Voice Actors Are Going On Strike

Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of TV and Radio or (SAG-AFTRA for short) are debating whether or not voice actors should be going on strike. Why would they be going on strike you might ask? Well simply put, they're not paid enough. You'd be surprised how little voice actors get paid in comparison to live action actors, even those that play some incredibly iconic roles don't get paid that much. That's why for so many voice actors who portray famous characters will also play incredibly small roles such as "soldier #3" because they need to be constantly working. So why are they going on strike now? Because the money is there to pay them more and they're not getting it. It should be states this is mostly due to conflicts with video game publishers, this is where voice actors feel they're getting the most ripped off.

The videogame industry is the most profitable form of media that there is out there, the industry as a whole out grosses film and television, yet the actors don't get paid nearly the same. And for those of you who feel that because it's only voice acting means they're only doing half as much work, first of all, go fuck yourself, you clearly don't realise how much effort goes into voice acting. Second of all, performance capture is a thing, meaning most actors will also perform physically while doing their performance, so they are doing both vocal and physical performances. The next argument I hear against this is that voice actors aren't as famous as traditional actors and a lot of the time the reason why they get paid so much is because the name brings in a crowd. Now that is true, that's why the voice actors aren't asking for $22 Million a project, but they want and deserve a better pay cut. Grand Theft Auto V is literally the most profitable media product out there making over $3 Billion with the game alone, that's not even including tie-in merchandise like posters and t-shirts which would bring it closer to $4 billion.

This is why voice actors are now hoping for a new system, they get a smaller pay upfront for the project but then get a percentage cut of the sales, now granted it's not going be like 10% each, but even 0.5% would still be a massive influx of income for the actors. Because that's the thing, even though i've been calling them voice actors for this entire thing, they're more than that, they're actors, through and through and they deserve to be treated like it.

-Danny