this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Gaming

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 122 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Good.

One of my good friends was one of the voices on LA Noire years ago and gets zero residuals from it. It's maddening.

[–] magikmw@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

x_doubt.jpeg

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since this strike is against certain companies and not some entity that represents the entire industry like it does for movies and television, that means that other individual companies who come to an agreement can still hire these people, right? If so...imagine if we had that in movies and television.

[–] Zalack@startrek.website 51 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We do. A24, for instance, is still making a couple movies by agreeing to work under the proposed terms by SAG. As far as I know, no one else has made such agreements yet. The more of such exceptions that get made, the weaker the AMPTP's position will get.

[–] ram@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Dropout.tv (formerly CollegeHumour) is also an unstruck company.

[–] Discola@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One more reason to love dropout!

Because they have a different contract for work not covered by the current strike? That seems kind of a weird take, especially since they thought the strike did apply to them originally and they shut down for several weeks until the lawyers got together and said, oh no, you have a different type of agreement.

It's not like they changed or updated their contract to become exempt. SAG just went, oh, your business doesn't fall into the terms of the strike so you don't have to strike with the rest of us.

[–] Zalack@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago

I didn't know that! I just subbed to their service for Make Some Noise so I kind of feel better about shelling out for it now.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Oh, I see. I thought all of Hollywood was AMPTP and that's why we can't have nice things like DRM-free movie purchases.

[–] gaael@beehaw.org 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I never wondered about the conditions of videogames workers, but I'm really happy that they get better thanks to this movement !

[–] theangriestbird@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's 10x worse than whatever you're imagining.

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No guarantee anything gets better yet.

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[–] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Either everyone needs to get royalties or nobody does.

Pay your voice actors right the first time instead of paying them shit per line. Or if your video game becomes an astounding success, all 1,000 people get a slice of that 100,000,000 million it made in sales via residuals. A cool $100,000 for everyone!

Don't forget to advocate for yourself even if you have a union. Nobody ever gets paid more by saying nothing.

[–] RandoCalrandian@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The coders have their copyrighted works replicated infinitely without royalties as well.

What makes a voice actor’s contributions more meaningful than that? Especially since they can get a half decent voice performance out of any coder and the right generative software which already exists.

[–] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yeah perpetual royalties are a nonsense slippery slope. People are pushing for it in all the wrong ways wanting a piece of the pie from the higher ups when in reality the way the money flows just needs to be altered.

Bridge and road crews don't get to get a penny every time someone drives over stuff.

Creation does not mean benefit in perpetuity. It means you created something. You should be paid properly for it, yes, but it doesn't mean every time someone mentions your book you get a penny from them lol.

Melancholy Elephants was a great Hugo Award short story about this very thing written in 1983. It's a great read for those who want to go in a bit blind. http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html

How the hell do you spoiler tag on Kbin? lol

[–] not_amm@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I think that the main problem is that companies keep getting revenue even if actors don't. Book writers don't stop earning money just because they wrote their book 5 years ago, and yes, they don't win money for reselling, but companies like Amazon and their editorials will keep earning money because of their work, so why shouldn't the writers earn money?

If your work isnt being streamed or sold, well, you won't see much. But still, you signed a contract, like the old perpetual pensions.

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[–] PenguinTD@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wonder how many are actually in union to gain that bargain power?

[–] there1snospoon@ttrpg.network 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know most if not all of the cast of Critical Role (who are voice actors for many video games) are members. Ashley Johnson is the voice of Ellie for TLoU, so if they’re working on TLoU3, they’ll likely have to delay it.

[–] PenguinTD@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was hoping this extends to many other departments.

[–] ram@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

It doesn't, unfortunately. Programmers, animators, concept artists, designers, each need to unionize in order to leverage collective action grants at the bargaining table. With last week's decision by the NLRB though, it's certain to be easier than ever to get unionized. Still, the amount of coordination it gets to even petition the NLRB to have your union recognized is no small feat. Just now it'll be that much more difficult to bust a union election

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