spending too much and they get to keep the extra money.

Royalties are something that tends to mitigate that problem. It's also a way of helping provide a stable income stream so that they aren't having to guess how long it's going to last. There's a trickle coming in over time that gradually diminishes rather than a huge chunk of change that's as big as it's ever going to be..

The union includes all voice actors from all forms of media: video games, cartoons, language dubbing, commercial voiceovers... any media where an actor is paid pretty much only for their voice work. There is some solidarity involved in the vote, but it is mostly self-interest. Any one of those actors knows that they could be hired for video game work at any time, so it is in their own best interests to get the best working deal they can get, or at least a deal equivalent to what they already get from all the other voice work they do. The union is actually a division of the Screen Actors Guild, which means if a strike were to happen, it is possible (but exceedingly unlikely) that the entire Guild could strike in solidarity with the voice actors, completely shutting down Hollywood.

Their situation isn't different in any major way than mine, so I guess I should start demanding royalties. Because it would be nice - as a contractor - to have a steady income stream from past work, to help out when times are slow.

Even though that's not really how contracting works.

But whatever. Good luck to them, I guess. I don't have a rubber duck in this race and am not particularly concerned. I simply think it's silly from a contracting standpoint: if you don't like the terms of the current contract, then negotiate for those items before signing the next one - that's EXACTLY what a contract is for.

And if you want to count on a steady income, don't be a contractor. That's the flip-side of having your independence from an employer.

I am curious, though, what they're prepared to give up. After all, you strike for better terms and the other side has every right to ask for a little give in exchange for your take.

There is such a thing as insurance. Hand models insure their hands. Foot models insure their feet. Why wouldn't a serious voice actor insure their voice? That said, I find it highly unlikely that a producer is going to ask a VA to do something so strenuous it would damage them.

I've got friends in the industry, and the VAs are treated pretty darn well, by their accounts.
How do you figure? It takes time to get a new programmer up to speed so he doesn't go in blind, destroying potentially months of hard work. Also, changing a designer could completely change a game's aesthetics, forcing delays as people are then forced to work with entirely new assets. A human voice is the most common element in the world, and yes, even David Hayter's terrible Batman impression is replaceable.
Then it's up to an agent to be negotiating these things, and it's up to the market to decide if a VA is even worth attempting it. It's not on the industry to put VAs on welfare for their minimal contributions. You honestly think people piled out to go buy Mass Effect because Seth Green or Jennifer Hale was in it? I'm willing to guess that most non-autistic gamers couldn't tell you who the voice actors are, let alone care who's voicing them.

Developers and publishers are not responsible for whether or not a VA can manage their already ample wages adequately. If I were going to say that ANY area deserves more money, I'd say QA, judging by the glut of terrible Warner Brothers and Ubisoft releases and ports.

... I think voice actor royalties are the reason why we're not getting a bunch of PS1 game rereleases on PlayStation Network. Wasn't one of the Rival Schools games impossible to release because of that?

I know they want better salaries, but come on, physical actors don't get royalties for their work. :(

Video games would be better off if voice-acting were abandoned entirely and the money saved would be spent on actual gameplay-related costs.

(You know, except for things like "Ahhhh" noises for deaths and taking damage)

Many do get royalties, and hedwards pointed out some advantages. But I don't think it's something that relatively-anonymous VA folks should be making a huge deal about. I don't buy a game because Jim Bob did voice work on it, but I may go see a film because it stars a particular actor. That's a prime difference - to me - between VA and full-on acting. Harrison Ford or Helen Mirren might be a draw that brings in customers by name alone. I'm not sure the same holds true - to any extent that accounts for more than a tiny blip in sales - for voice work in games.

That said, I don't find the 2 million threshold to be unreasonable for a particular contract between the voice actor and the developer. But I do think it's silly for the union to strike over the matter.

Insurance is rarely adequate and insuring things like your hands or feet is incredibly difficult to do. The actuarial tables for that rely on exceedingly small amounts of data. How many feet and hand models are there in the world?

It also fails to account for whether you would have gone onto a hot streak or run out of luck naturally.

Have you ever played a video game with voice acting? Every time you hear a yell or a scream that's a voice actor risking their vocal cords for the job. They can do a bit of that just fine, but when taken in whole with the other things they're doing you run the risk of permanent damage.

But, if the game involves screaming and yelling, somebody has to do it and that person has to sound like the person that's doing the rest of the talking. Which is quite hard to do without being the same person.

The royalties are the wages. I'm not sure why that's so hard for you people to grasp it. The Publisher is perfectly free to pay a lump sum of money for services rendered, they don't do that for reasons I've already mention. Just because you choose not to understand how that works doesn't make it any less true.

There's nothing stopping the publishers from paying lump sums except for the fact that it's a huge upfront cost that they don't know the value of. A royalty has the benefit for the publishers of allowing them to defer paying some of the salary until they're actually making money on it.

I'm not sure where you people got the idea that royalties are free money, because they're not. It would be a bit like you receiving $5 an hour with the balance being paid in the form on an annuity. You could probably get your boss to agree to something like that as well, if you really wanted to.

As far as I know, contractors are paid more than the employee because they don't have the steady income and health / insurance / retirement plan / annual or sick leave and whatever benefits.

While I am all for them getting basic working rights, I don't think they deserve royalties, because they don't share the risk if the game flop.

If they really want that, they should be paid in companies shares instead. Like if they charge 10K for their work, they receive 5k and another 5K worth of company shares. If the game becomes a hit, the company share increase and dividends are payed out so more profit for them. If the game flop, the shares take a plummet and there are no extra bonus. This would be fair

Unions of olde =/= modern unions.

As many family members and friends have been fucked by modern unions doing nothing but collecting their dues and saying "gimme". Fuck em.

So you are saying these people who charge $10K for their work should charge 5K but have some royalties instead?

Correct. My rate went up but all of those things the employer used to pay for are now my costs. Interestingly, I'm able to charge customers less than the old employer does even though I now have those costs myself. Mainly, it comes down to needing a smaller motor to turn a smaller wheel: I handle everything myself (with accountant assistance) and don't have to pay people who don't directly generate revenue (HR, etc.). But I do have to suck up, for instance, the liability insurance that they previously assumed as part of their overall business. The stuff adds up but you gotta have it - at least in this gig.

Dunno what job-specific liability a voice actor would have, except maybe sneaking in a swear word or something like that.

So I fully understand the whole "leveling out your income" thing of royalties - and have had some really sparse times, to be sure, where a revenue source like this would have been nice. But for reasons mentioned earlier I don't think that royalties for these folks are necessarily a viable thing to strike over. Now, if they can work it into the industry in other ways then that's fine. I just don't think it's a good use of a strike action.

A mix like that would be a decent thing, and it's not unheard of elsewhere - you get a base pay but you also have some long-term 'skin in the game' and a vested interest in the success of the endeavor, which could help sales a bit as you'd then be motivated to help generate that long-term revenue. So maybe those interested could try to work that into their next contracts.

Then they buy a long-term disability policy. You can get policies that cover you if you can no longer work in your field. That's what mine does, and I believe most professionals do it this way: a surgeon doesn't get boned because he COULD flip burgers for a living instead of repairing innards.

But it's a somewhat weak issue as one can easily avoid screaming. "Does this gig require screaming?" "Yes" "I'll have to take a pass on this particular job, then. Got another character, non-screaming, that I could voice?" Or, "Screaming is an extra 15% to my fee, because of the risk to my vocal qualities." Really don't think they need a strike to solve that problem when the solution is as simple as saying 'no' or charging more to cover the insurance cost.