Voice Actor Union Pickets Ratchet & Clank Dev, as Strike Continues

If you're easily replaceable, this isn't going to go anywhere. Only 25% of games use union actors. That means there are plenty of other actors willing to take up the roles you are declining to accept. Do you really think the industry is going to cave in when you hold this little power?

Now if every garbage collector belonged to the same union and the union decided to go on strike.. we'd all be screwed. No one would collect the trash. This will be resolved very quickly. Whatever demands they made will be met pronto.

If the police went on strike, the nation would plunge into lawless chaos. Again, their demands will be met.

Paramedics? The same.

Voice actors. More specifically, voice actors of one particular union who only voice 25% of the games being made. Sorry, but you don't have the clout to get what you want. As long as there are alternative actors out there who will do the job, you're going to be unemployed until you accept the counter offer and end the strike. Unlike the garbage collector scenario, you are replaceable. SAG AFTRA do not have a monopoly on acting.

Having said that, I do not know if garbage collectors are unionized, or whether they are all from the same union. It was a hypothetical only.

I would advise the actors and union to accept a compromise. They need their employers more than their employers need them, since the employers have alternatives. That means the industry employing them are the one who hold the power. The strike will not matter much to them. To strike, you have to be the one holding the power or you're only screwing yourself out of jobs. And apparently they don't need money as much as they claim to if they can afford to go on indefinite strike.

You're barking up the wrong tree SAG. Get back to work.

"Because right now they treat us like we don't matter,"

I hate to say it Crispin, but they are right.

"400 SAG-AFTRA members and supporters showed up for the picket."

Likely more professional protesters and hardcore unionists than actual voice actors. Everyone else that works for a living would jump at the offer they received. nothing is good enough for the "entitled". Let them stay out of work, join the other 75% of game devs and stop hiring union actors.

Well, as an employee you sign a contract. If you don't like the amount they pay you, or any other content for that matter, you can always choose not to sign the contract, walk away and find a job somewhere else.

And not to dismiss the profession, but they are voice actors, people who use their... voice. You know, like 7 billion people in the world do every day. I can probably find a college student with an interesting voice who could use some spare cash to do so.

This kind of sounds like people who work at McDo and expect $15/hour for putting food on a tray and handling the register: bitter and unreasonable.

I'm sure I won't miss them. Go get a job at McDonald's if you think you have it too rough.

they should work in retail and see how corporations care about their employees and how tight their wallets are, they would run back fast to their voice acting gigs.

Many of the comments below are out of touch. The original va for MGS is still the gold standard. Every publisher/developer should aim high and push their games as such. Attracting good translators and actors is key.

Remove/change voices that aren't Halo's master chief - I won't even notice.

The voice actors are going to soon learn a harsh lesson about how little AAA publishers care about their voice talent and care far more about development costs. Hell, they don't even care to keep the same people from game to game for established characters. They'd pick people up off the streets if it could cut costs.

Dangerous path the voice actors are taking. I'm not discrediting their work but it's a different animal than other forms of media.

Take movies or TV for example. I can immediately tell when Gilbert Gottfried voices an animated character. His work is just more readily available and widespread than say a video game voice actor who may do one game every 8 months and have maybe 5 or 6 lines. That doesn't give anyone enough time for him/her to imprint on the audience.

While voice acting is important, I'm not sure it's the selling point for games and unless someone told me directly that X actor was in this AND that game I honestly would not make the connection unless they were released near eachother. At the end of the day the voice acting won't bother many users unless it's terribly miscast. An Arnold Schwarzenegger for a young soft spoken role for example.

I just don't think the strike will end well for them and that is a shame.

bad voice acting can ruin a game.

@computernoises: lol get a job on big bang theory , that is the definition of idiocy to pay those fools that much.

The show stopped being funny some time ago yet they are raking in money for lousy acting.

Everyone feels so entitled these days, all they do is stand in a room and talk into a microphone. Just another case of only in America infecting the rest of the world with their bs.

Phil Lamarr had a more significant role in Mad TV as far as his onscreen roles go, but sure he was legitimately in Pulp Fiction as well.

As far as this whole picket they're doing. I'm still not sure how to feel about it. I mean, ya they deserve to get paid, but I'm not convinced that the developers they are picketting can pay them what they think they can, or that they do not make enough in the first place.

Video games are expensive to make. But then again I don't know how much voice actors make per game, or enough about their work conditions to know if it's fair.

It's seems like a bit much to picket Insomniac, but I only have an outsiders opinion on that. They seem like cool developers, but I don't know what they're like internally because I've never worked there.

Hell yeah, strike them greedy companies.