Random Video Game Crap

Yeah. And to be fair, it's not nearly as likely to be funny, though a compilation of my Volus Sentinel with a Batarian Gauntlet doing melee kills would be kind of funny.

 
How is it Derek Smart is almost always involved with video game lawsuits? He's been doing this for like -12- years.[DOUBLEPOST=1443978093,1443978001][/DOUBLEPOST]
Learning he's a hardcore Gamergater was not a surprise. I also think it's pretty hilarious that the Escapist writer is also a hardcore GGer and wrote what might possibly be the least ethical bit of video games journalism, literally, ever published. Claiming embezzlement, racist and homophobic hiring practices, etc, with, as has been shown, to be entirely unreliable sources. If CIG goes after them in the UK for libel, Escapist is about to be one of Star Citizen's biggest backers.

Smart is the most hypocritical psycho involved in video games. The man is beyond deranged.

https://storify.com/QHStone/derek-smart-invents-feud-with-randi-harper

Fucking bonkers. No wonder his shitty game that's been in development for 20000 years still isn't in any playable state. He has time to write 90 trillion tweets based on two things.

I remember PC Gamer in the 90s writing about his nonsense.
 
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Learning he's a hardcore Gamergater was not a surprise. I also think it's pretty hilarious that the Escapist writer is also a hardcore GGer and wrote what might possibly be the least ethical bit of video games journalism, literally, ever published. Claiming embezzlement, racist and homophobic hiring practices, etc, with, as has been shown, to be entirely unreliable sources. If CIG goes after them in the UK for libel, Escapist is about to be one of Star Citizen's biggest backers.

Smart is the most hypocritical psycho involved in video games. The man is beyond deranged.

https://storify.com/QHStone/derek-smart-invents-feud-with-randi-harper

Fucking bonkers. No wonder his shitty game that's been in development for 20000 years still isn't in any playable state. He has time to write 90 trillion tweets based on two things.

I remember PC Gamer in the 90s writing about his nonsense.
Back when I worked at a review site, Derek Smart threatened to sue us over his Battlecruiser game because we said some things he didn't agree with (or were later addressed in a patch or something). This happened after he posted a rant on our site. When we went to his forums to figure out just who this guy actually was, he...

-detected our IPs, which meant he'd been monitoring US, personally
-banned the accounts we made to SEE the forums
-made his forums invite only

He did this because it was basically one big circle jerk over there, with a bunch of people endlessly praising his GENIUS while simultaneously bashing any naysayers (who would get banned in hours).
 
Was anyone planning to get Sword Coast Legends? @Terrik and I were discussing how cool DM mode could be (and that really, NWN attempted it long before this game).
 
Back when I worked at a review site, Derek Smart threatened to sue us over his Battlecruiser game because we said some things he didn't agree with (or were later addressed in a patch or something). This happened after he posted a rant on our site. When we went to his forums to figure out just who this guy actually was, he...

-detected our IPs, which meant he'd been monitoring US, personally
-banned the accounts we made to SEE the forums
-made his forums invite only

He did this because it was basically one big circle jerk over there, with a bunch of people endlessly praising his GENIUS while simultaneously bashing any naysayers (who would get banned in hours).
Now he's claiming he's got all the sources ready to give depositions and all his high priced lawyers are ready to go and that Chris Roberts has fucked with the wrong guy. It's the same old, same old. Basically confirming the whole thing is bullshit.
 
Eh. Can we go back to games with far more and better lines, and much less voice acting? Voice acting meant higher budgets and less room for long texts and deep lore, I'm not a fan at all except for some cut scenes and such. They can strike for a few years for all I care, but I accept I'm a minority.
I can certainly understand some of their requests (royalties on high-selling games), though I don't understand others. Stunt pay for "stressful" voice work? I'm sorry ,that's just devaluing actually dangerous stunt work, I don't see how voice acting can ever be so problematic.
 
Notwithstanding any difficulties performing, this could be the equivalent of the 2007 writers' strike, but for video games.

--Patrick
 
Notwithstanding any difficulties performing, this could be the equivalent of the 2007 writers' strike, but for video games.

--Patrick
I dunno. Yes, good or bad voice actors can affect the quality of a game...But you can write great games with very limited to no voice work and be fine. There's only a specific subset of games that even uses professional VA, and an even smaller section that heavily relies on them. Yes, it can lead to delays of good games, certainly - if the voice acting for Fallout 4 isn't complete yet, this could seriously hurt them. A LOT of games won't care, though, and for quite a few genres, I honestly think we'd be better off with less VA anyway - as I said, it's time and money intensive for a fairly limited return. Do you listen to all voice work, completely, all the time? Everyone I know fastforwards/skips after the first line, as reading subtitles is just plain faster and easier.
 
They're treated like dirt compared to most other acting gigs and haven't had terms negotiated since like the dawn of video games. Though I don't agree with all their points (100% union membership for any actors involved if even one union member is involved, which totally fucks smaller studios or any that want members of their team to do voices here and there and such) I can see why they're doing it.[DOUBLEPOST=1444316478,1444316365][/DOUBLEPOST]
Eh. Can we go back to games with far more and better lines, and much less voice acting? Voice acting meant higher budgets and less room for long texts and deep lore, I'm not a fan at all except for some cut scenes and such. They can strike for a few years for all I care, but I accept I'm a minority.
I can certainly understand some of their requests (royalties on high-selling games), though I don't understand others. Stunt pay for "stressful" voice work? I'm sorry ,that's just devaluing actually dangerous stunt work, I don't see how voice acting can ever be so problematic.
When you're asked to shout for 8 hours straight for the absolute base minimum pay and your voice is your money-maker, it damn well would be stressful voice work. If it leads to a place where you can't work for a week or two afterwards due to your vocal cords being abused it should be considered as such.
 
Do you listen to all voice work, completely, all the time? Everyone I know fastforwards/skips after the first line, as reading subtitles is just plain faster and easier.
At least once. Subsequent playthroughs might get the skip treatment, but I always let everything ring out at least once.
When you're asked to shout for 8 hours straight for the absolute base minimum pay and your voice is your money-maker, it damn well would be stressful voice work. If it leads to a place where you can't work for a week or two afterwards due to your vocal cords being abused it should be considered as such.
As someone who was considering voicework for a while, this is the truth.

--Patrick
 
Do you listen to all voice work, completely, all the time? Everyone I know fastforwards/skips after the first line, as reading subtitles is just plain faster and easier.
What games are you playing that let you skip along like that? I can only think of MGS codec conversations. A lot of games these days either have the voice acting in cutscenes, so it's either skip the cutscene or listen up, or have the dialogue while you play, so you're still stuck with it.

The strike isn't going to improve your gaming experience in any way either. Any money saved by developers won't be getting passed on to the consumer, nor will it be pushed into gameplay because that's not how game production works. We're also unlikely to see an era of less voice acting and more an era of bad voice acting by people who have no stake in this, or worse, are fulfilling other aspects of the game's production.
 
I don't say they're not in their right to strike, or have good cause - I'm not really informed enough. I'm just saying I think it won't have as much of an impact as the writer's strike on tv.

As for hurting your voice doing voice work...Yes, I can see that as a hazard and a problem. Still doesn't deserve stunt pay. You're a cop, @Frank - you should understand that stunt pay, like hazard pay and such, is meant for people actually risking their life. There are other ways of compensating for stressful work or hard work. Using stunt pay, hazard pay, high-risk pay, for things that aren't devalues it and makes the difference smaller. I see the same thing in our sector: the ARAB bonus (yes, it's called that; no, not for racist reasons - it's the name of a work safety law) was first restricted to colleagues carrying arms; then expanded to include those in "dangerous areas", then to all mobile agents, and by now even I get it - while I'm safe behind a desk at the dispatch. By now, they've added a new type of bonus for agents who have to carry weapons or work on dangerous sites. Gah.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
The worst voice acting always comes from translations of Russian games like "Hard to be a God" or "The Tomorrow War."

"Do not drive me to distraction! I have no time to cope with your work!"

You guys ever play Shogo: Mobile Armor Division? They intentionally (I think) made fun of bad dubbing. At one point a guard who won't let you enter an area of your ship tells you "I have my orders, sir, please be nice to me!"
 
What games are you playing that let you skip along like that?
Practically all of them? Shadow of Mordor lets you skip per line. KOTOR does. Pillars of Eternity. Starcraft II. Witcher 3. I dunno, those are the games I've played with voice acting in the past 8 months or so :p
 
I don't say they're not in their right to strike, or have good cause - I'm not really informed enough. I'm just saying I think it won't have as much of an impact as the writer's strike on tv.

As for hurting your voice doing voice work...Yes, I can see that as a hazard and a problem. Still doesn't deserve stunt pay. You're a cop, @Frank - you should understand that stunt pay, like hazard pay and such, is meant for people actually risking their life. There are other ways of compensating for stressful work or hard work. Using stunt pay, hazard pay, high-risk pay, for things that aren't devalues it and makes the difference smaller. I see the same thing in our sector: the ARAB bonus (yes, it's called that; no, not for racist reasons - it's the name of a work safety law) was first restricted to colleagues carrying arms; then expanded to include those in "dangerous areas", then to all mobile agents, and by now even I get it - while I'm safe behind a desk at the dispatch. By now, they've added a new type of bonus for agents who have to carry weapons or work on dangerous sites. Gah.
They can be risking their livelihoods. How is that not hazard pay? Getting pedantic over the terminology is silly here. Call it stress pay, whatever, it doesn't matter.
 
They can be risking their livelihoods. How is that not hazard pay? Getting pedantic over the terminology is silly here. Call it stress pay, whatever, it doesn't matter.
If you feel so, we'll have to agree to disagree. This may be because of legal differences between countries; hazard pay/risk pay/stunt pay is treated VERY differently in regards to taxing and such around here. It's not just semantics.
If "yelling loudly" is risking your voice, then you're either yelling the wrong way (there's how-to's on metal growling and such for a reason; it's not just "yell loudly"), you've got to train your vocal cords, or you've got weak vocal cords not cut out for the job. I'm sorry. I know voice actors (there's a huge market for French VA since they dub pretty much everything) - just like professional singers, it takes a lot of voice lessons and training to bring your voice up there.
 
Well, I'm sure we can your word for it over something an entire union of voice actors are fighting for.
"A union fights over it" is not a reason to accept pretty much anything. We had a 100.000 man manifestation of the unions here yesterday, and at least 2 of their 5 "main action points" are demonstrably false.

That said, I'm not going to keep debating this. I literally said I DONT KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THIS TO SAY WHETHER OR NOT THEY SHOULD BE STRIKING a few posts ago. All I said was that a) hazard and stunt pay should be restricted to people in actual risk or doing stunts and b) proper vocalization is possible, and if it isn't because your boss/director/whatever demands you yell at the top of your voice, your director etc is an idiot.
 
"A union fights over it" is not a reason to accept pretty much anything. We had a 100.000 man manifestation of the unions here yesterday, and at least 2 of their 5 "main action points" are demonstrably false.

That said, I'm not going to keep debating this. I literally said I DONT KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THIS TO SAY WHETHER OR NOT THEY SHOULD BE STRIKING a few posts ago. All I said was that a) hazard and stunt pay should be restricted to people in actual risk or doing stunts and b) proper vocalization is possible, and if it isn't because your boss/director/whatever demands you yell at the top of your voice, your director etc is an idiot.
Well, apparently you know enough about it to tell them they're doing it wrong...
 
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