Well, my belief is you should get paid for how much/how hard you work, and some of how good you are. Voice actors just don't work as much or as hard as game programmers and the like. So they should get paid less. I totally agree.

I dunno why but, I just thought of this crappy lil game I paid actual $$ for called "13" -it totally blew and was only made worse by the terrible voice acting of the lamer David Duchovny of X-Files fame. I could've cared less who did the voices in this game. I was more concerned with the actual gameplay - which totally blew. I'd rather have the game companies pay more to have an enjoyable gaming experience for gamers than to shellout big money to crappy actors like Mr D. BTW, I think the Unreal engine on which the game "13" was made off on sucks ass.

And that's my 2 bits because I have insomnia tonight and have to get up in 3 hours

Oooh, good discussion.

I totally agree that if these game companies did the right thing they would reward all the creators of the game (including voice actors).  I think voice actors are just on the low end of the creation process for a video game in most cases so they have no right to EXPECT royalties when the other creators of the games (who work much harder) get nothing.

An example... programmer "Bob" puts in over 2000 hours on a game... voice actor "Ted" puts in 16 hours.  Why should Ted get more than Bob? Are you telling me a programmer building a game engine is less deserving that a guy who can impersonate Sylvestor Stallone?

SIDE NOTE: Some games where I think the voice acting is really well done and added tremendously to the experience... every Blizzard game, Splinter Cell, Ratchet and Clank and the "Mario" games for Nintendo.

 Actually I think everyone involved deserves royalties.  I seen a lot of times where it seems only the high ranking staff like the managers get most of the money and it makes me kinda sick.  Way I see it though a voice is something more personal, like selling the use of yer face.  And to me anyway it just feels like its worth more...I dunno how to explain it.  I only been awake last 3 mins and brains still booting up (I'm able to type english but not speak it for another 7 mins or so)

Noticed most of the guys you listed don't do a lot of video game work unless its tied in with a TV show (The Simpsons mainly),  and I always smile when I see Frank Welkers name cos damn he's been in nearly every show ever playing a huge variety of characters, some very famous.  Hopefully he's got his voice insured or something...

Anyway I'll probably write more when my brains finally awake.

Sorry, another thought....

You do make a great point about the cheese factor (poor writing = poor voice acting), but a lot of voice acting in videogames is really off-tone and just plain shit. A guy like Patrick Stewart can make any line sound dignified.

Believe me... I have the utmost respect for voice actors and I'm a huge fan of a lot of their work... Frank Welker, Mel Blanc, Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria, Phil Hartman, Toby Huss, Stephen Root, Billy West... hell even Mike Judge is one heck of a great voice actor in my opinion.

I think it's an amazing talent, BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT I do not think a few hours in the studio talking into a mic gives a person a right to royalties when video games take dozens of programmers and artists thousands of hours of effort.  These programmers and artists are doing all the heavy lifting -- working insane overtime and for what? And let's not even mention all the people who support the game like QA, HR, IT, Marketting... those people work a helluva a lot more hours on a project then a voice actor. What kind of royalties do you think most of them get?  Actors/Voice Actors seem to have a sense of entitlement and I really can't figure out why. I think it would be a tragedy if the videogame industry caves on this unless the other videogame creators were compensated with royalties as well.

I don't see why not.  Sure theres a lot of bad voice acting in games but theres a ton of decent voice actors doing cartoons and video games like Steven Jay Blum and Jennifer Hale who do great work.  Hell I think voice actors like that deserve more recognition.  It's a very underrated profession and something I been interested in for years.  And as for 'cheesy lines', blame the games dialogue writers, not the poor bastards who actually have to speak the lines.