reifeeservo
Member
Video Game Voice Actor, TikTok Superstar
Posts: 9
I Am A(n): Professional Voice Actor
Pronouns: they/them
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Post by reifeeservo on Mar 10, 2020 10:23:24 GMT -8
The three biggest problems with casting voice actors for your game are Accessibility, Budget and Concern. Accessibility of where to find the voice actors, budget being the deciding force of whether you can afford that voice actor, and concern of whether or not that voice actor will actually deliver. The ABCs of "Oh God, am I actually going to be able to feature voice acting in my game???". There are so many great indie games where voice acting is a main feature of the game, and every dev should aspire to meet that level of success. The amount of unnecessary roadblocks that an indie developer could face are, however, not common knowledge. Being prepared for them and knowing the right course of action is perhaps the hardest part of adding voice acting to your game.
 We've taken great strides to fix the problem of accessibility, with websites such as this one. You do have to actually find the website first of course and unfortunately the often low or non-existent bar for entry sets a precedent for indie devs as to the kind of work they can expect. This is a place for indie devs to cast, but it is also a place for inexperienced actors to hone their craft on less demanding projects. Those two things don't mix well for every developer. The more competitive actors will even circumvent this problem by reaching out directly to the devs. This causes another problem of watering down the environment of the website even more. If the more competitive actors aren't checking casting calls on this site, then some indie developers will never see them at all. Pay to Play sites like Voices.com or Voice123 advertise a massive pool of talent but are impersonal and expensive. They do offer a place to find voice actors but you end up paying another 20% just to use their service. Many voice actors debate as to whether the yearly fees of these websites are even worth it and frankly, once you have enough clients contacting you regularly, it just isn't. They end up with a strange Goldilocks zone with a very specific level of voice talent that are in just the right spot to compete on these audition sites, but are very close to having too much work to be worth staying on it. Your best option as a game developer is to work directly with professional talent, but it's ultimately up to the talent to make themselves known and prove it to you.
The problem of budget constraints is very straightforward. Maybe you didn't initially plan on paying for voice acting. Perhaps you spent more than you intended on another aspect of the game and you don't have much left. More than any of these I find the worst problem I've seen, is simply not knowing how much voice acting costs. Many inexperienced voice actors price their services by word, or by line or by time. This can cause a major problem for developers that doesn't need to exist. I've seen 5 cents a word, 50 cents a word, $1 per line, all kinds of strange pricing models. The amount of problems this arbitrary price model causes is absolutely terrible for developers. Let's say you have a boss battle with a character that says maybe 3 minutes of dialogue, 300 words and hit sounds. 300 x $0.50 is already as high as $150 for just one small character.That's far too expensive for any developer. You could take the guy that is 5 cents a word and do the same character for only $15 but expect to get what you paid for in the form of low quality audio and a performance that is only going to make your game suffer. Even after that you still have X amount of characters you still have to cast and that's going to seriously add up. On top of that, some characters could have drastically more or less dialogue. Part of my business model as a voice actor is that I offer Indie Rates, lower rates than my usual as a compromise for indie devs' smaller budgets. In my most recent gig for an indie developer I charged only $200 for 4 characters that I could finish in an hour long session, that's on board with the GVAA minimum reccomended rate, and he received a professional quality audio product that is going to add so much to his game.  The final problem of concern is a very tricky subject. Nobody can be expected to pay hundreds of dollars for something they don't know they'll ever actually see. Even less so for low quality unusable audio or a poor performance. These are the things going through an indie dev's mind. I have heard horror stories of actors taking the money and running, being moody and unwilling to work with the devs they went out of the way to audition for in the first place. Devs receiving poor quality work that sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom on a phone. Yes, when you're working with actors that will work for free or very little, you run the risk of running into people that don't actually care too much, or that simply lack the experience to give you what you need. I've assisted in casting decisions for an indie dev in the past and many of the options were so poor in quality they were essentially unusable. Once a dev has to deal with that kind of time-consuming work they likely don't want to deal with it again, turning away from working with voice actors as a whole. That particular dev ended up working with a professional in the end. Casting on twitter or on websites like this one means you are going to get A LOT of auditions. Many of which will be from people with very little experience and poor audio equipment. It's just a fact. Everyone starts somewhere. Professional voice actors WILL deliver. It's our job. You can't get away with making your client wait months for a product. For actors working with indie devs, a policy offering free revisions is a great way to add a feeling of security for an indie developer as a client. Knowing that if you make a mistake, or they decide to change direction, that their money is not lost can be a deciding factor for whether or not they can work with you. I offer up to two free revisions per character, per job, as a baseline policy for my indie work.
These problems need to be addressed not by indie devs, but by voice actors as a whole. I can personally guarantee you the market for voice acting in indie games has a lot more demand than supply. I'm talking about numbers you can make a living off of, not just free projects that pop up online. Addressing these issues on both ends of the scene, developer and actor, is the only way to improve both industries. I wrote this to inform not just indie game developers, but every voice actor at every skill level. We can improve the indie game voice acting scene, and we absolutely must.
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Post by zizka on Oct 25, 2020 8:27:41 GMT -8
I’ve read the article and would like to throw in my two cents.
“You could take the guy that is 5 cents a word and do the same character for only $15 but expect to get what you paid for in the form of low quality audio and a performance that is only going to make your game suffer.“
From my experience, I disagree. I’ve had a lot of people apply for 0.05 a word with really good audio and performance. There is a market for people with low-budget to hire people who ask for less. In fact, I’d say it’s a niche which has a lot of potential. There’s little room for people who’d like to have voice actors on a budget and for voice actors who just want exposure and experience. By setting a high entry point for potential customers, offers dwindle and who benefits from that?
I’ve had people who don’t even want to get paid because they just want some experience. I think those people should have an income while they’re getting more experience if only for their cv.
When a programmer asks for 20-30$ an hour and an artist about the same amount, 75$ an hour for a voice actor is not something most (without a publisher) could afford. Even with more resources, voice actors are competing with limited resources. Would the game benefit more from more art, more features (programming) or voice acting?
There is no game without art and programming while voice acting is an extra value. The reason why I’m saying this is because I feel like as a voice actor, it’s easy to miss the whole picture.
I feel like the current price point doesn’t have the indie developer in mind and suffers from it. Basically, there’s indie and indie. There needs to be a clear distinction between Super Giant Games (technically indie) and a single person wanting to make a game. It’s just not the same at all and to merge them in the same category is short sighted at best.
I hope that the industry of voice acting adapts to cater to people who don’t have 200$/an hour. Voice actors could turn down less lucrative offers but people looking for experience could benefit from them. At the moment I feel like while definitely a great feature, voice acting is certainly gated away from a lot of developers who otherwise could’ve been interested.
When games switched from floppy to cd-rom, I thought voice acting would become a common feature in games. And yet, when you look at recent releases on the indie market, the vast majority shy away from it. I think there’s a gap which could be filled here for people willing to work. I think that the market is ripe for the picking. A voice actor could build up experience and a get decent wages instead of waiting for the 200$ an hour job. I must’ve gotten close to 50 auditions for a low-profile offer, I can only imagine the change of getting a job at such a high rate and the amount of applications they would receive.
Just my perspective from a developer and not a voice actor.
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Post by Rebekah Amber Clark on Oct 30, 2020 7:48:15 GMT -8
bobfeeservo -- I'm a little confused. Is this a guide for developers or is this an ad for your voice acting services? It sort of seems like both -- with the unfortunate effect that it LOOKS like you trying to get work by talking other voice actors down, saying that we're simultaneously both too expensive and low quality, while you on the other hand are a pro offering INDIE RATES. I'm sure that wasn't your intention, but that's kind of how it came across!
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Post by metaljoemac on Nov 1, 2020 5:59:51 GMT -8
Some interesting thoughts, even if I don't agree with many of them.
Having worked with clients in nearly the same way for the past 6 years, charging a flat rate per word seems like a convenient way for an Indie dev to budget with high accuracy. Whether the actor charges 5 cents per word or 50 cents is irrelevant presuming the script is already written; the dev can tally up exactly how much the prospective actor's services will cost before they have even set foot before the mic, and negotiate with / reject the actor accordingly. I would suggest it's also fairly obvious what the voice actor's talent and technical quality is like from a sample recording / audition before committing to the role proper.
A rate per hour on the other hand, is not such an exact science. It's all well and good saying you promised to charge $200 for 4 characters that you could finish in an hour-long session... what if you couldn't finish in an hour? It's easy to underestimate how long something will take. What if, to finish in time, you knew had to cut corners and compromise your performance? No such concerns with a flat rate.
While I recognise the fear in the developer that the actor may not deliver the goods, the same is true in reverse. I'd argue the risk is actually less for the developer, based on the assumption that payment is usually delivered after a performance. To my recollection, no client has ever offered me payment beforehand. If the actor bails, it's no skin off the developer's nose other than the annoyance of lost time. From the actor's perspective, there is no guarantee the client will pay up once the lines have been turned over, and I have read numerous horror stories to that effect. What are you going to do, take them to small claims for a couple hundred bucks? And if you deal with international clients, that complicates things further. At this level, there has to be trust and common sense from both parties and yes, the acknowledgement that you may get your fingers burned from time to time.
I agree that pay-to-play places like Voice123 are rather a waste of time and money. You can be close but no cigar many times and end up feeling deflated and poorer for it. You can feel like auditioning for roles is a waste of time. I also agree that a dev having to wade through a river of mediocrity to find one nugget of gold must annoying, but as with everything it's a balance between time and money. I would suggest indie devs have more of the former than the latter, and thus must occasionally wade into that river should they want to find a bargain. That, or spend larger on a professional who no doubt will be good, but may not be pound-for-pound better than the many semi-professional actors available for less.
With the caveat I don't do this full time (and could not afford to), as someone who's been in the game for more than half a decade, I'm incredulous that there is more demand for voice actors than supply. I'm not tooting my own horn, but I have featured in some interesting indie projects- typically in the lead role / main supporting role. I am also someone who spends many hours per week keeping up to date with the latest games. Yet, I rarely feature in more than two or three games per year, and I probably apply for hundred+ projects in any given year.
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Post by Lady Stardust ★ on Nov 4, 2020 19:03:22 GMT -8
I know this piece was posted a while ago, but I will offer my thoughts on several of the points here: RE: Rates I agree with you in the sense that many smaller devs cannot afford the industry standard rates (for video games, this often amounts to $250/hr with a 2 hr minimum) and especially if they only have a short script they need to record. This is a big part of why the VAC came up with the community project known as the Indie Rate Guide, to offer several price points for smaller devs and online creators. These rates are still a courtesy and not an obligation, so some professional full-time VAs may not be able to accept indie rates for various reasons, whereas others will be excited for a work opportunity. The main thing we try to encourage in our community is that the work is paid fairly given the scope/distribution/budget of the project so that actors don't get taken advantage of with super lowball rates, but also to come up with something that is realistic for clients with limited budgets who are crowdfunding or paying out of pocket. **I will disagree with you that $150/hr is too high for ANY indie developer, as I have seen a good handful of indie devs be able to meet the suggested $200-$250/hr particularly if they have a crowdfunding budget. Obviously, if it's a game primarily made by one person, or it's something like 10 lines, the VO budget may vary. We always tell people to look at the workload in comparison to the pay to determine if a particular rate is worth it for them. What counts as "worth it" to someone will likely change based on their level of experience, how busy their schedule is, their current financial situation, their attachment to the project, and a variety of other factors. For example, some actors may be even be willing to record a charity or passion project for free, but not for a commercial project of course.
I will say that I have never personally witnessed this - for one thing, most invoices tend to be paid after the recordings have already been completed and delivered. And even if a client did offer to pay up front, an actor taking the money and running would be a terrible idea for their own career because it would be easy for word to spread to where they got blacklisted by many clients. If it's really a concern though, try to work with actors who are vetted professionals with experience.
I'm assuming these devs requested auditions/custom samples from potential voice talent before hiring? If someone's audition sounds like it was recorded "in a bathroom on a phone", it should be tossed and removed from consideration (unless there's some special circumstance where they're away from home but have access to a great setup once they're back). Yes, if you run an open casting call, you will unfortunately get a lot of submissions that are poor in technical quality, acting quality, or both. This is the risk with public submissions. One option is to hire a casting director who can conduct a closed audition via their own pool of vetted talent and then send the client the top selects so that the client does not have to waste time dealing with these types of submissions.
But plenty of pros are on sites like Twitter, too (it's pretty much seen as a marketing requirement these days). There's a good mix of pros on our server, too. But yes, you'll probably get more vetted high quality auditions if you go through a casting director as mentioned above. The overall caliber of submissions does tend to increase with the pay rate, because experienced pros who typically command a higher rate will be attracted to submit.
Being flexible within reason is a great idea when it comes to smaller projects, certainly. I think when offering free revisions on longer jobs, it's good to protect yourself with some type of limitation because as much as most clients are awesome, there are a few really picky ones out there who will expect the talent to record over and over for the most minute things without paying an extra dime. One option, as stated in our Indie Rate Guide, is to allow a free round of reasonable revisions/pickups for director's notes, while reserving the right to charge an extra fee if the revisions are deemed excessive (ex: a whole extra hour of re-recording as opposed to a few quick pickups that can be recorded in 5 minutes). The standard for most in-studio character work is that you still get paid another session fee if you do pickups (even if it's just one or two lines!) so this policy is a way to implement a healthy medium for indie works. Of course, if the revision is not at all the talent's fault, such as the client deciding on a script or direction change after the fact, then I think it is fair to ask for some additional compensation based on the workload. If the client is paying an hourly fee, doing a live session to direct the talent can also help eliminate the need for most retakes after the fact.
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