Just finished Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on easy. Fun game. I'm watching through the credits to see my client's name (Captain America = Trev Broudy!), and ... it took a while.A LONG WHILE...
I was waiting for a while, seeing all the names of the people that worked on the game (script, animators, mo-cap), then the Marvel folk, then the "special thanks" (wtf?), then "These are the names of the babies that were born during production" (WTF?!?!), then after a pause FINALLY the voice over people.
Last.
DEAD fuckin last.
These people aren't paid much, to yell and scream into microphones for hours, and they don't even get the courtesy of being credited above the BABY LIST!
As a gamer I'm pissed. Decent writing, art, and direction are trickling in, but as long as these performances are being treated like the fast food of performance (and paid as such), gaming as a whole will never rise above and become an "artistic" medium.
Video games, voice acting, voice over, animation, trev broudy, captain america, marvel, ultimate alliance, voices, super heroes, voice of
It's surprising to hear that voice actors are mentioned at the very end after special acknowledgments and babies born during the production. Why that is even relevant, I haven't a clue!
ReplyDeleteOne would hope that the voice actors who perform in the game would be listed higher than that ;)
Maybe if the voice actors were to have a baby during the production, it may help out a bit in the recognition department...
Thanks for providing some perspective on this.
Best,
Stephanie
It's been a while, so I've calmed down a bit, but this STILL makes me crazy angry.
ReplyDeleteI think part of it is generational. It's only been in the last couple years we've had the technology and resources to put voices into games, let alone capture real performances. I think often voices in games are still an after thought for producers who are used to only being able to fit a hand full of voice cues on a disc (like an old Mario game for example).
As more animation-like thinking permeates, I think things will get better, but we're still a while off from a game's cast being treated as seriously as the cast for a Pixar film...