Is Owlcat unprofessional?

[Benedicter]

Owlcat is one of my favorite game studios - they made 2 great cRPGs with a modest team and deserve the utmost respect IMHO. In addition I was happy to be a backer of WotR on Kickstarter after the magnificent experience I had with Kingmaker.
Having said that, they made a decision that I feel can be dangerous to the gaming industry in the long run and while it's not a development decision and more a marketing/executive one I felt that this should be addressed.

So, Owlcat reached to the Twitch streamer CohhCarnage and offered him to do the 'Optimist' personality voices (ingame banter).
I can understand this from the marketing side, he is one of Twitch Top20 streamers and have many many viewers in Twitch and YouTube so wanting to be one of his favorite games totally makes sense.

However, I feel that this move is really unprofessional.

Offering streamers to do VA, be NPCs and participate in the games they are streaming can lead to games be a mishmash of self promoting advertisements to streamers' carriers and might lead down a rabbit hole IMHO.
How will games look if streamers will take the place of proper VAs and other positions that might hurt the artistic and conceptual aspect of game development?

Taking this example of WotR and CohhCarnage, when Owlcat edited his Twitch run save file so he can get Kingmaker's secret ending and romance Nyrissa it was perfectly reasonable allowing people to see that ending but this time around I feel they took it too far. His banter ingame involves some of his catch phrases and he talks about his real life cat (which all of his viewers know) a couple of times so him as a VA is directly related to his job and life as a streamer, its not just an RPG enthusiast that won this VA.
(Personally, I don't like his VA and I use a mod[www.nexusmods.com] that replace him with Pillars of Eternity's Eder. 2 for 1.)

This is ofcourse not only limited to Owlcat. To continue the example of CohhCarnage, he portraits NPCs/do VAs in 4 (!) games except WotR (that I know of) - Encased, Cyberpunk, Solasta (he was even a Kickstarter stretch goal there...) and in the game Humankind that took this streamer-ego-stroking to the next level - they recorded several streamers' looks and voices and made them available for players to use as their avatars if they watched the streamer's live stream for enough time.

So is this the future of gaming? instead of having VAs and shaping NPCs to fit the game story and atmosphere we will have Twitch streamers voice and faces all around just to be on their good side to promote marketing?
You may think I'm overreacting, and I understand that, I didn't care at all until not long ago, but taking that streamer as an example and seeing him in 4 of my recent played games (not including other streamers) made me think about that subject and it's repercussions.

What do you think?

[Viper]

Thats just dumb. Its good advertisng for there game. CohhCarnage has like 1 million subscribers. NOt to mention he is a very talented voice actor.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Benedicter:

snip CoohCarnage

Cooh made a huge donation/pledge during the kickstarter. He is also (to some degree) responsible for the Blackwater quest (as part of the kickstarter goal - high tier backer).

For a small company like owlcat, getting a huge streamer to both give you a huge sum of cash AND promote your game is a no brainer. Theyd have to be severly mentally challenged to say no to that. Great promotion, much better than spending their production money on it.

If you'd be willing to pledge a similair amount of cash for their next kickstarter and ask them in a mail if you could get your voice ingame with your fairly professional setup im sure theyd gladly accept. Better start saving that money asap.

[Divolg]

No.
That's all, thread can be closed now.

[Stormsong]

Well, you've asked for opinions, so... I think you've put way too much brainpower into thinking about CohhCarnage.

CP2077 was a garbage fire for a whole host of bulletpoints before you ever get to "CohhCarnage did a voice there."

Humankind's avatar system is flawed for many more reasons than "CohhCarnage got one." Like the fact that the player cannot mix and match their bias/trait unlocks to create their own NPC's to play against (like Stellaris), or the fact that when you go to the G2G site the Avatars carry the creator's name directly into the game instead of just crediting them on the website and then giving them a random (realistic) name to use ingame. Or not being able to select random avatars at all (until the patch later this month).

Anyway, I'm stopping there, before I end up dedicating thought to this too when I said that was the issue to begin with. It's just not a big deal.

[GunStarX]

Funny, I'm using that voice and never thought the acting was less "professional" sounding than other voices. Some of the lines are a little weird, but it fits my trickster run.

[slight001]

The argument you are making is flawed.

Consider this...

Is it unprofessional for a movie studio to higher professional actors who are popular for their movies?

If it's not unprofessional to higher a popular actor for a movie than it's not unprofessional to higher a popular person to do some voice acting.

Finally... Who the hell is CohhCarnage and why should anyone care if they got a role in a game?

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by Benedicter:

His banter ingame involves some of his catch phrases and he talks about his real life cat (which all of his viewers know) a couple of times so him as a VA is directly related to his job and life as a streamer
[...]
What do you think?

I agree.
I never liked self-inserts.
...or streamers.
This whole thing looks somewhat... black mirror-ish.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by GunStarX:

Funny, I'm using that voice and never thought the acting was less "professional" sounding than other voices. Some of the lines are a little weird, but it fits my trickster run.

yea if anything some of the other PC VAs sound really overacted and wonky
And considering most of those are here since Kingmaker and Kingmaker just didnt have all that much of a budget its just the reality of having to decide where to spend your resources.

[Mikaboshi]

There also was this one character in Kingmaker, designed by a backer, and his quest as well, the whole Hellknights shebang. Was pretty much the same thing, the tone of the quest was extremely out of place, writing was completely different, but they did it because this was a major backer.

I guess i do not see this as unprofessional since Owls get their funding mostly from Kickstarter and as pretty much indie devs they try to make go with whatever they can. Survival in video game industry is a very difficult task and i cannot blame them for such decisions.

That said, on a personal level i hate and despise this decision, and i think only someone insane can call this person a "talented VA". There is a reason devs or amateurs very rarely do VA for games, because it's pretty hard and require certain skills so you cant grab any noname off the street and expect him to perform well.

What i am super against is the whole Blackwater dungeon and it's place in a current setting, backer dungeon or not. I think a condition for any backer supported content should be anything they think off must fall within game's setting to a reasonable degree.

[OLKEV]

I think if he actually references his real cat and catch phrases etc (haven't used that voice) that is probably a bit too far, in that case it should be added to the game optionally as a free dlc clearly labelled as "CohhCarnage voice pack" or something.
If it is just streamers getting the opportunity to add their voice to the game where it actually fits in the game I don't see a problem.

[Wraith]

Never had a problem with the voice.

Seem to me that it the recognition part of it that the issue.

You are associating a streamer voice with the game, I who haven't watched to many of his streams recognized his voiced but because I wasn't exposed enough to all his streaming mannerism I had no issue with what was spoken.

Personally some of the other characters have voices I dislike more.

[Benedicter]

Before all of his 'Cohhlition' come to kill me - my point is - if every game studio will only think of his marketing, sales and nothing more we will have games that looks like a long streamer promotion video.
That streamer was in that game, he was a stretch goal there, that was banter ingame and few years from now all of the banter are twitch streamers and their avatars.

Like I said, I didn't care about this not long ago as well but seeing him again and again made me think maybe the marketing department some day will overrule the creative directors.

[CHAO$$$]

Btw this is the owlcat narrative designer they had for Goblin sound effects in Kingmaker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K70L7zrYKwI

So much for professional VA.

And honestly - the guy is freaking good at doing goblin noises

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Benedicter:

Like I said, I didn't care about this not long ago as well but seeing him again and again made me think maybe the marketing department some day will overrule the creative directors.

But you dont.
You just dont pick his VA and boom, gone.

Your whole argument is weaksauce and fails at the fact that they need money and promotion and he happened to supply both so its a perfect fit for a small company like owlcat.

Complain on the Cyberpunk forum. Those guys had the cash. See how that works out.

[Rex is back, baby!]

by very definition of professional. no. your argument is more on ethics...

do you not know how kickstarter fundraising works? HE gave them money to participate in the game, not otherway around.

express some empathy, play game dev tycoon, imagine yourself a starving artist, A famous streamer offers you 1 mllion dollars, you have bills to pay, family to feed, what would yo do?