@doctor_mg: I don't think it was hard to predict. You don't have to be Nostradamus to know that nostalgia sells and there are tons of people who enjoy living in the past or prefer older Nintendo games.
@whatsazerg: It was an intentional shortage to create the illusion of greater value. They've whipped their customers into a frenzy like this before and it works every time.
@wexorian: The problem is that for every critically acclaimed indie walking simulator that comes out, there are two of the kinds of games I listed. It looks bad and hurts the PC gaming brand overall. Like other people have mentioned, Steam is starting to look like an app store.
And nearly all of it is cheap indie junk, shovelware, casual clicker "games," student projects, Minecraft ripoffs, DayZ ripoffs, Eastern European Simulators, and so on. This situation is awful, but what is the alternative? Let Valve be the gatekeeper of PC gaming?
I'm still a PC gamer, but I'm envisioning a dark future where the value of Steam has been cheapened so much, and the brand has been so diluted, that nothing exclusive to PC is even taken seriously anymore. We opened the floodgates and, well, we got flooded.
@InYourMouf: It won't matter as long as the game itself is good. The Phantom Pain got a 10/10 from the biggest video game publication out there (I don't agree with that score, but that's a different story). My point is that if the voices are a big of a deal as you think, wouldn't that result in at least one point being taken off? Splinter Cell Blacklist's Metacritic scores are almost identical to Conviction's. If Uncharted 5 or The Last of Us 2 are good games (and there's no reason to assume that they wouldn't be) the vast majority of people are not going to care who voiced which character in which game.
@profchrisk: "I consider them the same in the fight,"
That's what they want you to think, that this will eventually end up leading to better wages and benefits for the entire staff. But that's wrong. Video games do not have infinite budgets. If they pay voice actors more, they will spend less on something like testing.
Don't be naive. These unions are fighting for themselves, and if you're not a member, you will not reap the benefits. If you don't have a personal interest in this, you don't need to take their side.
$100 an hour, plus benefits, to read lines off a script? Those poor people!
But seriously... I've known people who wanted to be a voice actor so badly, they would have done it for free. They'll have no trouble finding scabs to replace these unionized divas. There are thousands of people in Hollywood who dream for an opportunity like this.
Games are not like Hollywood where the movie's success depends on the starring actors. Nolan North and Troy Baker do not have their names on the cover. Whatever games they're in now can easily have sequels without them, and the majority of people will not notice or care.
This is especially appalling when you consider the kinds of horror stories we've heard about game development. Think about the all-nighters that devs have had to endure or the personal lives they've had to abandon because publishers will not bend on release dates or pony up the cash for more rigorous testing. There will be very little sympathy for people who show up, record dialogue for a week and then leave.
CageDisciple's comments