WIL WHEATON dot NET: 1.5

Well said. And even though your previous post on the subject did sound a little harsh-sided, I've read you long enough to realize that you'd stand up for anyone to get properly compensated, if you knew that they weren't.

Really enjoyed your recent COMPUTER AMERICA radio gig, especially the mention of the dearly departed and much beloved TechTV. You were GOOD there, you should contact the now-called TWiTs (Leo, Patrick, Kevin, Roger, Robert, Yoshi, Foo, et al) and see if you can join in some Sunday night! Go to Leoville for details! (I'm not a geek but I married one.)

Now, get back to bed Wil Wheaton! Or you might not get anywhere if you interrupt your healing!

karen

Just for the record (and as I’m always the lurker, never the commenter, believe me when I say I feel strongly about this in order to post), I had no idea about the intricacies of the gaming industry. I’m the wife of an avid gamer, and have been made to watch Tech TV’s “X-Play” all too often. However, before your post, I had never considered what it took to put out a game or how the people producing it (whether they be the voice talent, graphic artists, whatever) were compensated. I thought your post about the issue simply addressed the seemingly underrepresented perspective of the voice talent; it did not belittle anyone else’s contribution to a game’s production. I saw it as a “raising awareness” kind of gesture (at least for me, who was completely unaware of the issues at hand, as I usually am), more than an attack on anyone. I’m sorry to hear people missed that. (And I’ve just been informed your voice is all over EverQuest II, currently a ubiquitous presence in my home). Good grief. Gaming industry, I hardly know ye.

Hi Wil,

I think unions are very important. Over here in Germany we have a rich tradition of unions - but in recent years the unions lost a lot of members due to the difficult and hard economic times.

I myself are a member of "ver.di" and I think it's very important to have somebody that fights for your rights and wages.

Honestly, I'm a little stunned that you've had some backlash about the first post. I totally understood where you were coming from - I thought others would to. I grew up in a union state and then moved to Texas. The whole 'Right To Work' thing has really screwed up the economics here. I would celebrate the raises of my co-workers - and yes I'd be a little jealous - but my thought would be, 'if they got a raise, I'm going to too'. Guess not everyone believes that.
I agree with Karen. Bothersome posts can lead to stress. Take care of yourself. Realize that more people agree with you than disagree. (And the agreement people are usually lurkers and not as loud or obnoxious as the naysayers) :-)

.It makes much more sense to me for developers to take that energy and those resources, point it at producers, and take the fight to them.

That's the key to the whole argument.

A Game Developers Guild (tm) needs to be created.

Until that [unlikely event] happens, developers are going to feel shat upon. And they'll be wasting time attacking those people who truly want to help them.

--AJ

I'm not going to be a drooling fanboy and applaud whatever Wil says and "throw the goat" like some of the commenters here have done, at least IMO. But I'm also not going to belittle Wil, SAG, or the voice talent in games. A close friend of mine is a voice talent and I'm all in favor of people getting what they deserve. But as a Computer Science guy and programmer, you have to think about our livelihoods, too. It's hard to outsource voice talent, especially if you're looking for something specific (i.e. "cool, mid-20s, SoCal sounding dude"). But you can easily outsource game code, level design, engine design, etc. You say you can get typecast into a role and therefore residuals are necessary. What about the game developer who has listed, oh, I dunno, Duke Nukem Forever and is now trying to cut his losses and get a new gig? An extreme example, but I think that voice talent being typecast is also a bit extreme.

No one can be an expert in everyone's field or profession, but everyone deserves compensation. But I don't think the answer lies in everyone under the sun joining a union. Unions are 99% good, but they carry such a stigma. Individuals can make a difference. Unions should only be there to save their members from gross negligance by employers. Also, just because SAG doesn't know about the others in the same industry doesn't get them off the hook from affecting someone else's livlihood.

/rant. This is the first time that i've had enough of a reaction to a post by Wil to post about it. I'm not bashing Wil or belittling anyone, just making sure that everyone's aware that there is always more than one way to skin a potato (not a cat, I love my cats. ;))

I raced out of the house to run some errands right after I published this, and while I was looking for some replacement collar stays (why does the dryer always eat those? And more importantly, why do I always forget to take them out before I wash my shirts?), I realized that I left out something very important, so I've edited the post to include the following:"However, I've read several other blogs, and comments on my own blog, which suggest that I believe that actors should get paid before or instead of the other people who work on the game. I never said that, and I don't feel that way.

I didn't see a non-ugly way of adding it in, and since there were only six comments, anyway, I figured the most honest way to update was to put it in the post, and explain why here.

I personally didn't find anything offensive about what you posted. I'm not a programmer or game developer (unless MUSHs count!) but I agree, energy should be directed at bettering their own professional organizations. I for one have always loved that SAG, AFTRA and the AEA exist and do their jobs well.

Actors have never had it as good as far as benefits and regulated pay and conditions go. In a world where only one percent or so of the SAG membership could be considered stars we as actors need all the help we can get.

I can't remember the amount off the top of my head but I believe the average acting member of SAG makes upwards of 15k a year? Don't quote me but I believe it is something incredibly low. And yes they get paid well when they work, but as Wil has said sometimes you might only work once or twice in a year. So give us actors a break, we're not all making Brad Pitt and JOhnny Depp paychecks.

Glad you reprinted some of what you wrote. I got the feeling that many people reading it only picked out and magnified a few words you said, like they didn't really read what you had written.
I was a bit taken aback by the anger and bitterness that was brought out, I mean, I honestly couldn't see how some people had come to such myopic conclusions about you and other actors.
As an artist I have wished many times that I had a union of some sort. Thankfully, I had learned much from my self-employed father which helped a great deal but it isn't always enough.
I have even more respect for you than I did before this.
Thanks again for your insight and honesty. I appreciate it sincerely.

I never realized how much went into gaming until I read these two posts. Holy crap. But, being from Detroit I do understand enough about unions to appreciate & understand where you're coming from with these two posts--coupled with the fact that I've been known to live paycheck to paycheck too.

The developers are looking at not only the numbers but also the actions & results of the union. With the way most people's minds work, unfortunately, your group was bound to be the bad guy in this battle--which really doesn't need to be a battle. Naturally the developers are going to feel an overwhelming sense of WTF but, unfortunately, they are allowing way too much of this emotion dictate their course of action---picking on the actors that make (roughly) a whole three grand a year on gaming. Makes sense to me (not). Seems like they need to spend some of that energy barking up the Bean Counter's tree.

Dude, people just don't leave you alone, do they? Sorry 'bout that. What you said was fine. They say: If you can't handle the heat, get out of the fire. Or something like that. It would appear that you can handle the heat and do it well. You wouldn't have gotten your point across if you didn't piss somone off in the process. Congrats Wil. I envy your open honesty. I don't always agree with what your views on certain subjects are, but I do have enough respect for your opinion to not openly throw a fit.

Roll with the wave darlin'. It'll pass eventually.

I promise this is my last comment on the issue, then I'll shut up. If anyone wants to hassle me for my opinions, feel free to leave a note and I'll let you know how to find me. ;-)

First, regarding unions: I'll stay out of this side of the debate. However, I want to point out that not everyone's experiences with unions is pleasurable. I could detail all the ways that unions made life miserable for the computer science students at my university, but frankly, it'd just start a fight and I doubt anyone really wants to hear it.

Second, regarding the extra session fee: Go back to my last comment in your other post. Go through the numbers. Seriously, Wil, you talk a good game, saying that the SAG isn't trying to get paid "before or instead of" the developers. But in all honesty, in the vast majority of games where the additional session fee would apply, yes, you are demanding extra pay beyond your contribution to the game. That extra pay comes out of the portion that developers are trying to get into. Sure it's not much, but the fact is that it's still more than you'd be due on most games. You're taking money that the developers are trying to get, and you're surprised that these guys are upset?

Finally: This is intensely cruel, but here's a newsflash: If you can't make ends meet doing what you love, FIND ANOTHER JOB. It's not the developers' fault (and it's certainly not the company owners' fault) that there's not enough work for all the people who want to do it. Rather than complaining that you don't make enough doing it, why don't you just accept the economic reality that there's more available talent than work to be done, and find some other way to support your family? (Not really directed at Wil, since he at least had the good sense to find other ways to make ends meet, more or less.) Do the voice acting thing when you can, use it as a supplement to your income, but if you can't make a living at it, that's nobody's problem but yours. There's a huge shortage of qualified tradespeople out there... Why not take up plumbing, or electrical work, or carpentry? If you're desperate for an artistic outlet, there's a lot of work available as a high-end custom furniture maker... It takes years of hard work to be able to command the hefty fees you'd like in that industry, and to have the understanding of the tricks and techniques required to produce really top-notch pieces, but there's incredible room for creative expression in that industry.

misunderstood post. villification. new post to defend yourself. stuck in a loop trying to assure everyone you didn't mean any disrespect. giving up.

That should have been listed as a reason #11 for blog burn out.

The developers could take that energy and apply it to starting their own union, to fight for better wages and more control for them. Their blaming an actors' union for doing right by its members is just silly.

Hey Wil,
I think it's pretty shitty that you have been forced to defend yourself on your own blog. I think people read too much into your previous post and overreacted completely.
As a musician, I can't even tell you how much it aggravates me when people tell me that artists are frequently overpaid for their services or that just anyone could do the same thing. I have spent years learning how to perfect my craft, and I am still not done. I know you meant no disrespect to anyone else, and were simply trying to bring an awareness to what goes on in the gaming world. I for one, learned a lot from your previous post. I had no idea really, the amount of work that goes into gaming by so many different people.
So, thank you for opening my eyes. I hope you start feeling better soon.

Most of the commentary I have read about your comments is uninformed and - to be blunt - prejudiced. Wil, you should be proud to stand up for your union and you have every right to make the comment that an organised association of developers would be a better forum for discussing issues with SAG.

More importantly, you have every right to stand up for the cause of the union, and to express your opinion of the rights of the workers. I'm glad you have clarified this issue for the doubters in the audience, but I think the issue rests here.

Okay, I can't stand people that post again and again with nothing noteable to add, but CANUCKOTTER **really** pissed me off. WTF man? Who on this planet wants to do a job they hate, just to make ends meet?? Anyone? No?

Exactly.

I'm awesome at customer service. I let total strangers bitch me up one side and down the other, blaming me for their problems, yelling at me, calling me names that no person deserves to hear and once I fix their problem, do I get any thanks? HELL NO! I get told, and I kid you not, "Don't let this happen again." The reason I'm good is because I don't tell people that they need to "You are paying a shitload of money for insurance and you don't know how it works?? How stupid are you?"

Problem? I hate customer service. Because I had to work to make ends meet, I didn't get to finish college. I had to drop out. That was my "Finding other ways to make ends meet." Now, the only think I am qualified to do is listen to asshole's like you bitch at me all day long.

My point: Unless you've been on the poor end of the stick for YEARS AND YEARS on end, shut the hell up. If you have been there, take a moment to step down from your self-appointed pedestal and look back at the place you came from. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with someone not wanting to go back to doing a job they hate just to make ends meet and if I'm not mistaken, I believe Wil has posted in the past that he makes enough to keep afloat. Point A to Point B. If you can afford to get there in style, jolly good for you. If you can't, A to B is all that matters.

As for me, I get to go back to customer service because I'm damn good at it and I get paid well for my experience. Is the paycheck worth it? Sometimes.

you know, i understand why you wrote this new post, wil, but i hate the fact that you even had to write it, or rather, you felt you had to write it...

As I recall, the average SAG member makes more like 5 grand a year, or something ridiculously low. Luckily, while I still performed for a living ,I made far more than that. Now, I'm married to a computer geek (network engineer). He and his cohorts make a pretty decent living. Programmers and software developers make even more than my husband does, which is many, many times what the average SAG actor makes.

I'm not saying that the technical team shouldn't make some pretty good cash. I'm just saying that they almost certainly make far more already than the voice actors do, even AFTER the raise. I can't imagine why anyone would be bent out of shape because you support your union. Does it make them feel bigger 'cause they criticized someone? Ugh.

Bottom line is, you were right. You ARE right. The fact that you now have to justify it is crazy, and I'm sorry you felt like you had to.

You know, I think it's just really, really difficult for people outside the film & television industry to understand the lifestyle and why unions are so important to our health, well-being and professional lives. I think what brings it home for me is thinking about all the many, many actors you see in television shows and movies who aren't the stars. These people are so, so important, and they have to be pros and good at what they do. They go months without work, moving from audition to audition (which is basically work without pay), hoping pilot season will cover them for the next year, grabbing commercial work, praying to hit that magic health insurance mark, etc. Now think about how incredibly important they are to your favorite shows and movies. Really look at them next time you watch something. These people live a very unique and difficult lifestyle (as do many people in other roles in film & television), and their union fights for gains to make it possible for them to float for weeks and months without pay. If they couldn't float, we wouldn't have films & television, simple as that. That's why the rates sound so high when you hear them; because that might be someone's only job for a month. That's the nature of the industry; that's how it works for most working actors no matter how good they are at what they do.

Personally, I thought the previous post was very well-written and clear. I would imagine (but perhaps I'm wrong?) the game industry has the ability to not use SAG voice talent, so if what SAG negotiated isn't a good deal, and the industry thinks any old person can do it better, then they will go elsewhere. Obviously, someone thinks talented actors and recognizable voices are valuable. You can't knock SAG for fighting for their members. And if developers are so worried about being outsourced, doesn't that mean that they agree they are more easily replaced than the voice talent? Wouldn't that exactly make the point that voice talent is something special and unique and valuable?

Oh, and one other quick thing - imagine the alternative. Imagine that the same 20 actors played every additional role in every film and every television show! It would ruin the worlds; it would distract you. You believe it's a CSI in Vegas because you're not saying to yourself, hey, wasn't that guy in New York last week? LOL

Stick to your guns! What you said is spot-on! Only when the "little people" work together is there going to be a more fair and equitable distribution of wealth in this country where people earn what they deserve.

Divide and conquer is not just a saying, it's how people in power keep others from gaining power as well. This is incredibly important for a better future. The right has stirred up opposition to unions for this very reason. To keep the "trickle down" to as minimal trickle as possible.

Unions gave us 5-day, 40-hour work weeks, vacations, health insurance (for us lucky enough to have it), pensions and 401Ks, and a lot of other benefits which too many people take for granted.

You want to lose those things? Then fight against unions and fair labor laws. Spending too much time at home with the family? Join the union-bashing going on on the fringe right. They'll put you to work and you won't have to worry about seeing anyone but your co-workers.

As a developer, I have no grudges against voice actors or SAG. I can, however, feel a good amount of envy since developers in the U.S.A. don't have a union to help forward their interests. As far as wages go, I'm a happy guy. As far as benefits go, I'm a happy guy. As far as the number of hours I work, I'm a galley slave. I belong to the professional organizations of ACM and IEEE, but while they also have similar working beliefs, they don't have union powers. Not to speak for other developers, but maybe that's where their anger comes from: seeing a group (SAG) get their way with the game companies while they don't. Not that it's right, but it's just the nature of the beast: it's like seeing Carl get promoted over you even though he's a bumbling idiot. While you may think management is idiotic, you're actually pissed at yourself but transferring it to Carl because he had the bullshit flowing freely with the boss.

Eh. It'll blow over and people don't hate you or SAG. Just some venting.

I had lots of things to say about the union and game developer value discussion (OK - it is much more than a simple discussion), but most of what I would add has been said (or close enough).

I'll add a few observations.

I find it interesting that in game voice work the actors are finding themselves in a support position.

I've always been a backstage person (stage lighting and one stint as the assistant to the director in a short independent film). The developers who claim that the voices are not important remind me of the actors/directors who treated the crew like servants or just ignored them completely. The elements that give a show/game the mood can make or destroy them.
I've seen many potentially good shows destroyed by bad lighting/sound/set design/crew - most audiences don't realize why the show felt wrong.

A few of the best actors/directors understood and would work with us and occasionally thank us for a good job. A good director would go through the whole script with us describing what feel was needed in each scene (and do a run-through just for us; one director literally tossed a script to me and walked away (then I realized why the set designer in this troupe usually doubled as lighting designer and board operator ... and the shows suffered for it- he was a good set designer and a poor lighting designer/operator).

My job was to make the actors look good and enhance the mood of the acting.

For games, the voice actors are doing the backstage job that is only noticed when it is bad, when it is good, the voices enhance the playing experience.

_-=/^\=-_ .

As for compensation, you cannot compare a full time employee to a freelance day player. It is a totally different situation. My wife and I do contract engineering. The norm is to get 5 to 10 hours of paying work in a week - there is 20 to 40 hours of unpaid work to keep the business going (bookkeeping, marketing, reviewing legal requirements, networking, keeping up on the field, professional meetings, etc).
PLUS, we pay all our own benefits and the business liability insurances (insurance alone eats up about 20 percent of what we make).
Once in a while we get a big job that gives us 20 to 40 hours a week of paid work for a while. Then we get to pay off bills and hopefully put some money away for emergencies.

Sound familiar?

You trade risk for the freedom and potential for the big win.

If the developers want more, then they have to take risks. I knew one system developer that felt the same way as some of the game developers who feel they should get a bigger piece of the action. He went freelance and worked for 18 months on a new system (with a distribution deal already signed)- he lived/worked in a borrowed office and used a closet in a friends apartment for storage. He kept a membership at a college athletic center for a place to take a shower. He created a good product that luckily had a market when it came out. Suddenly he was driving an expensive sports car and traveling around the world. But if the market wasn't right for his product, he would have ended with nothing for the effort. However, the market changed and sales stopped after a year.
[I don't know what happened next ]

_-=/^\=-_ .

Another point - when you see a best selling game and you want a piece of the profit, you have to account for the failures that were paid for on the way. Those are part of the expenses of producing the successful one. Games, movies, music, software, and books all have the business model that each success has to pay for a number of failures. If you are a big company, you play the odds and (hopefully) average out in the black. If you are a small company, you are going all in on the first hand [glory/fame/money OR bankrupt].

[I did the "all in" with a startup and lost. Now I am in a situation similar to Wil. Keep looking for contract work, struggle to get buy, hope for a big job once in a while to get ahead and build up some savings to get through the lean times.]

_-=/^\=-_ .

As for unions - they are a double ended sword.

Most of the time I believe they are good and protect the workers interests.

They can do a lot for the members or they can hurt the members to protect the union. A friend had his union turn on him - he did a good job and the boss gave him a promotion and a raise. The union blocked it because an incompetent worker in the same shop had more years in the union and wasn't promoted first.

_-=/^\=-_ .

Brian

Wil,

This whole concept of a fight between developers and voice actors is very interesting from an economic perspective.

The classic reason for unions to come into existence is to protect easily replacable labor from competition. That's consistent, I think, with SAG: for every "name" actor out there, there must be dozens who are essentially immediately substitutable for each other, in skills, general appearance, voice, etc. Do I, as a consumer, really care who plays the crazy guy on CSI? No, so long as he or she does a good job at the role.

Those same factors would appear to be growing more and more important in the developer arena, too. Do I care who writes my application? Only when I need support (which can be "insourced", if need be). Put another way, what's the difference between someone who codes in C in the U.S. and India? Or China? Or Bangladesh? Answer: not much. Bytes is bytes (and yes, I know that good programming takes more than just coding, but I still think the general point applies).

So I think the real question is not "how could actors work to take money away from developers?" but "why haven't developers unionized?" The necessary precursors would appear to be in place. And it can't be for lack of access to each other -- they are, after all, some of the most connected people in the world.

- Mark

This is a perfect example of misplaced anger. I know most game developers are paid crap and basically froced to work downright illegal ammounts of hours. But getting angry at a group that has organized and told the producers that they will not lie down for their crap is the wrong response.

LEARN from them!!

As others have pointed out unions can be good and bad. It all depends on the leaders, but when a copmany so regularrly abuses the basic human rights of their employees it is a good option.

If ever there were a modern need for a union it is the game development business. These developers feed off the bodies of their brightest literally fworking them to the point of burnout and then simpoly replacing them. If the developers want better treatment they should meet with some SAG officials and ask for help unionizing. I am sure they would be happy to help. Heck I am sure Wil would be happy to help put you in touch with some folks ;)

Wil,

Ive been readin your Blog for about 6 months and this is my first post.

STOP APOLOGIZING!

Whew, there we go. I just read your entry the other day about being more honest and cutting out things that don't belong. Start by saying F*@k It to what other people think about your life, thoughts, opinions, and website. It doesn't matter if they are mad. It doesn't matter if they never come back to this site. You don't need em. I for one took no offense to the previous post, nor did I get the impression that you were trying to offend anyone. If they got offended then "Oh Well".

I had a couple of thoughts about this topic.

One, the flak is most likely due to the perception that paying the voice actors is taking money out of the pot that could go to developers.

I think some reader are comparing apples to oranges. In normal payroll accounting practices the developers are ON THE PAYROLL of the development company. They have benefits and a bit of week-to-week security.

The voice actors are not on the payroll. They are consultants, called in to perform a specific and very specialized service. The rate structure for this service is what is being negotiated.

The money that is used to pay the consultants normally comes from a different pocket of the producer.

Secondly, unions provide a valuable service for their membership. They help standardize payments, making it fairer for the vast majority. They also work on safety issues (total daily hours allowd) and safety net issues (health benefits and insurance).

One of the commenters noted that the average SAG member's annual salary is in the mid-4 figures ($5k/yr). That is nowhere near the high-5 figures ($75k/yr) the average developer receives, week after week.

In my personal experience, when the unions in my industry (telecommunications) sought and won enlarged benefits for their memebers, the corporations also gave these new benefits to the other members of the workforce including management. That is how Dental Insurance coverage became a 'normal' benefit in the 80s.

(*steps down off soapbox*)

I have to agree with Maddragoon. You don't have to apologize for your opinion or re-explain yourself. I thought you were perfectly clear in your original post.

Your opinion is your own. You have every right to it. If some people don't like it, OH FUCKING WELL!

YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYONE 100% OF THE TIME. Don't even bother to try.

Write this blog for YOU Wil.

If people don't RESPECT your opinions, then they don't need to read your blog. If they negatively criticize you (personal attacks), instead of constructively disagreeing with you about your opinions, then they need to get their heads out of their own asses.

THIS IS YOUR WEBSITE, THIS IS YOUR BLOG WIL! Do with it what you want. Say whatever you want to say, and DO NOT second guess yourself.

You are entitled to your own uncensored opinions about whatever you want to write about. That is what makes YOU you. That is why we read your blog Wil.

Personally, I don't want to read about the Wil who tip-toes around issues, the Wil that doesn't talk about the deeper stuff (for fear of offending people), and the Wil that has to apologize when a bunch of fuckers start to "whine and cry" about your opinion.

I read your blog because you DO have an opinion. Whether I agree with you or not, I respect your opinions. And I'm glad you have put yourself out there to express them for all the world to read.

Just my ONE & 9/10th cents worth. (gasoline joke)

:) Kel

they always have to twist around the words of the people who actually know what they're talking about...it sickens me. Wil, you have nothing to apologize for. telling it like it is is not a crime.

I remember when Actor's Equity voted to strike along with Local 802 in NYC during the Broadway Orchestra strike. Though I'm not a member of either union (I'm formerly of AGMA currently in AFTRA) I was moved to tears by the gesture. Developers should know that if they formed a Union and decided to strike, SAG and AFTRA would almost certainly support them by refusing to cross the picket line themselves. What's sad is that the same support obviously won't be reciprocated. The anger that's been directed at SAG is probably just what big shots in the industry want to see. Divide and Conquer and all that...

Wil, you could be so fortunate to precisely put out your thoughts, written or verbal, but due to everybody having their own 'filters' from past experiences as well as personality differences... there'd still be a portion of people that would take it rather differently than you intended. Simple Interpersonal Communications 101.

So don't sweat it too much that people take things differently than you meant. That's the limitation of written and spoken word.

As for unions... man... they accomplished great things in the 1st half of the 20th century, but except for a small portion of actual workers... they are dinosaurs that don't know they're extinct. [Auto industry and grocery stores*, anyone???]

Unions ARE needed for any work that generates residual income from being sold over and over, though, since individuals without any leverage [non superstars] won't be able to negotiate residual pay or increased pay for every individual project they work on.
-------------------------
* grocery store employees... are customer service/stockers just like employees of mall stores [Macy's, down to the greeting card store.] You've got cashiers, stock persons, etc. Should every retail sales clerk and stock person unionize??? Uh, no.

So if grocery stores were a brand new industry, would they need a union??? Uh, no. It just the way it's always been and the union leaders would do anything to protect a job that pays them year round for an easy job where they only have to bust their asses when contracts get renegotiated every few years and when there's a strike.

The rest of the time... they're shaking hands, blowin' sunshine up people's asses, and playing golf. Those union leaders have such cushy jobs making money off the paychecks of the people they represent, a while telling the members to keep on fighting the good fight for 20/40 bucks a week while they continue to draw their salaries. [Sound like leeches to me.]

As for the typical grocery store worker complaining that managers aren't scheduling them a set full-time schedule and often cut them early from their shifts... um... you ever work in a restaurant??? If grocery stores were a M-F, 8-5 job, sure... set schedules would work. But a 7 day a week, 8am-midnight or longer, customer service business???

You have to keep labor costs in control in order to compete in the highly competitive grocery business. So, you need to be dynamic with your staffing... you schedule enough people to handle typical and expected crowds on a given day/shift and you cut down as needed. Any shift or day in a restaurant can be busy or slow based on many factors... you have to adjust. Grocery stores are the same.

Or perhaps a bunch of bored waiters and cashiers standing around, costing money would be better??? Uh, no. 'Cause then the management would have to cut cost somehow, and that'd likely start with entire jobs, let alone shifts.

Ok, Ed... get off the soapbox and nobody gets hurt. Move along, now.

Look at this way: anger is almost always based in fear. Fear usually reflects perceived threats. Someone must think your opinion carries enough weight to be concerned (whether it be good or bad) - so it's a tacit recognition of your status.
Congrats, this is the big time. :-)
Personally, I agree with ya 100% about unions. But then, I used to be a dues-paying Wobbly.

Interesting to see a "new" industry come of age. Looks like you have made it if you are involved in a labor dispute. All will shake out in the end, but it is curios to watch the evolution.

In response to this
"here's a newsflash: If you can't make ends meet doing what you love, FIND ANOTHER JOB."

How does that theory not apply to the developers too? As someone attempting to make a living at a profession most people consider "not real work" (I'm a graphic artist) I find it completely outragous to make such a claim, as if the developers didn't fall under this "advise" as well. 0_o

Wil's point, I think, shouldn't be starting such crazy arguments. Look at the facts. 1) Wil Wheaton is a member of the SAG 2) The SAG is a union, a body designed to look out for the interests of its members 3) SAG wins a fight for its members. I don't think Wil is a special case here. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any non-super star actor that doesn't think this is a good thing. How can anyone be so shocked? Are developers, artists, ect underpaid? My guess, because I don't have any actual evidence, is yes. Are the actors really at fault though? I mean, are the actors the ones writing the game budgets? The people taking the largest piece of the pie are the producers, why then don't Artists, programmers and every nonvoice actor take their fight there? The answer I'd expect to hear has something to do with jobs being moved off shore if they attempt to fight for more money, so they take what they can get because its better than nothing. Here comes another harsh reality, much like the one I lashed out at at the begining of my rant:

When you take what you can get, you get what you're given and not a scrap more.

Sorry. My advice to those programmers that are putting in 60+ hour weeks and not getting what they are actualy owed for their contribution is to fight for it, or join me in the land of two jobs to pay off the fancy degree they promised you would make you so much money upon graduation. Life sucks for everyone, not just computer programers.

It's jealousy. Devs are trapped because nobody wants to be the one to stir the pot and create a union. They have no collective bargainaing power and so they're lashing out at you and the SAG the same way someone would see a hot car and say "bastard!"

I know a few guys over in Game Studio (at MS), and some of them put in insane hours. There was one game where they were being driven so hard it actually turned into a developers' mutiny. The only reason they got away with it was that they all did it. Yeah, it delayed the game to XBox2 (er, 360), but it saved Uncle Bill from footing the bill for a bunch of institutionalized devs.

Thats' the key--doing it together.

I've said before that the downfall of the Golden Age of the Geek is nigh. The perks are getting slimmer all the time. As more schools graduate more competent programmers, the supply goes up and the cost goes down. Simple. This is causing a lot of resentment in a LOT of programmers and other support staff.

Nobody wantes to be the one to stir the pot, but if they don't that hot-fired cauldron of syrupy-sweet goodness that they once warmed their buns just ain't gonna crystallize into something that'll last. I can't help but feel that a union is on the horizon, what with all the outsourcing to India, etc.

Sorry that you're the Man at a Mark again, Wil. As always, it's just jealousy. You have something that they want, plain and simple. I do not envy your target rank, but do remember that there are plenty of people out there who do not agree with those misguided buffoons. They just happen the ones who can be really noisy.

Try not to stress too much, it'll only drag the mono out.--That's got to be weird, you having the whole damned posse mothering you through this. Well, we all mean well by it. Takle care of yourself.--

[I hit the Acme show last night. Tooooo much funny!!! I'll never be able to hear the word "chantico" or 80's movie-pop again and hold a straight face. Sounds like your co-workers are giving you a good ribbing about it. There was some hissing of "the kisssssssing disease...Doessss the wife have the kissssssssing disease?" by one of them. :D]

There is one other factor what people fail to see when money is divided up between devs, voice actors, designers, etc, etc is that PR and accountants (aka the suits) with the large consulting companies and promotions companies take an over-sized slice of the pie even before anyone else sees any of the dough-ray-me.
It's the same in any other company from film studios, radio stations and all the way down to your local Toys R Us. The suits come in, do precious little by spouting a few stupid buzzwords to get the accountants excited and happy to hand over the blank checks, and after that, watch everyone else fight over the scraps.
That's why you see the huge company execs getting the 1000% payrise per month, whilst Joe in the offices is lucky to see a 3% raise in five years.

And to echo what others are saying, I hate it when people get this notion that every actor gets huge $100,000,000 per movie pay-checks like the talentless Governator (oops I mean Arnie).
Most actors get paid less than most people in tech industries.
If memory serves me, a friend of mine who is SAG, only got $100 for a day's work on a movie, and other times has to work non-union gigs and only gets $7 per hour.
Acting is a very unstable career, and only the lucky 3% in the acting trade get the silly salaries of Arnie, Ben Aflack (yes I said aflack because I know he hates that duck), Ben, Jen and all the other Hollywood A-list who you see splashed in the Hollywood ass-kissing celeb mags and celeb fawning TV shows.

EdWoodCA is pretty spot-on with my opinion on unions. They had their place in the Industrial Revolution, but in certain industries, they've become just as evil and greedy as the corporations they are supposedly protecting workers from. Specifically, I'm thinking the auto industry. Did you know that if a car company lays someone off, they have to pay them 90% of their pay for up to a year? And because these people are laid off, they are also entitled to unemployment benefits? When your industry has gotten to the point that employees make more money by not working, something is seriously wrong.

That said, certain industries could definitely use a guild or union to prevent their exploitation. The gaming industry is definitely one of those. Pretty much every person with a Computer Science degree is a gamer. Who among these gamer geeks wouldn't love working on some really great game? Not too many, I'd surmise. There is so much talent looking to get into gaming (either full time looking or just once in a while whenever there's a bad day in the IT dept) that the larger gaming companies -cough cough EA- can give big pink slip bonuses to employees once a project is finished and out the door. They can pull this off because they know that there is no shortage of potential employees and there will always be some people who are willing to slave away for 90 hours a week and live off of Top Ramen to survive just to get the opportunity to work on a game. So long as this attitude exists, workers in the gaming industry will continue to be exploited.

OK, after this I'll be quiet. :-)

VeronicaKnight, my response (typed hurriedly and somewhat incoherently, I'm afraid) is available from http://ottertales.blogspot.com/ if you want to try to start a discussion. Please feel free to swing by and add your comments. And for the record: Yes, I have worked crap jobs. Literally. I once waded knee-deep in liquid cow manure because that's what it took to get the job done.

Wil, after re-reading my comments, I realise that I haven't actually spelled out why I keep commenting. And the reason is that one of the reasons I have so much respect for you is that you're normally so good at trying to understand "the other guy"'s point of view. You're almost always trying to reach a balanced and truly fair understanding of a situation. And yet in this one instance, since you're an actor and want more money for what you do (which is fair) you're completely ignoring the many valid arguments as to why the SAG is, in fact, being unreasonable by seeking an extra session fee. At least from the perspective of developers. I guess I'm just saddened that on this particular issue, you've taken such a narrow, self-interested stand. The Wil I enjoy reading is the guy who's trying to make the world a better place, whether by raising awareness of important social issues, or just by playing with his kids and teaching them the importance of not mucking up another player's dice mojo. The extra money the SAG wants really is coming out of money that should legitimately go to developers. And yet you insist on viewing it only from your own perspective.

What I'm saying, Wil, is that you're really being selfish in this case, wanting what is good for you, regardless of whether it's right, or fair, or justified -- without even stopping to think about the arguments people on "the other side" have presented as to why it's unfair and unjustified. It's not like you, Wil.

Remember, from Bush & Co's perspective, it's perfectly reasonable and rational for them to be pushing for the right to drill all the oil they want out of Alaska. They're just fighting for their own rights, for the chance to make money that they think they deserve. Hell, it'll even help employ a whole bunch of other people, which is a Good Thing (tm), right?

If it's not OK for Bush and Co to think solely of themselves in that way, regardless of the consequences to the rest of the world, why is it fair for the SAG to do the same thing?

Wil -

My one word of advice, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, is buy a set of brass collar stays. Even if you run them through the dryer, they come out fine.

Oh, and I agree with that other stuff you said.

For what it's worth, Origin Systems Inc (OSI), back when they ruled the world (anyone remember the old Ultima and Wing Commander games?), started off giving their developers profit-sharing. It's not unheard of in the gaming industry.

CanuckOtter: "The extra money the SAG wants really is coming out of money that should legitimately go to developers."

I really want to see evidence of this. That's not a calling-out to you, but an honest concern. I truly believe -- and shall believe until I learn otherwise -- that this money is coming out of the publisher's pockets. And I agree with Wil; game developers should see the same kind of wage improvement.

Programmers in all specialties get zero respect these days. Like most SAG members, long term jobs are a rarity, companies want us for three and six month stints, then throw us out the door and put another interchangable part in, often times from places like India in order to save money (they think - in the short term).

The real problem here is the excesses given to those at the top (read: high-flyin' execs), not the unions, not the devleopers, and not the voice over artists.

It comes down to jealousy and insecurity, Wil. It doesn't matter if you live in a mansion, an apartment, or a tent. S&*T rolls downward. There are always going to be people looking down at someone below them happy that they are above and looking up at someone above them, raging at the world that they can be them. People's perceptions of what above and below mean can be as petty as a paycheck. I am a firm believer that the vast majority of us live from paycheck to paycheck, no matter how much money we make. And money doesn't make someone better or worse. But insecurities abound, and someone is always going to be jealous when someone does something better for themselves. Your union is a something others disparage because they haven't organized. There will always be a critic convinced that their half cup is do to your stealing their water. Ignore them.

Do what you love. Hope to be well-paid for it.

Find out you aren't well-paid for it, but still do it. Once the industry gets in your blood, you are stuck. :)

Feel lucky that SAG stands up for their members.

Most of us aren't that lucky. Do I hate SAG for it? No. I make local commercials for a living and will never make the money I deserve. But, I love what I do, if not always who I do it for. It is a choice we all make, regardless of our field of work.

Don't fret too much over the negative comments. It is your blog and your opinion and, in my opinion, you posted nothing flame-worthy.

People are who they will be. Horrid, sometimes, but true.

Feel better--don't stress this--keep your chin up.

(and I realize this entire thing sounds like haiku).

*HUGS*

ctofine

It seems lately that you've been spending some time apologizing and "clarifying" your opinion to people who choose to get upset at what you write. In your post "driver 8", you talked about setting new boundaries and no longer self-censoring. I guess I would encourage you to let your words speak for themselves and know this:

"The people who care about me know better, everyone else doesn't matter."

You're obviously someone who cares deeply about being as considerate as possible. No need to go out of your way to prove it to those who aren't likely to believe in you anyway.

Anyway, just my two cents. Thanks for the consistently great writing, and thanks for offering us a window into your very rich life.

ScottMan: I put a comment in Wil's last post where I ran through a bunch of numbers. The eventual figure was that on a game with $1M profit, with 90% being shared equally with all the folks who worked on the game based on the number of hours they'd worked, someone who'd contributed four hours of voice acting deserved $164. Go check it out... My numbers are just educated guesses, but I think it's overall pretty accurate. Obviously there are games that make tens of millions of dollars -- but just like actors, for every runaway success, there are a hundred that are struggling to make ends meet. I tried to base my numbers on a normal-sized but successful game. A little bit of additional analysis that I didn't include: Let's say my hypothetical game cost $1M to make (roughly $720,000 in salaries, plus $280,000 in production costs, marketing, and other sundry fees -- picked to give it a nice round number). That gives us a total of $2M that the game had to earn to make $1M profit. At 50,000 units, the developmnt company has to supply the game to their distributor at $40 per copy to make that kind of money. Now, I'm no game industry expert, but $40 seems pretty high. I'm guessing $20 is a lot more likely (the distributor has to take their cut, and so does the retailer...) so we've sold 100,000 units of this game. That's not a runaway hit, but I think it's better than most games fare. And I'd be pretty surprised if I hadn't grossly underestimated the time and expense of producing the game.

Saw this today and wondered if you knew anything about this:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67789,00.html

Everyone's comments have been so interesting to read. I have to say I agree a bit with Canuckotter. Sometimes you do have to take a job doing something you would rather not be doing. I don't think actors or anyone in particular should be exempt. I want to be a writer. At first I thought I should be able to just go out and find a job doing that, so I could get paid to do what I like doing. Of course I discovered there are a million other people who would like to do the same thing. So if everyone gets paid to do what they like, who is going to do the jobs that are somewhat less desireable, but necessary? And I don't just mean menial labor jobs, I just mean anything that wouldn't be most people's first choice.

Also I figured there is nothing stopping me from writing anyway. I can write and maybe some day I'll get paid for it. If I don't it'll probably be because I personally didn't try hard enough, not because of society.

Also I had no money for college from my parents, but I went anyway. I chose to work and take out loans. It was completely my choice, I don't feel I was owed an education.

It all comes down to choice. I could probably make more money if I worked somewhere else, but I chose to work in television and for now I'd rather tighten my belt and see what happens.

Hmmm.... I don't have all that much to say here, except:
1. Really...stop apologizing for stuff you post, man. You can't please everyone. They were just stating their opinions (mean-spirited though they may be). The bottom line is their comments have 0% effect on your life.
2. While I may not understand all the details. I've gotta say game programmers deserve to be paid more than voice actors. I don't buy a game based on Wil Wheaton, or David Cross, or whoever doing a voice in it. I buy it based on actual gameplay mechanics and how it looks.
3. Both voice actors and programmers are competing for larger pieces of a limited pie. I can understand your approval of improved wages for the actors (whether this is at the expense of programmers, I don't know). However, if programmers make some move in the future that takes some of that pie from voice actors, I say RIGHT ON. We live in a cut throat world.
4. Thanks for allowing a pretty open discussion- I actually disagree with a lot of your views, but besides being a little oversensitive at times, you've always been fair.

I have felt, and always will feel, that actors, like Wil, and the developers, programmers, code monkeys, even the play testers should get more for their efforts when a game becomes wildly popular: It will help drive the industry to prevent crap like "The Simpsons: Road Rage" from ever being developed.

I also feel that if any entity in any industry makes business decisions fairly and non-exploitively, then more money can be passed out to it's people without the aid* of a union. In the same vein, any organization behaving so poorly that its employees have to band together with a MONEY-MAKING entity (such as a union) in order to force that organization into treating them better, then that organization should not exist. It's not a strike against the union, only against the environment that company fosters that requires union intervention.

Brilliant talent, like Wil, should be rewarded richly without SAG having to pry the cash out of their tight fist with a crow-bar.

At a time where we see studio after studio close, until we're all either out of work, or labor drones in EA's salt mines, actors demanding points, where most of us don't get them, certainly feels like a slap in the face - and I have a hard time understanding how hardly anybody round here is able to see this.

Often, the recordings for the original language version of a game are paid *by the developer*, as they are an integral part of the delivery of a finished game (an exception might be a celebrity lead, who might be paid from the publisher's marketing budget).

If the publisher pays for the recordings, they will take this as a reason to negotiate lower royalty rates for the developer, because they have to pay more advances -- so, again, it's actually the developer who pays for the recordings.

Agreed, voice talent is "only" 5% of the budget. But: it isn't 5% of the work involved creating a game. It's rather 0.5%, if at all. If you had a company of, say, 25 people working a full two years, 12 hour days, weekends, holidays, to create a game -- would you consider giving *points* to 20 half-a-day freelance people?

Of course, actors deserve appropriate payments, and nobody wants to take that away from them. But - points? From the developer's money?

Yeah, I know: The obvious and simple solution is: Points for everyone! Unionize! Kill EA! The SAG can do it, why don't you? Everyone who doesn't do it just DESERVES no better! Right?

Actually, no. The claim that all we need to do is "just" unionize, is easy to make - but our industry is young, and hit hard by all kinds of globalization issues. Who founded the SAG, and when was that, actually? As far as I know, the SAG was founded in the 1930's, when unionizing was much more, um, fashionable, than it is today, and nobody could just outsource your job to Asia in the blink of an eye.

I guess that nobody in the SAG who want to get a share of our royalties, will want a share of our business risks -- but this is what *I* would actually consider a *reason* to ask for points in the first place. The developers involved in the making of a game risk their health, and often times their personal money, spare time, and relationships, all for a minimum wage and the prospect of later royalties and a cool job. What do the voice actors risk in that process?

Yeah, I know: the SAG is an *actors* union and can ignore all these issues.

The problem is: We, the developers, can't. We have to do this on a daily basis, trying to make a living from creating games. We can't "just" leave the recording booth, and be done with it, after a half-a-day's job. We see EA_spouses writing open letters to EA, we see our jobs not only ruining our finaces, but also our families and friendships.

So, you still wanna get points for games you work on? Fine. Learn to live with the fact that others in this industry have actually thought about that too, and before you. Learn about what there is to share. Learn about why and in how far others consider themselves to be more deserving. Learn about the buisness model of the gaming industry, and our working circumstances.

Calling people stupid, and implicitly calling them coward dumbasses, because they don't demand what you get, just because you have a joined an early 20th century union without any kind of fight, won't be considered socialist heroism by anyone.

But actually, that's not even my point. My real point is, if it's only *your* working conditions that you care about (and that's what your reprinted post about the SAG basically says), then fine -- but in that case just stop expecting other people to care about other working conditions than theirs.

I tried my best to keep up with a lot of this, but I guess I just don't feel quite passionate enough to read it all. I was going to stick with my usual do-what-you-want-to-hell-with-anyone-else opinion, but I guess I'm jumping in anyway.I agree with VeronicaKnight. Just because I'm good at something, doesn't mean I want to do it the rest of my life to keep food on the table. I don't want to struggle constantly. I want to go out and see the world. It's like a stepping stone to the things you really love. Actors don't have to be just voice actors and there's really no way they CAN be on the pay and few jobs they are getting. Anyway, I'll just jump into my starving musician POV, so I'll stop there on that point.My other point is that people spend too much time creating conflict. I seriously think some people have nothing better to do except go out and find someone else to attack. Everyone behind the scenes in the gaming industry should be seeking more money if they aren't getting their due. Unfortunately, this world has been trained to believe it can't treat its workers like crap if it gives them a bigger paycheck. Apparently it's even happening in the restaurant I work. Sacrifice the many lowlifes doing the actual work to give the higher-ups more money. The point of unions is to protect the interests of those that may be taken advantage of. Sadly, even joining unions isn't always the answer because in my town, if you join an actor's union, they just won't hire you 95% of the time. They don't have it in... scratch that. They WON'T make the effort to pay you what you deserve which is usually what the unions go for.Some people might hate me for it, but this has been my experience in paid theater and I already don't like it. Thought I'd put it in anyway. I put an entire month of nightly rehearsals toward a stage production, worked on my own skills because I did my own makeup, played several parts, was understudy to several others AND was stage crew. I got $150 for the whole thing because I was a college student and they were doing the college a "favor" by hiring us and doing the show in our theater. On top of that, my work study job for the college was in the scene shop (at barely above minimum wage), where I kept up the scenery and props, helped establish lighting, among other things. I did almost everything you could do in a production besides be director, but then we were left to our own devices so I was my own director unless she didn't like what we had chosen to do. The only credit I got was my name in the program as a chorus member. They didn't even list me where they listed the classmates I worked with during the day. Because I was getting paid? I don't know. It's incredibly frustrating to know I spent 6-12 hours on that a day and people think I was just some lowly chorus girl. Anyway, rant over. It was unimportant I'm sure, but I wouldn't have even been picked if any of us college students had been part of a union.

Canuck, I have to wonder how accurate your estimate is. Halo 2 is one of the most successful games in video game history, yet according to some sources, it "only" made $6m profit. That can either be really good, or really bad, depending on who you ask.

The comment you and many people have made about small struggling studios, well, that's definately the down-side to unionizing. I've worked in semi-professional theatres that wouldn't be able to pay more than two or three actors at union scale (I once figured my wages around $1.50 an hour). I've also worked in fairly powerful game studios that seemed to be doing all right, but they had to let me go because they couldn't afford to pay me $14 an hour.

But still, I see nothing to support the idea that actors are taking money away from developers with this, or indeed any, pay raise.

Heated discussion, heated discussion, yay! At least people are *talking* now, for god's sake.

I couldn't make ends meet doing the job I wanted.

Now I'm doing a job I hate, a job that makes me cry twice a day. Ends? Still not meeting. (A bit worse off than before, actually.) While unemployment rates in the States aren't terribly high at the moment, underemployment rates are huge -- my $100k+ college degree allows me to make $7k a year at a part-time customer service job or two, plus hate going to work every day.

If I'm going to be stressed out, poor, and banging my head against a wall every time I have to choose between food and electricity, I'd rather be happy with my job.

Wil, I checked out your resume on IMDB and I can see why this matters so much for you as voice acting seems to be the only acting job you done the past three years (except for a one part role in CSI).

Hope your books give you enough income for you and your family or that you else can make some on the Star Trek convention circuit (after all if people who play minor roles can make some money selling autographs there then you should do well, having had a major role in ST:TNG for 3 years).

Life's hard on most of us and it makes life more bearable when you read that others are in the same water as you are. Even someone famous like you.

I started to go into this matter, but since I'm still in the video game industry, I don't want to risk blowing things out of proportion. Suffice to say that I find SAG's position in this matter rather untenable. It's one thing to stand up for the people you represent. It's another to ask for terms so egregious that what you're doing will hurt your constituents in the long run.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who lose their rags with you actually finish reading what you write, or whether their anger prevents them from processing it. When I read your comments on the voice-over thing, I saw absolutely no disrespect to developers whatsoever - I just saw you making the point that voice-over artists deserve a decent wage. Gosh, how revolutionary.

Canuckotter said:

The eventual figure was that on a game with $1M profit, with 90% being shared equally with all the folks who worked on the game based on the number of hours they'd worked, someone who'd contributed four hours of voice acting deserved $164.

***

In a fantasy world where the profits get split up equally among everyone who contributes based on their contributions, your math might work out. In the REAL world, that's not how it works. I mean, how exactly do you calculate the value of what a person contributes to a game?

People need to get off of Wil's case on this and stop making it seem like the SAG is taking bread out of the mouths of developers and programmers. Because if that's your take on this, then the same thing could be said of developers by anyone who gets paid less than them to do work on a game.

Wil-

I'm very late with this. Hopefully you have some type of notification thing set up...well I'm sure you do, who are we kidding...anyway here goes...

Like the majority of others who have posted comments to either of these two posts, I’m going to say you don’t have to apologize for your comments, opinions, posts, etc. I realize it’s probably just going to come off as another one of the doe-eyed internet rabble playing ‘I Know A Celebrity!’ but I really couldn’t give a shit less :P.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that you are a public figure, a fq Celebrity /fq, or just a guy with an incredibly popular blog that makes you think you must appease all of us but it’s horse shit. Just because you are a public figure does not mean that you have to apologize for stating your opinions and/or the things you feel passionate about. Defend them, sometimes. Explain misunderstandings, I would hope so. Elaborate to make your point and/or position more clear, yes please. But apologize?? No, I think not. If people don’t understand what it is you are trying to say, pardon me, but screw ‘em. It’s one thing for you to make a post to elaborate and try to explain yourself, your opinions, or your comments. It’s something else entirely to feel that you need to come back in and apologize because OTHER PEOPLE misunderstood what you were trying to say! Don’t apologize. Please!

You have a right to your opinion just like everybody else, high profile public figure or no.

And before all you crabby-asses jump down my throat because ‘we have a right to our opinion too!’ just sit the hell back down. Yes, you DO have a right to an opinion, as long as the opinion you are expressing as a result of someone else’s post on someone else’s blog is actually in the context of the original comment(s). I know dick about the gaming industry (I made a romance sim the other day and she’s a slut who’s ‘woohoo’d’ 6 different people and still wants 14 more!) but it didn’t sound to me at all like Wil was saying that anybody else wasn’t entitled to something because SAG wanted better pay/comp/benefits/whatever for its members. The developers getting pissy at the voice talent because they want more money instead of the people who are actually taking 90% of the gaming pie would be like me getting pissy at the tellers upstairs because they wanted more money instead of both of us getting mad and going to the VP of the bank and demanding that he/she quit lining his pockets and show me some love.

Anyway, Wil—please stop thinking that you need to apologize for having a voice and using it and being lucky enough to have it heard. It isn’t your fault that The Internets suck as a ‘Telephone’ partner.

Kathy

I know people often confuse fameous and rich, and have this idea that actors they know of are rich.

To give people an idea (this is a reality Mr. Wheaton already lives with) -- I'm a mid-level secretary with a small college. When you figure in benefits, I make quite a bit more than most actors, even the ones who are lucky enough to make a living ONLY acting.

I understand your comments, Wil, I just disagree with them.

You say that the actors are paid 2%-3% of the budget for a video game, but do they do .2%-.3% of the work in creating the game??

To simply say that the union is justified in being as selfish as possible because that's their job seems like a naive and very parochial comment. If nobody ever looks out for the greater good, then we have cancelled NHL seasons and long strikes which tend to only benefit the union leadership and hurt everyone else in the process.

Just ask the UPS workers who went on strike in the mid ‘90’s. UPS lost much of their market share, which they’ll never regain. The company is much worse off for the effort.

Generally, developers don't unionize because they do their work out of love for their work (and because companies will just ship that work overseas) - an ideal that my actor friends love to say, but don't really live up to (as evidenced by the actions of SAG, etc). I suspect that is quite common amongst actors – as it is in all unionized workers.

What people need to remember is that the reason that SAG is so powerful is that it can threaten to have people like Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, and Harrison Ford walk off the set. That's great for them, and the reason actors have a shot at getting better compensation. Yes I know you're not rich, Wil...yeah, you're certainly underpaid. But you're union has got the backing of some extremely rich and powerful people. We don't.

So don't tell developers to shut up an unionize, because we don't have a Brad Pitt to make those sorts of threats. The harsh reality is that were the developers at the average game company to strike, they'd be replaced within the week.

If you want to know where the bile it's coming from, it's there. Yes, you guys deserve what SAG can get you. But is SAG willing to back the developers when they demand better working conditions?

It's not just actors who get flack from developers when they ask for more money. A friend of mine is a musician who worked on the soundtrack for the original GFA. He got paid peanuts for the work he did and many of the developers gave the impression that what little he was paid was too much. Sure there is a lot of work that goes into the tech side of the games, but the developers really need to remember that no matter how kick-ass their work is, if there is no atmosphere generated by the soundtrack and the voice characterisation then gamers will leave the product on the shelf.

Then I owe you an apology, Wil, for one of my earlier comments.

Right On Wil!
I have always thought/felt that the general public is misinformed about the difference between a STAR and an ACTOR. Actors work and get paychecks and have to live like the rest of us. STARS are the ones the paparazzi chases around trying to get them in controversial situations while they are in the BMWs and Malibu estates. It may not be as glamorous as everyone thinks. I, for one, would NEVER want to do what you do. I cannot even fathom what it would be like, even if I could act ( I was in school plays, that is about it). I have to give people in your line of work credit, because it does NOT seem easy to me!

People do seem to forget that everyone's human, don't they? I don't think you were "ugly" about the way you added it. Occasionally, people need to be told exactly what you mean (Sad as it is that you would even have to explain yourself) because they're not understanding your train of thought. I've always said, If only common sense was so common...People wouldn't see something 'between the lines' that just isn't there. Everyone that works on projects like that deserve fair pay. If people don't have something positive to say, they shouldn't make you out to be the villian because they feel guilty. And they certainly shouldn't read more into your words than you intended.

coming from the game production side, i'd like to say at last for me, you don't need to apologize. i never took personal offense to your post, never thought you meant offense to anyone, and my comments were never meant as personal attacks. having said that, i think you really don't need to go and apologize to the handful of commenters who took personal offense. it's far too easy for some to take personal offense with someone who has a different opinion than them.

on the points you clarify, i will back you up on 2, 3, and 4. on 1, however, i will disagree, simply because the bottom line means, if you (voice actors) get more money, we (producers, designers, coders, artists, etc.) get less money. if a voice actor is paid 5%, they're paid that 5% instead of someone else. it just comes down to getting a bigger piece of the pie, and people felt voice actors didn't deserve a bigger piece.

lots of comments in this and the other post mentioned that nay-sayers were speaking from ignorance... i thought it was the opposite, really, considering the large majority of posters who actually work in the game biz argued against the voice actor pay raise.

the most humorous position i've heard here is one calling game devs to unionize. they truly don't understand that unlike hollywood, game development is a global industry where development can be - and is often -- produced overseas at a fraction of the cost, with little to no loss of quality. i would even argue in many areas such as character design, online pc gaming, coding for consoles, work from overseas is superior to u.s. production for much less cost. you can't outsource the movie talent for "peter parker" or "snow white" to india or taiwan. in the game biz, a producer can, and will, in a heartbeat. this is the reality people not in the game biz, pushing for game devs to unionize, do not understand.

either way, voice actors have more money money, which is a good thing for them. if producers want to go with sag talent, fine. if not, fine. let the market determine which type of jobs will be more prevalent. will this raise affect consumers? probably not. discs will continue to spin. =D

How about the fact that there are people who would give anything to make over $600 an hour for a few hours of voice work? It's about paying what they're worth, the developers of the game are the most important part of the picture, voice actors are just window dressing. No they do not deserve residuals, they were paid for a service they provided and that is it, there is no reason to share the profits of a game with someone who did only a few hours work. It is their game not yours, you were a temporary employee who did a job and was paid well for it.

I don't care about voice acting in video games as much as I do good design. Nonames who actually appreaciate the job and scrolling text works fine for me.

I normally just read, but since the game industry is where I work, I had to post this time. I agree with your opinion very strongly. As someone working at a game company over in Japan, I can attest to the fact that most of us get paid very little and the profits (if we are even lucky enough to have one) for most companies are very poor (and getting poorer). However, that is not a valid excuse for denying a pay increase to voice actors if they deserve it. I think the anger that most programmers, graphic artists, musicians, etc. in the game industry feel towards voice actors is because of their own low pay. That is why, if anything, they should see what SAG is doing and redirect the anger towards their own company with unions if they feel that they are getting slighted. I doubt SAG is unreasonable because I am sure they know that if they set the wages too high, game companies will just go up to Canada for voice acting or go with non-union talent. I may be in the minority, but I do support you guys, and I hope someday game companies can get the business side of things working right to actually turn a decent profit, so that the programmers and other game developers on my side of the fence can fight for what they deserve too. Good luck!

Sometimes I think that developers are the dumbest people in the world as a group. That's spoken as a developer myself. That is because they have as a group absolutely refused to recognize and understand that they need to protect and defend their jobs just like any other industry. They too are at the mercy of excessive corporate greed. When things were good in the 1990s, they thought they owned the world - now many of them in developed countries are losing their jobs to competition elsewhere.

Corporations do not make decisions for national economic efficiency, they make it for executive and shareholder profit. Developers should not make or accept decisions based on those reasons but need to learn that those sorts of decisions can be altered or mitigated by the political power that a union represents. The sad fact is that most developers are incapable of recognizing such a need even if it stood in front of them and slapped them in the face.

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