There is a Reuters story in Wired News today about the settlement reached between SAG actors and video game producers.
SAN FRANCISCO — Hollywood actors unions have reached a contract deal with video game publishers, accepting higher pay instead of the profit-sharing they had demanded, the unions said Wednesday, removing the threat of a strike.
The three-and-a-half-year agreements with game companies came as the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists were preparing to announce the results of a strike vote.
Unions had sought to win profit-sharing, known as residual payments, from game publishers.
This may seem like stupid semantics on my part, but actors are so often misrepresented in the press, I feel it’s important to set the record straight here. Residual payments are not profit-sharing. Residual payments are reuse fees that producers pay to actors when they’ve re-used the actor’s performance a certain number of times.
For example, when an actor works on a TV show (commercials are a much more complicated beast, so I’ll stick with TV for this example) the initial fee that actor earns usually includes one or two re-airings by the producer. If the producer chooses to run the show again, a cycle begins, where the producer pays the actor a residual, or re-use fee, that slowly diminishes over time. The logic behind this is that if producers are re-running an old show, rather than creating a new one, actors have fewer opportunities to work. Also, if a show is re-run very often, the producer will continue to profit from advertising sales, while the actor gets over-exposed as one character, which can severely hurt that actor’s chances of being hired in different roles. I suppose one could make the argument that, in that case, it is profit-sharing, but I think that’s largely semantic as well. The point is, producers and actors have had this residual payment agreement for my entire career, and it’s not exactly a controversial issue.
Profit-sharing, on the other hand, is entirely different from residual payment. True profit-sharing, which is usually a percentage based on the amount of money a film earns, isn’t addressed by SAG contracts, which only set minimum wages and working conditions for actors. Profit-sharing has to be negotiated, and the only actors who can grab that brass ring are superstars like Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts.
As I understood the video game negotiations, SAG wasn’t asking for per-unit payments from video game producers. The proposal I read and supported asked for an additional session fee, after the game in question had sold a minimum of 50,000 copies and was profitable. Yeah, that sure seems unreasonable, doesn’t it? Especially since actors account for something like 2% of the average game’s budget.
Anyway, the gains we made are not that great, but they don’t completely suck, either:
- An immediate 25 percent increase in minimum wages from $556 to $695 for a four-hour session for up to three voices with increases in subsequent years, bringing the daily rate up to $759.
- Double time pay after six hours (previously ten hours) for three-voice performers.
- A 7.5 percent increase in contributions to the unions’ benefits plans, bringing the rate up to 14.3 percent.
I’m very happy about the increase in contributions to the benefits plans, and it’s great that 25% of the increase comes right away (usually it’s spread out over three years) but I really wish we’d gotten some sort of residual structure in place.
Before some readers freak out that I don’t think $695 for four hours is very good, let me put this into perspective: in those four hours, we usually do several hundred takes, often screaming and yelling. It’s hard work, and we deserve to be compensated for it. But the thing is, most voice actors are lucky to work three or four of these jobs a year, so when the year is up, most of us are looking at under 3,000 dollars earned from games that gross several million. That seems a little out of balance to me. Before this contract, SAG actors hadn’t had an increase in minimums in twelve years. Producers can afford to pay actors more, and they should.
And while I’m talking about things producers should do: I’m really sick and tired of employers and non-actors lecturing actors about how useless and replaceable we are. If it’s so easy to replace us with Dave from Human Resources, then go for it. Otherwise, show us just a tiny bit of respect for the craft we practice, and the value we provide to your movies, TV shows, commercials, and, yes, video games.
I recently reviewed Area 51 for The Onion AV Club, which meant that I played it for about 7000 hours in three days. The gameplay is great, and I enjoyed it . . . but the story made it more than just another shooter, and it was the reason I kept playing until the end. And guess what? If you watch the “making of” features, you’ll discover that just about everyone at the company thought it was important to hire actors who could bring “unique” voices to their characters, like Marilyn Manson, David Duchovny, and Powers Boothe. Maybe I’m wrong, but I seriously doubt that Kenny, the Hot Topic kid from the IT department, could bring the same energy and creepiness to the project as Marilyn Manson.
When I read Xeni’s story in Wired about the pending strike last week, I was really sad to discover that programmers and developers had largely taken an “us vs. them” attitude regarding the actors who bring their characters to life:
“I’ll back (the actors) when game programmers and artists get residuals first,” said Mark Long, co-CEO of independent game-development company Zombie Studios. “(They’re) nuts if they think they deserve residuals for a half-day of voice-over work,” said Long. “A development team (might) slave away for two years to produce a title.”
If a development team is “slaving away” for two years, and not getting properly compensated for it, what does that have to do with actors? It sounds to me like we’re both after the same thing: increased wages that reflect the value we bring to the title, which we all feel the most successful game producers can afford to pay. As Peter Babakitis said,
“When gamers think that actors are out of line for asking points, then you are also preventing programmers, writers, level artists and everyone else from asking for participation. When actors get points, then perhaps programmers, artists and writers might not be that far behind — and game production might suddenly become competitive internationally again.”
Again, I don’t believe we were asking for points, per se, but I appreciate and agree with the sentiment.
Developers: We’re on the same side, guys, and by playing into “Actors vs. Developers,” you’ve let the game producers divide and conquer us. If you’re getting screwed, why not organize a union? I seriously doubt they could replace programmers, designers, and developers with Becky and Don from ad sales. You’ve got to believe in yourself, and not undervalue the importance of your contribution to the final product. We should be talking about the common goals we have, and how we can reach then, rather than arguing about who is more important.
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Um, negotion is sort of a part of the market. “What the market bears” =/= “What EA Games decides you’re allowed to have”.
Right. The game development industry is immune to labor market forces because the Big Companies keep the labor disorganized, controlled and fearing for their jobs.
The market doesn’t know what developers are worth because THEY don’t know what they’re worth.
I’m starting to sound like Karl Marx now, so I better start to bow out of this thread lest I be thought a red commie bastard. 😉
–AJ
Andrew: I agree that he was just using “Dave in HR” as an example, but I think the underlying issue is the lack of respect on both ends. As if it is somehow EASIER to do that type of job than act. I have done both. They are both hard, but I put in more hours with my HR job than I do with theatre. I put in a lot of theatre hours, but if my boss calls me afterhours, I pretty much have to get to work … the theatre sticks to the schedule – you may have to shoot later than you thought, but when you get off, you’re off. I spend a minimum of 50 hours a week at the office and at least another 20 working off site. That is the nature of today’s work force. I know mail room people who work 60+ hour weeks. Making the general statement that he did, Wil showed his lack of understanding of the daily work force … and that we are not the sum of our jobs. Many of the working masses have talents and skills that you never see when we are at the office.
Wil, you know what upsets me? It’s that you don’t understand why programmers would be upset at the SAG. The SAG expects their members to waltz in, fart around for four hours, collect $700, and *still* want residuals on top of it.
Four hours, Wil. Compare that with the six months that these programmers pour their souls into these games. They don’t work hard just because they’re expected to, they work hard because they love what they do. If you handed each of those developers a hundred million dollars, do you know what most of them would do? They’d start their own game companies, and work just as long, and just as hard. Because they love it. Even when they complain bitterly, even when they burn out so badly that they can’t stand to look at the computer any more, they love it. The executives can get away with what they do not because these guys fear for their jobs (although that’s a component of it) it’s because these guys love what they do, and the suits know it. And they resist unionisation because unions would make it harder for them to do what they love.
And you expect any bloody sympathy because four hours of yelling is “hard work”?
Tell you what, you want to learn hard work, my parents’ neighbours are hiring farmhands. The pay’s just over minimum wage, you’ll probably have to walk around in cow crap for a while each day, you might get kicked, you’ll certainly reek, you’ll be so exhausted at the end of the day that you won’t be able to even think, you can expect a couple sunburns, you’ll probably be working twelve hours per day or more… Yeah, I’ve got a lot of sympathy, Wil.
Frankly, this is a lot more thoughtless and inconsiderate than I’d expected from you. You’re normally pretty good at trying to see things from the other side’s point of view, but you really dropped the ball on this one.
Wil, you know what upsets me? It’s that you don’t understand why programmers would be upset at the SAG. The SAG expects their members to waltz in, fart around for four hours, collect $700, and *still* want residuals on top of it.
Four hours, Wil. Compare that with the six months that these programmers pour their souls into these games. They don’t work hard just because they’re expected to, they work hard because they love what they do. If you handed each of those developers a hundred million dollars, do you know what most of them would do? They’d start their own game companies, and work just as long, and just as hard. Because they love it. Even when they complain bitterly, even when they burn out so badly that they can’t stand to look at the computer any more, they love it. The executives can get away with what they do not because these guys fear for their jobs (although that’s a component of it) it’s because these guys love what they do, and the suits know it. And they resist unionisation because unions would make it harder for them to do what they love.
And you expect any bloody sympathy because four hours of yelling is “hard work”?
Tell you what, you want to learn hard work, my parents’ neighbours are hiring farmhands. The pay’s just over minimum wage, you’ll probably have to walk around in cow crap for a while each day, you might get kicked, you’ll certainly reek, you’ll be so exhausted at the end of the day that you won’t be able to even think, you can expect a couple sunburns, you’ll probably be working twelve hours per day or more… Yeah, I’ve got a lot of sympathy, Wil.
Frankly, this is a lot more thoughtless and inconsiderate than I’d expected from you. You’re normally pretty good at trying to see things from the other side’s point of view, but you really dropped the ball on this one.
Dude, you all have got to chill out.
First of all, I have tried to design levels for the original “Half-Life”. Guess what? They sucked! That’s right, just because I can shoot dishes off of a roof and hit on my babysitter does not mean that I am a fantastic game designer. But I did it. I had friends play it. So it wasn’t professional. So it wasn’t finished. It was what it was. An amateur attempt. My feeling about producers, actors, and game developers is this. Producers shouldn’t act. Actors shouldn’t design video games, and game developers need to lock themselves up with more caffeine and keep up the great work. Games that are awesome hit us on the same level that movies do. They are visceral, intense, exciting, fast paced and immersive. They grab you, and take you along for the ride. It is so unfortunate that the public has to see these “professionals” argue over who gets a larger piece of the billion-dollar pie. Stick to what you do best, and stand up for what you think the work is worth. Nothing hurts more, or is more of a slap in the face than the comments about union actors not being important or noticed in video games. You shouldn’t notice. It’s supposed to be seamless. It should be an experience felt, not rationalized. (Oh, I like this game because Ray Liotta did the voice) You do, you just didn’t know it.
To sum up. S.A.G. has been negotiating for better terms for actors for many, many years. They have a long history of sticking up for the little guy. S.A.G. is not there to protect Tom, Nicole, Drew, and Russell. S.A.G. is there to protect the many hard-working, under-paid masses that may only work on one or two things a year, if that. The only reason people are even arguing about this is because of a basic misunderstanding of the life of an actor or actress.
It’s a really hard way to make an easy living.
-Coogan
I think the underlying issue is the lack of respect on both ends. As if it is somehow EASIER to do that type of job than act.
I think it’s more that the actor is better-qualified to act, and the HR person is better qualified to do HR work. Saying that the actor is easily replaceable demeans the actor’s work.
Coogan, good points about the thousands of actors who don’t hop from one high-profile, high-paying job to the next. I think that’s the missing datum in many people’s arguments — that, and the fact that the actor puts in hours, sometimes days, of preparation work for every hour spent actually acting, with no guarantee that another job is coming when this one is over. It’s like the people who think that because Stephen King is a millionaire, every author is pulling down the big money. ‘Tain’t so.
I would love — no, love — make it L*O*V*E — for firefighters, police officers, teachers, and soldiers to be making money like programmers. Or even actors. Hell, baseball players. But that doesn’t seem to be how our society is rigged.
I’m unsure about the American acting situation, but I do know that people comparing actors salaries to those of teachers/firefighters are perhaps missing one point. Even if teachers and firefighters are not paid enough to reflect the actual value of their work, they are paid a living wage. Over here, 90% of actors are out of acting work at any one time, and only about 2-3% of actors make enough money to live off. All others have to suplement their wages with other work (such as teaching or… firefighting 😉 ).
As for the games industry- with a boyfriend seeing the wastage of money in Rockstar, there is plenty that could be redirected to those who deserve it- actors and programmers alike. He even (while at Sony) did a little voice over work (being adept at jamaican/west indian accents), and gained a new respect for the work voice over actors do. (As a producer he only casted them and then heard the end result- by being more involved he gained knowledge which led to an increasing of respect.)
He still thinks I’m an idiot for attempting to make a living from acting, though. 😉
Thanks to Wil for laying out the issue in a clear and rational way from the actor side of the fence. This is a complicated issue, and as the game industry gets more hollywood there will be more and more of them. It definately seems more logical to band together than fight amongst each other.
I’m not sure programmers and actors should expect to be paid in the same way, but instead professionals should get to expect to be treated as professionals, especially as the budgets and profits on these games rise astronomically.
Bad acting = good game?
Two words: Resident Evil.
Didn’t affect it a whit. No one cared.
Does anyone REALLY THINK that the voices in the cutscenes really affect what you do in the game? They’re CUTSCENES. Most people SKIP them. They’re there because of the “everyone else has them” meme. I played Diablo II. The cutscenes between each area I watched precisely ONCE. They’re well done. But the in-game speech? Who cares. It not only can be done by anyone, it could easily be omitted and no one would notice.
I do feel for the voice actors. I am pro-union. I also know that games are for PLAYING, and not for the STORY. Many people hide behind the immersion argument, but I think immersion is 90% engine and 10% the rest. The idea that somehow voice acting is ANYWHERE close to essential for a good game is pretty ridiculous. Only when you care about the story do you care about the acting, and if you care about the story more than what you’re actually DOING, then you’re looking at a bad game.
Wil, I’m glad you clarified the residual vs. royalty point. It’s clear many in the media were interchanging those two terms. It’s much better that you just wanted more hourly pay after a game sells X. That’s the industry norm, so that’s the way it goes. Sorry that didn’t work out, but I’m glad you guys got a raise.
This is interesting reading, and it is certainly good to hear the actor’s “side” of this. But there’s a bit that’s galling, too.
I’ve got no problem with an actor getting paid for what he deserves, and I’m certainly not against the idea that this is probably more than what most get. But…I think some of the actors here don’t quite understand the level of effort that the more technical people put in.
I probably wouldn’t even post here but…well, I went to sleep at 3 am last night. That was a capper to a twenty hour day. I arrived here at 8 am and my goal is to get out of here before the BART trains stop running at midnight. So it’s a bit hard for me to hear about four hours hard work. Yeah, sure it’s hard. Yeah, sure it takes special skill. But you got to have dinner with your wife yesterday while I had to say “sorry, bud, Daddy’s working. Maybe in a couple days I can play with you.”
And I don’t even work in the game industry, and have it easy compared to most that do.
There was a comment up there saying, basically, that we programmers should be happy because we “got paid for every we worked”. I’ve got news for that poster…most of us are salaried. Most of the programmers who made the guts of those hot games worked a lot of Saturdays and Sundays, and a lot of 60, 70 or 80 hour weeks, all on salary. We don’t have a SAG to demand that 4 hours work means 4 hours pay. I essentially worked eleven hours yesterday with no compensation at all.
And it’s true that most of us do it because we believe in what we’re doing, but still, it’s a bit galling to have someone who put in four hours labor (however hard) get such press when people are putting in two thousand hours labor for the same product and getting pushed to the back of the bus.
Unfortunately, there will never be a union for the game industry because there are just too many people who want to work in it. The entire industry is based on burning out young, naive kids and paying them crappy salaries. Most coders solve the problem by leaving for more boring industries where seventy hours a week happen once a year instead of once a week.
Wil, if you want more cash for your work, I’m all for it. Want triple the fee, you’ve got my support. But don’t for a second pretend that four hours voice work is on the same level as the coder staring at the screen at 3 am on Saturday trying to stamp out that demon bug so that the game can go gold, having not had a day off in months.
To put it in perspective, the amount of effort the average coder puts in to the average videogame is probably on par with the amount of effort the principal actors in “Lord of the Rings” put into that movie, i.e. a year or more of solid dawn-to-dusk work. This voice actor flap feels like the guy who played “The Mouth of Sauron” complaining about the hard work he put in.
This is interesting reading, and it is certainly good to hear the actor’s “side” of this. But there’s a bit that’s galling, too.
I’ve got no problem with an actor getting paid for what he deserves, and I’m certainly not against the idea that this is probably more than what most get. But…I think some of the actors here don’t quite understand the level of effort that the more technical people put in.
I probably wouldn’t even post here but…well, I went to sleep at 3 am last night. That was a capper to a twenty hour day. I arrived here at 8 am and my goal is to get out of here before the BART trains stop running at midnight. So it’s a bit hard for me to hear about four hours hard work. Yeah, sure it’s hard. Yeah, sure it takes special skill. But you got to have dinner with your wife yesterday while I had to say “sorry, bud, Daddy’s working. Maybe in a couple days I can play with you.”
And I don’t even work in the game industry, and have it easy compared to most that do.
There was a comment up there saying, basically, that we programmers should be happy because we “got paid for every we worked”. I’ve got news for that poster…most of us are salaried. Most of the programmers who made the guts of those hot games worked a lot of Saturdays and Sundays, and a lot of 60, 70 or 80 hour weeks, all on salary. We don’t have a SAG to demand that 4 hours work means 4 hours pay. I essentially worked eleven hours yesterday with no compensation at all.
And it’s true that most of us do it because we believe in what we’re doing, but still, it’s a bit galling to have someone who put in four hours labor (however hard) get such press when people are putting in two thousand hours labor for the same product and getting pushed to the back of the bus.
Unfortunately, there will never be a union for the game industry because there are just too many people who want to work in it. The entire industry is based on burning out young, naive kids and paying them crappy salaries. Most coders solve the problem by leaving for more boring industries where seventy hours a week happen once a year instead of once a week.
Wil, if you want more cash for your work, I’m all for it. Want triple the fee, you’ve got my support. But don’t for a second pretend that four hours voice work is on the same level as the coder staring at the screen at 3 am on Saturday trying to stamp out that demon bug so that the game can go gold, having not had a day off in months.
To put it in perspective, the amount of effort the average coder puts in to the average videogame is probably on par with the amount of effort the principal actors in “Lord of the Rings” put into that movie, i.e. a year or more of solid dawn-to-dusk work. This voice actor flap feels like the guy who played “The Mouth of Sauron” complaining about the hard work he put in.
That’s funny. I’ve always felt that the “business people” didn’t respect the skills of programmers. They considered us to be “useless and replaceable” too. I think this is just a negotiation tactic used in the business community against everybody.
One truism I’ve learned in life: “If you accept pay below your worth, you will receive work below your ability.”
Companies like hiring new college grads for the software industry because the grads don’t really know their worth.
There is also a culture of arrogance in the software industry (mostly stemming from the preference for new grads I think). For every programmer who says something is difficult, there is someone else who says it is easy — despite the fact that it is just as, if not more, difficult for them too. This plays right into the business strategy to pay as little as possible.
On the other hand, it may be that the business people just don’t understand the value. I once worked at a place that needed a designer (for the web, but also for product and logo design). Instead of hiring a trained designer they hired some guy with no degree who had taught himself how to use Corel. The output was not all that great, but it was cheap.
Thanks Wil – someone has finally spoken in base enough english for the likes of even me to understand, concerning residual payments vs. profit-sharing and the sorry fact that people in the field can’t seem to get the two straight.
As up-and-coming (AKA “Out There”, if you listen to some people) producers of God knows how many examples of media entertainment, Hohmann-Becker Productions has already made profit-sharing commitments with several of our actors as well as crew: people who have already agreed to work for what may be nothing. Ever. For a small company like ours, profit-sharing makes perfect sense. Our people don’t know yet if they’re jumping on a gravy train or pissing down a well. They should at least be able to have the comfort of knowing that I won’t be resting on their laurels when the party’s over.
Given that the gaming corporations are making billions against the actors’ small one-time paychecks, I hardly feel that voice-over actors are over the top with the wish for residual payments, which as you point out, has nothing to do with profit-shares.
I think a lot of the bitterness we’re seeing from developers comes purely from the fact that the SAG have much better PR. Bitterness is generally the result of a feeling of powerlessness.
When the ea_spouse thing shed light on just how badly developers are treated in the gaming industry, it got a lot of attention from blogs and the trade press. Then EA said “Shut up or we’ll send all your jobs to India”, and life went on as usual.
When the SAG complained, they had the PR clout to make it into the mainstream press, and they got at least some concessions out of it.
As a ‘happy’ employee of that august group called Fox Sports, I can emphatize with the actors regarding the pay and wage scale for video games. As a senior freelance employee at fox sports, I went for seven years without a raise in my daily rate. Why? Because at the division I work at, it is one of the few places where management and employees actually like each other and the product we broadcast. It took the threat from my coworkers to go union that made the company to look at us, our product and our commitment to the on-air look at Fox Sports World. The average pay raise was 25% across the board immediately; with some freelancers with a dew years getting 5% and some, like myself receiving 50%. Those who are not in the business don’t realize that many of us who work in TV, Film and radio do so because it is fun and creative.
I just can’t buy the argument that someone’s wage should be higher because they work in a very competitive field and may only book a few jobs a year. That’s the film industry. I spent a few years as a gaffer on independent films and shorts and was generally paid less than minimum wage for 12-16 hour days, 6 day weeks while the actors were treated better than everyone else. I have degrees, training, and a broad skillset, but it really doesn’t matter if you’re crew because so many people are willing to do work for free to work in film.
There is a union for electrics, but when I was in LA, it was very expensive and difficult to join unless you lucked out and worked on an indie film that went union during the shoot.
Even more frustrating were the union electrics who worked nonunion shows under the table while collecting unemployment.
I agree that the entertainment industry should better compensate all those who contribute to successful products, but it’s frustrating that SAG can parlay the celebrity of a few of its members in a way unavailable to many technicians whether they’re unionized or not.
Wil and others,
As I started to read this i was on the side(as it were) of 4 hours of work that kind of pay,Nice.
You take a part time job and want full time pay thats not nice. Yes, It sucks not to get the
hours you want but hey.
…..but then
A friend came to my work and was telling me how he could use a job like mine. Straight hours with
days off. He to,like the voice actors, got big pay 3 or 4 times a year. He and I both use computer to work.
He use computers and sets up big networks. I on the other hand use the computer for design;
I’m a Graphic Designer. I took the time to go to school, and worked in my field for 9 years. He has balls to say,
because he uses lots of different software, could come in and pick up my job in 3 weeks or so. I was pissed that
he looked me in the eye and said that. So, I’m the actor as it were, and felt i had to tell him
the value of my job. 20 minuts later and some bitchn he changes his story to i will know how the
software works. Thats not the same as putting together a good design.
….now
I say we all get a 30% raise…..wil i’ll kick you back 10%
Thats my 2 cents
Whining does not become you Wil.
I don’t know what’s happened to you over the past few months, but you’ve turned into a bitch.
Three days ago you come whining because people are upset you renigged on a contract, then you whine that you don’t have enough ‘me’ time, enough creative time, enough time to plant a garden. Plant a frickin garden? 90+% of the folks that are reading this blog, clicking on your ad links, buying your books, listening when you care to show up for conferences, wish they could get off work on time to be able to see their kids before they fall asleep. You work at home for Christssake. Get over yourself.
Now we have the residuals issue on here, and you’re whining again. Oh thank freakin God for SAG, finally someone who is willing to look out for the downtrodden sweatshop working folks who live in half million dollar homes and worry about whether to go soy or no soy in their frappe. You want residuals for 4 hours work? Get over yourself.
How about some residuals for folks that build the bridges, or dig the ditches?
You’ve definitely lost your punk cred.
“Even if teachers and firefighters are not paid enough to reflect the actual value of their work, they are paid a living wage.”
Seriously, what planet do you live on?? I teach in DC and barely make enough to buy groceries. The amount that Wil would make in 4 hours of work is more than I make in 14 hours of work. Give me a break. That’s fine that actors are getting their “due” for 4 hours of work, but don’t bitch about it or threaten to strike. The world will NOT end if actors are replaced by some no name kid doing voice overs – can the same be said with firefighters, cops, teachers, nurses, etc? Doubt it.
I would LOVE to work at home, go in for 4 hours, scream and yell, and make a decent amount of money. I would love to not have to put my baby in day care so I can go to work just to buy her diapers and formula. I would love to stay at home and raise my child, but I can’t. AND I can’t strike in order to get better wages or benefits – I have to suffer in silence.
Get real – if you think 4 hours of screaming and yelling is hard work, try teaching 150 high school students 7 hours a day, 180 days a year and then talk to me about a demanding job.
If I could just clarify something: I never compared actors with teachers and firemen. That’s a worthless comparison, because the two jobs are nothing alike. And if you want to try to place value on what one person does vs. what another person does, you should just shut up unless you’re curing cancer or saving babies or doing whatever it is someone else decides is more important than your job, you dig?
I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone their job isn’t hard if I hadn’t done it myself, and it’s pretty goddamn offensive when you tell me how easy my job is.
Staying out of the argument about whether or not voice over actors deserve mode money overall, residuals are a really really bad way of giving it to them. Because they destroy the game in the long term, by making it too expensive to keep it in print.
Ten years after release, the value of the game is pretty well zero. And it would be great for everyone if it could be made available in a way that reflected that — maybe a Blu-Ray+ DVD containing every game ever made for the PS2 before 2005, that can be played on your PS5. Maybe just releasing it to the public domain. But residuals stop that from happening, as they push the cost up too high. Even if they’re set up so that there are no residuals to be paid in these circumstances, you still need to pay lawyers to go through all of the terms & conditions of the residuals to make sure it’s OK. Even if they’re based on profits made, and the fact that the re-release makes next to nothing means that the residuals are next to nothing, you still have to pay accountants to calculate the next to nothing and send out cheques for a few cents. It’s just cheaper and easier to keep the game out of print.
They could, possibly, work if there were completely standard terms and conditions for residuals setting a standard time limit of maybe two or three years, after which no more residuals were payable, but it would have to be absolutely standard and applied uniformly in all cases.
I think the only thing you’ve cleared up for me was the actual semantics of what the bargaining was for. So thanks for that. You may have also convince me they deserve an extra bonus (not residual) if a game makes it big. But I still have a few comments regarding the rest of the post.
I’m not going to dispute that voice acting is hard work, as I’m sure it is. Is it hard compared to other jobs that pay less? I’m going to have to say no. Saying you deserver higher pay simply because it’s hard work doesn’t convince me. That’s one thing that may irk people reading that you want to be paid essentially $173.75/hr for the first six hours, and $347.50/hr afterwards, when there are much harder jobs that pay minimum wage. Sure they may not entertain other people, but hard work is hard work.
Bringing up that you may only get three or four voice over jobs in a year doesn’t justify a higher wage either. Unless you are in big demand, it seems like a nice supplemental income if you can get it. You’re more than welcome to look for other things to do to make up the difference. Whether or not you deserve a higher pay for your work, bringing up that you only get a few of these jobs a year is pointless. Just because other people may have what you may consider a steady job, which may or may not be harder than voice acting, does not mean you deserve more money because you work less. Again, even bringing up this point may annoy some.
And although you didn’t bring up the deal regarding auditions actually reducing the total amount you make per hour, I think I’ll respond with a simple, “so?” Seriously, it’s part of your business, live with it. I know people who commute each day for 4 hours. That’s 20 more hours added to their 40+ hours of work a week. And being salaried, the more hours they put in drives their per hour earnings down. If you don’t like auditioning, then find another line of work.
Some of the games I’ve enjoyed over the years have had either limited to no voice acting what so ever, or bad voice acting. So voice acting is not as essential as you may think. When there is good voice acting it’s a bonus, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to making a game what it is. Sorry to say it, but to me and a few others, the voice acting is dispensable. If it has the potential of driving up the price of some games, I can do without.
However, I’ll play along and say I do need voice acting in my games. Then I would agree that there are voice talents out there that can command the big money. Sam Fisher just wouldn’t be same without Michael Ironside. Having David Duchovny who was in a TV show that had alien conspiracies in your alien conspiracy game is a big selling point, so it would be important to the game. A big name actor reprising his role in a movie based game is key, and the actor could easily demand more money. When random voice actor X demands more money claiming that he deserves it, we just have to ask, prove it. And so far, they haven’t. Using the few exceptions to the rule as the rule just doesn’t work.
Developers aren’t necessarily taking an “us vs them” attitude. It seems more like an “us before them” view, and it’s justified given the amount of time they put in to release a product compared to a voice actor. You asking what developers not being paid properly has to do with actors makes it an “us vs them.” Whether or not the media is reporting it wrong, when they hear that actors want risiduals, they naturally sit up and say, “Whoah, big fella. Get to the back of the line!” It’s not meant to sound resentful.
Don’t get me wrong, in the end I’d like to see a good portion of the profits go back to the people who made the game, be they designers, developers, or voice actors, as opposed to the CEO of the publisher. However, thinking that by having the actors achieve points, though you may not be asking for points, does not mean that somehow the developers will be able to achieve points as well. It’s easier to say they should unionize than it is to achieve. Bringing it up with a matter of fact attitude shows how little you know of any industry dealing with development. You may say you are a geek because you have your little Linux box, but you are not a developer by profession, knowing what we go through.
While your arguments may sound good to you, other voice actors, and Wil Wheaton’s die-hard fans, they don’t hold up to developers in the industry or most gamers. In the end, I would not disagree that voice actors deserve something when a title makes it big. However, there’s a long line, and voice actors are at the end. But don’t expect much to be left once you get to the front of the line, if the line ever moves.
Wil, for the sake of argument, let’s accept your premise that everyone’s job is equally valuable (except for folks curing cancer or saving babies). Thus, extra compensation for the work put into a video game should be directly in line with the amount of effort each person put into the game, right?
So let’s say there were 10 developers on the team. Then you’ve got a modeller, and a sound person, and a few artists, and so on. Let’s say there’s 20 people altogether working directly on the game. (It’s a small game.) Each of these people spends six months working solely on this game, with no overtime. At 40 hours per week, that comes to 1000 hours.
Now you have to add in Jill, who spent probably 450 hours negotiating with distributors and arranging broader distribution of the game. Yeah, I’d say she deserves a share in the success of the game. Not as much as the folks who spent six months, but she still deserves compensation.
There’s also Billy from HR, who spent the past six months keeping payroll running smoothly, handling the benefits claims for the rest of the company, and doing all the other wonderful things that HR does. He didn’t work on the game, but every hour he worked, he freed up an hour of someone else’s time to work on the game. I’d consider that pretty important. (If you don’t, you’ve never worked in a company where a bad HR person was replaced with a good one. Trust me, these folks make a HUGE difference.) So in the past six months, Bill’s spent probably 700 hours of his time working with the folks working on the game.
Next we’ve got Ron in Marketing. He comes up with a brilliant marketing campaign that creates a huge buzz for such a small game. Because of that, the game sells far, far better than anyone expected. He’s put in 400 hours over the six months.
Now we’ve got the CEO, Helen. She’s been busy helping Jill when needed, helping Ron when needed, doing a lot of hand-shaking and smiling for cameras and arranging financing and all that other CEO stuff. She’s spent, say, 410 hours over the last six months doing work that relates to the game.
Last, but certainly not least, we have ten actors who come in to do voice work for the game. Each spends four hours on the game. You’re one of them, for this example.
The big day arrives, and the game is released. Incredibly, it does really, really well. Hurray! Everyone’s excited, because the owner’s announced that he’s only taking 10% of the profit, and the rest will be split among the employees! (VERY generous owner here.) After a year, the numbers are tallied, and it works out that there’s a total of $1,000,000 in pure profit. So the owner takes his $100,000 and the remaining $900,000 is evenly divided among everyone else who worked on the game, based on the number of hours that were worked.
When you add it all up, you’ve got 22000 hours of work that went into the game. (Never mind salespeople, the receptionist, the janitor, the tech support guys, the IT folks…) That means that for each hour of work that someone did, they get about $40.91. So the developers are each taking home an extra $40,910. Billy from HR takes home $28,636. The CEO, Helen, only takes $16,773. And you, Wil, with your 4 hours of work — remember, everyone’s job is equally valuable — take home a grand total of $164.
$164 extra from a game that made $1,000,000 *profit*, with 90% of the profit being shared with the employees. And that’s profit-sharing, not even residuals. If we go with residuals, you’re getting a lot less than $164. And in the meantime, the company’s left itself on extremely uncertain footing because they haven’t used any of this game’s profits to tide them over if the next game is a bust.
Go ahead, try to tell me that the SAG was trying to get its members $164. No, wait, I just read what you wrote… You’re asking for an additional session fee after a game sells 50,000 units. Well, my hypothetical game certainly sold more than that to produce $1M profit, so you’re not getting $164… You’re getting another $700. So you’re saying that your time is worth 4.27 times what a developer’s time is worth? Gee, what happened to everyone’s contribution being equal, Wil? Still sound as reasonable as you thought it was?
Yes, this was a very long comment, but I thought it was time someone ran through some numbers for you so you could see just what you’re saying, and why it’s so insulting to developers to hear SAG demanding what it’s demanding.
As Sergio said, yes, actors deserve something when a title makes it big. But there’s a great huge line, and you’re firmly at the back of it. And from the perspective of developers, you’re trying to elbow your way to the front and demand extra servings. That’s why it’s “us vs them”, Wil.
One of the problems with the professional game development field is that even the best talent is often considered replaceable. With students and interns pouring out of the new game development programs that are cropping up at schools all over, producers can fill any grunt slot they need at the lowest wages. Combine that with overseas outsourcing of development, the competition for jobs among already seasoned pros, and the resistance to the very idea of collective bargaining by the majority of anti-union Libertarians that make up a lot of the programming and tech field, and the idea of a Game Developers Guild seems as much a fantasy as the content of most of the games themselves.
Two hypotheses:
In a perfect world every profession would have a union, and all these forces interacting would create a fair and balanced worker compensation economy.
When not every profession have a union an imbalance is created.
Did I get any of these two factoids right?
Good lord.
This debate shouldn’t be about whether or not ACTING is hard or doing VOICE-OVER is difficult versus being a teacher or a policeman. Sheesh, my Dad was a decorated NYPD cop: I know the plight. But there weren’t a bunch of fatcats getting rich off the sweat of my pop’s back. He loved his job and did his job well.
This debate has nothing to do with what job is more valuable to SOCIETY. It’s about this: When a product is profitable, nee EXTREMELY profitable, then those who DIRECTLY contributed to that product’s success should receive equitable compensation.
Should game developers get more money when a game is successful? We (ACTORS) say YES, you SHOULD. But we (ACTORS) are fighting for our money now, thank you.
You want more? Ask for it. Demand it. Fight for it. STRIKE for it.
If striking or even organizing is too risky… well, what do you want us (ACTORS) to do? You want us to wait?
Don’t take management’s side because you don’t have a union. That’s nearsighted, counterproductive and will only serve to exacerbate your frustration.
And, guess what? That’s EXACTLY what “they” want.
From the desk of your favorite communist conspiracy theorist,
–AJ
*sigh* You’re right AJ, the fact that you have to slave away auditioning for the role of Man #1 in a Maryland Lottery radio spot is because the the big shot production company is keeping you down, and NOT, I repeat, NOT because you have no discernable skills and couldn’t get another job. You’re lucky you have SAG out there to make sure that you get your fair and just compensation.
Since I don’t have a union to support me, I just have to resort to finding a better paying line of work, or improve my skill set if I want better compensation.
Kudos.
Sorry, but part of the argument should deal with how hard voice over work is, since that could affect how much money they are entitled to. I agree that it should not be about how hard it is compared to other jobs not within the industry, or even how much a voice actor can get, but these are things Wil mentioned in his post. So it would be appropriate to say that these are not convincing points for the thread at hand. The difficulty of the voice over work should be compared with how hard and how much work it is compared to the designer, the developers, the artists, etc, as these are the people who you will essential “share” any potential profits with.
I think canuckotter analyzed it just fine. You may be fighting for your money now, but it is still more than you should be entitled to per hour. If development somehow does start receiving some of these profits down the road, the voice actors would have already taken more than their fair share.
That should’ve been “how much work a voice actor can get.”
It seems to me, that in an industry where the home-console and portable mediums (about 2/3 of the business) were once dominated for a 15-year period by Japan, a business whose production doesn’t require a lot of localised talent (maybe a few good translators at best, games set in a real life place may need people to collect some info about the area once in a while), it would be a BAD idea for developers to unionize. Not to mention that many intelligent, talented people in other countries would love these jobs and would work for a lot less to get them.
I’m no expert, and I don’t have a better solution, but I really believe this just won’t work. I also don’t have anything against actors getting residuals because like Will I don’t think it hurts anyone else’s chances, but programmers and artists CAN and WILL be replaced by overseas offices if they unionize. You can’t really use people from Japan, China, India, etc., for acting or voice acting much of the time, so SAG is in a unique position. But if you think factory workers, telemarketers, phone-operators, customer service people, and over-the-phone tech-support personel have it bad with globalization moving more and more of their jobs overseas, just wait till you see how easy it is for big software development companies to find cheap labor internationally.
Small companies (most of them) will just fold from their games being held up too long, while big guys can easily farm out.
Unionizing is never easy, but for software development (which unlike IT does not need to be local) workers cannot turn to it as a panacea to the problems of the business.
Wil,
Telling people to shut up doesn’t help your case.
I’ve worked with actors and the production side. I didn’t say your job wasn’t hard. But it takes everyone to create a show. EVERYONE working hard. And it just so happens that everyone doesn’t get the level of compensation that others do. Not even close. Which I feel is unfair as they work just as hard. Without a Green Room, perks, attention, money and the blind adulation that comes with certain types of success.
Trying hard to agree with you, but it’s just not happening.
If you didn’t want people to disagree with you, you shouldn’t have opened the discussion for comment.
Wil is entitled to his opinion about his own work as we all are about ours.
It’s not really about who has it worse, it’s about a persons right to ask for more regardless of the type of work they perform.
Each year many of us hope to get a raise, bonus, higher paying job and most of us are willing to fight to get that at some point. Each of us feels we need (or would like) to get paid more for what we do. I don’t know of too many people out there who are making exactly what they want, even if they dearly LOVE what they do.
There comes a time in every working person’s life when they feel more would be better (I’m not talking about that miniscule part of society that makes a ton of money, that’s apparently NOBODY here) everyone here has to admit that whatever they’re getting paid isn’t always enough (again love your job or not) to feed themselves, their family, pay for housing, medical, insurance or, as with many, just spending money on a little weekend somewhere occasionally or a few purchases of wanted goodies (what is lovingly referred to as luxury items or totally unnecessary items, let’s not kid ourselves nobody here lives like a Spartan, we all have our luxuries, whether it be a daily coffee or a weekly DVD or a magazine subscription, seeing a movie, going to a concert…you get the idea.)
If people really want to know what the average an actor makes in Los Angeles (or other parts of the country), or what a computer programmer makes, or a teacher…field hand…waiter or a zoologist makes then they should go to http://www.SalaryExpert.com and make a comparison. It might surprise many of you that the average secondary school teacher makes more than the average actor. In fact, the average webmaster, programmer, photographer, writer, social worker, sports instructor, secretary, retail/restaurant manager manager, registered nurse, cop, payroll manager, park ranger…the list goes on and on…ALL, repeat ALL, make more than the average ACTOR in Los Angeles or anywhere else.
Yes, there are many people who make less than the average actor but I’d be hard pressed to consider $30,000* as a “lifestyles of the rich and famous” load of cash. Please! *that’s an AVERAGE, the range is 17,500 – 36,000 Wow! we’re talking big bucks here people. 😛
Each person, assuming they have a good work ethic, works very hard for what they do relative to their position. If one relies heavily on their voice for work (as most actors do), having a 4 – 10 hour session where lines/words/screams, etc., are repeated and repeated in the studio is murder on the vocal chords (even with voice/vocal training), and if those chords aren’t up to snuff for the next gig or audition then guess what? No work. Hey, no sick pay, no vacation time/pay and in many cases no medical insurance. If a field hand hurts his back…same problem. Anyone working freelance/for themselves/part time (in many cases), ditto.
It’s ridiculous to see how many people are in such a state of pettiness about the way other people work, making assumptions about what people are worth (or aren’t worth as the case may be), or how lucky someone ELSE is because they were able to spend time with their family, get a new car, house, go on vacation/holiday, get a raise, get a day or two off…jeez, then conversely, and just as ridiculous, put themselves at the top of the “I’m working the hardest and have it the worst” list without so much as a blink of empathy or clear understanding of how others live or how hard others work.
Everyone’s basic common ground comes to this (not specifically prioritized):
*Getting/working for/having money…or more money (for saving or spending)
*Family/personal obligations
*Friends/material items/free time/fun, etc.
They asked for a raise and got it. Simple. Why is it different for Wil (or any actor) than it is for you or me? I doubt if anyone here would turn down a raise. :p
I’m a little late to this post and new to the board but some things no one has brought up are big picture factors.
Sure it’s fun to stick it to a faceless rich person and make them pay you more but do you think anyone above you in the company is going to take a pay cut? Of course not, it just gets passed down the line to the consumer. With the VO actors it may not be a big deal to add 2% back into the price of the final product but that
Wil is an enigma, choosing to complain about how much money actors make when he is also working as a *writer*.
I did two game reviews for The Onion myself. I did them on spec (meaning with no pre-arranged fee), because that’s what I have to do to get noticed, having not been writing for very long, and also lacking the notoriety of almost being executed for breaking a law on Planet Sexypeople.
The good part is that the check came fairly quickly; good, because that’s way less of a given than it ought to be. The bad part: $100. For somewhere in between 30 and 40 hours of mandatory fun and six or seven hours of actual work. I already knew beforehand that writing on spec would screw me, but even still…damn.
So anyway Wil, I know this thread was a reaction to a high-profile news item, but what gives?
Wil, you make a good distinction between profit sharing and residuals, but then that argument flies out the door in a classic bait-n-switch.
Asking for extra payments after certain sales milestones IS, without question, profit sharing, and has nothing to do with residuals. For example, this would be like asking for extra money on TV shows that achieve a certain level of viewership on the first showing.
To make a true apples-to-apples comparison in the games industry, residuals would be similar to re-releasing versions of the game on new platforms.
However, games tend not to have long lifespans, so it’s not much of an issue.
Frankly, I think name actors bring no significant value to the game industry. Just as I think all of the Pixar movies would have sold just as well had they all used no-name (though good) actors. MY company will never use a name actor in our games (too costly versus the benefit), unless that actor happens to being the only appropriate choice for matching the vocal quality we’re looking for.
BTW, most game developers who work on games, often for 2-4 years, see no residuals or profit sharing. It’s just absolutely whacked out to expect an actor to spend 5 – 20 hours in a studio to get something that most developers do not get.
Scott Miller, CEO
http://www.3DRealms.com
(Duke Nukem, Max Payne, Prey)
For a clearer perspective on Scott’s thoughts regarding voice acting, check out this scene from Max Payne, with its original audio unchanged:
http://payneno.ytmnd.com/
I’m surprised that video games are SAG/AFTRA jurisdiction and I can’t decide if I think that they should be or not.
My current context/frame of reference for unions vs. media and entertainment industries is the battle between Canadian Actors’ Equity and the Toronto Musician’s Association vs. The Blue Man Group. It’s framing how I look at union relationships with new forms of entertainment.
(see http://www.bluemanboycott.com)
Technically AFTRA, ACTRA (Canada), Equity (U.S.) and Equity (Canada) are professional associations rather than unions, which makes things more confusing.
I’ve worked in both industries, and I seriously want to see the books opened. We hear about Halo 2 rivaling Spider-Man 2 in revenue, but we also hear about how they barely managed to break even after all expenses were recouped. It sounds notoriously like any given producer of a big-budget film promising points to all the actors, and then he shuffles numbers around until it looks like it went into the red. So sorry, no profits to share.
Designers AND actors of video games need to see more of the money they earned. Game artists rank among the lowest paid CG artists, in one of the biggest businesses in the world. The gaming industry falls under the same entertainment laws as film, radio, dance, and theatre. But film, radio, dance, and theatre have unions to protect the interests of the artists and craftspeople involved. Game development does not, and it sorely needs it.
But wait, surely you might do a voice-over in a game because you love games, right? This is a labor of love! Well, community theatre is a labor of love for the security guard looking to do something in his evening hours, or the accountant who has poems to share at open-mic night at her local cafe. Video games is business. BIG business. Just like film, music, and anything else in the entertainment industry.
Someone’s skimming a little too much off the top, and those dollars need to go to the people who earned them.
I am a producer who works for one of the major publishers in the game industry, and I’ve worked on dozens of projects that have had professional SAG actors, professional non-union, and amateur voice over work. I have two things to contribute to this discussion:
Professionals
I can say, without hesitation, that professional actors are ESSENTIAL to a title. Now, notice I said PROFESSIONAL actors, not “big name” actors. There are legions of “no name” working actors in Hollywood and elsewhere, many of them are hard-working, kind, gracious, professional, amazing people who are terrific to work with.
There are some insanely talented voice over actors that rarely, if ever, get any screen time on TV or film, but have IMDB resumes that are pages long of game work, cartoon work, commercial and promo work. Some of the greatest performances in the history of video games are from people you’ve never even heard of, and WILL never hear of (unless you’re like me and have to track the VO talent pool for casting in your next title). It’s very similar to the cartoon industry. Just as much as 99% of viewers don’t know who does the voices for the Animaniacs, 99% of players don’t know who played your squadmates in Brothers In Arms.
There is NO marquee value in the game industry for big name actors. Although some “names” can do very good voice work (and Wil, if you’re reading, I think your VO work is very good) many of them just “phone it in.” Some of them are a huge pain-in-the-ass to work with, too, because they’re so used to the Hollywood system where they get their ass kissed so completely and thoroughly, they don’t have any sense of reality. Some have outrageously insane demands. One extremely huge actor (not on my project, thank God) asked for a million dollar acting fee for a game that had a total budget of 10 million dollars. I had another actor demanding we record them in the most expensive studio in town simply because it’s closest to their house, rather than come into our own state-of-the-art, in-house recording facilities. Other actors refuse to do “pick up” sessions (where we bring an actor in to rerecord lines that didn’t quite work, or record additional lines). Of course we pay actors for pick up sessions. But some big name actors REFUSE to do them. And, so, unless I am mandated by my senior executives (or, more often, by the demands of a movie-based license) to use some big name actor, I absolutely won’t. I’ll hire profoundly talented day players who will work for scale or double scale (or some who will give me TEN VOICES for triple scale) and I’ll love every minute of working with them.
Most of us game industry people have absolutely no tolerance for charlatans and prima donnas in ANY department. All you have to do to confirm this is to look to all of the poor souls who have tried (and FAILED MISERABLY) to turn themselves into “stars” of the game industry…people like John Romero. They copped a holier-than-thou attitude, the media picked up on it like the salivating whores that they are, and, for the most part, the core audience of gamers turned their backs to them. Perhaps it is because most first-generation hard core gamers are GenXers (as well as subsequent generations), and we have that basic underlying cynicism flavoring everything we see and do, gamers just don’t have a lot of tolerance for people who think they’re all that and a bag of chips. Games like Daikatana didn’t SURPRISE us with how bad they are, they just CONFIRMED what we already knew would happen. Shiny’s Matrix game was the same way.
We respect people who work their asses off to make great games and don’t hog the spotlight with their ego. And that bleeds over into the work ethic of those of us who make games. As a producer, I am no more tolerant of some Hollywood big shot who thinks they’re golden and I’m worthless than I am of some modeler or animator who thinks he’s better than the rest of his team and should get special treatment. I’d MUCH rather work with professional, “no name” actors who nobody’s ever heard of, because, for the few precious hours I get to spend with them, they open up their soul for me right there in the recording booth and help me inject a little humanity and emotion into the game. And most are glad to do 30 takes until I, the producer, am happy with it. Even if it involves screaming. Wil’s right when he said it can be demanding work.
Residuals
Most of the people around my office, when the subject of the SAG/AFTRA strike threat comes up, have a very simple, two-word answer to the issue. “Fuck them.” This is profoundly sad to me, because I hear a lot of the same complaints – “they want a cut of the profits when I don’t ever see a dime?”
It’s sad because this is an erroneous reduction of the issue. And it’s sad because we, as an industry, are missing a chance to grow. Gaming professionals can LEARN from actors on this one. The film industry is more than a century old. The game industry, by contrast, is only about 35 years old. We’re a YOUNG industry. We don’t have unions. We don’t have standards. A lot of what we do is seat-of-our-pants craziness. We’re working the fucked up hours because we can’t collectively say “no.” There was a time when the film industry had no unions that helped workers say “enough is enough, we are killing ourselves here.” There are still non-union gigs all over the place. Game industry professionals need to ORGANIZE. You sick of working insane hours and never seeing a dime of profits? You have YOURSELF to blame. Talk to the cube rats you slave away with. Get on the net. Organize. Talk to your buddy who works at other companies. SAG and AFTRA can come in and make demands because they have clout. Hard-fought, hard-won clout that took them DECADES to establish. Where are the artists unions? Programmer unions? Designer unions?
Although I disagree with a few of the specifics of the SAG/AFTRA compromise (specifically 50,000 units…games are hardly ever profitable at that threshhold) I think, on the whole, it is a good thing. We need quality acting talent in our games in order to maintain good production values, and using non-professional talent doesn’t always work out.
Wil, I salute you for shedding some light on the issue with an explanation of residuals vs. profit-sharing and for placing the struggle in a historical context. The media is making this out to be much simpler than it is, on both sides. You get upset because the media tends to portray actors in a bad light, well, game developers and publishers get pissed off, too, because the media has absolutely no idea what to do with us. They want to continue to report on us as if we’re some bastard stepchild of Hollywood that follows the same rules (albeit in a more lawless way) and its just not true. The game industry is not Hollywood. The media has a lot to learn about us.