Games overusing the same voice actors?

[🍹🌞🍉2001 SUMMER vibes]

I recently replayed the original Half Life.

Plenty of nostalgia associated with this. I'm 31 - and played it to death in my teen years, especially.

That being said - revisiting it after such a long time and having experienced many other games since then - I couldn't help but notice what I would describe as extreme laziness on Valve's part.

Whatever resources you look up for Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington - they will all say they had made millions of dollars from their time at Microsoft - when they founded Valve.

This in turn makes me wonder: why is it the exact same voice actor for ALL of the 50+ security guards you encounter in Half Life? I find it impossible to believe that there weren't other people available...

Similarly - just last week I replayed Skyrim. Technically it was my first time ever getting to the end of the main story. But the point I'm making here is provable by playing the first hour of the game. When you start out - you're a prisoner being carted to their execution alongside a bunch of other prisoners. One of these speaks to you. You escape being executed - and you're told to go to a place and speak with the ruler (Jarl) of that city. Problem is - when you speak to this dude - it's very clearly the exact same voice actor as the prisoner who spoke to you in the very beginning. And the voice actor doesn't even try to sound different. Same everything.

Again - WHY? Bethesda has an obscene amount of money at their disposal. Bro - they probably wouldn't even have had to pay for it because their community is so dedicated. People would've happily flown out to be featured in Skyrim as a voice actor, regardless of part - or pay.

And yeah - I do realize a lot of people can't act. But that goes back to my original argument. These studios have crazy amounts of money. The average American has something like 500 bucks in savings. OK - so - are you telling me struggling actors wouldn't gladly do the job for a tiny bit of money? Sure they would.

Whatever, man. It just messes up my immersion when I hear the same set of voices on different characters throughout a 20+ hour game.

[Scurrybt]

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has the same male and female voice actors for 90% of the characters in the game.

[Boblin the Goblin]

So, it kinda has to do with how SAG-AFTRA and how unions work.

A lot of recording studios have deals with unions like SAG-AFTRA to where they will only allow those union members to record or work there. This makes it easier to essentially recycle the pool of already unioned VAs instead of trying to hire new ones because of the membership process.

This applies to anime as well which is why you'll see some VAs have credits for 20+ characters across multiple series.

Some studios circumvent this by doing recording in states that don't allow that restriction but most just stick to the standard places they've been using.

Also, if you can use your current employees through a loophole, companies will use them for everyone they can.

For example, Deep Rock Galactic's dwarves are all voiced by one guy, just pitch shifted. I think he voices Mission Control as well.

[steven1mac]

I always wonder why they don't have people volunteer or get paid like 50 bucks to do some voice acting, since most lines only consist of a few words. It would be relatively cheap to add a few dozen extra random lines, and would give people who aspire to be voice actors a little on the job experience and credit.

[🍹🌞🍉2001 SUMMER vibes]

Publicado originalmente por Scurrybt:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has the same male and female voice actors for 90% of the characters in the game.

Indeed!

The question I'm asking in this thread is: WHY is that the case??? Bethesda had the money to get casting agencies to book more actors/actresses to bring more variety to the landscape of voices heard in the game.

[Devsman]

Half Life 1 came out in nineteen ninety the hell eight.

There were like eight voice actors total doing video games in nineteen ninety the hell eight.

[🍹🌞🍉2001 SUMMER vibes]

Publicado originalmente por SlowMango:

So, it kinda has to do with how SAG-AFTRA and how unions work.

A lot of recording studios have deals with unions like SAG-AFTRA to where they will only allow those union members to record or work there. This makes it easier to essentially recycle the pool of already unioned VAs instead of trying to hire new ones because of the membership process.

This applies to anime as well which is why you'll see some VAs have credits for 20+ characters across multiple series.

Some studios circumvent this by doing recording in states that don't allow that restriction but most just stick to the standard places they've been using.

Oh wow. That's actually really interesting and might actually explain the problem to some extent - but still: how come there aren't more people in the talent pool? Don't get me wrong. I love Robin Atkin Downes who voices Medic in TF2 (I have 1300 hours in the game) - but I'm dead tired of hearing his voice in so many of the games I play. Same with Steve Blum. It seems like it's the same couple handful of VOs in all of my games.

[🍹🌞🍉2001 SUMMER vibes]

Publicado originalmente por steven1mac:

I always wonder why they don't have people volunteer or get paid like 50 bucks to do some voice acting, since most lines only consist of a few words. It would be relatively cheap to add a few dozen extra random lines, and would give people who aspire to be voice actors a little on the job experience and credit.

EXACTLY!

That's the very thing I was thinking. Look at what people are willing to do on Fiverr for 5-10 bucks? Like, damn.

[Devsman]

I mean gracious, on the Japanese side, if any devteam member knew anyone who knew any English at all, that guy was gonna be a voice actor. They cast women as men, they had phonetic pronunciations of silent letters, they had Elmer Fudd accents, they confused homographs, and that was in one game.

The game is Mega Man 8, btw

[Bamford]

Games were better when the voice actors were just people they grabbed from the office.

[🍹🌞🍉2001 SUMMER vibes]

Publicado originalmente por Bamford:

Games were better when the voice actors were just people they grabbed from the office.

Lol I recently replayed Max Payne 1 - and according to Sam Lake (who is the face of Max Payne in that game) - also the writer on the game - they would just use whoever was around the office. The dude restocking their vending machine or water cooler was asked if they could take a pic of his face. He agreed - and is therefore one of the faces of the mob guys you encounter :D

[Devsman]

Publicado originalmente por Bamford:

Games were better when the voice actors were just people they grabbed from the office.

The peak was when there were a handful of talented yet unmistakable voice actors, tbh.

Back when you used to see Cam Clarke, Phil Lamarr and Jennifer Hale in the credits of EVERYTHING with the odd Paul Eiding or Richard Epcar.

Of course, you didn't have to check the credits to know, because Cam came in the Liquid Snake voice or the Leonardo voice, and well, you didn't even have to hear the character speak to tell they were gonna be Jennifer or Phil.

[Kargor]

I don't know Half-Life specifically, but voice acting generally wasn't important back in the days.

Nowadays, voice actors might be credited directly on character title screens, like here, or games might opt into using a "narrator" so they don't need a group of voice actors. If possible, they keep voice actors across a franchise etc. It's just a whole different thing today.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Publicado originalmente por RAGE:

Publicado originalmente por SlowMango:

So, it kinda has to do with how SAG-AFTRA and how unions work.

A lot of recording studios have deals with unions like SAG-AFTRA to where they will only allow those union members to record or work there. This makes it easier to essentially recycle the pool of already unioned VAs instead of trying to hire new ones because of the membership process.

This applies to anime as well which is why you'll see some VAs have credits for 20+ characters across multiple series.

Some studios circumvent this by doing recording in states that don't allow that restriction but most just stick to the standard places they've been using.

Oh wow. That's actually really interesting and might actually explain the problem to some extent - but still: how come there aren't more people in the talent pool? Don't get me wrong. I love Robin Atkin Downes who voices Medic in TF2 (I have 1300 hours in the game) - but I'm dead tired of hearing his voice in so many of the games I play. Same with Steve Blum. It seems like it's the same couple handful of VOs in all of my games.

I will say a fairly heavy disclaimer;

This information is deduced from years ago on a podcast with Jesse Cox.

He explains he wanted to do voices for a fan game. He wasn't able to because the studio had a deal with the mention union that required anyone that has done more than 30min of recording sessions to apply to become a member before they can do more.

He obviously didn't since that wasn't his career. But it did highlight why we hear the same VAs a lot of the time.

[HypersleepyNaputunia]

vert in hyperdimension neptunia seems to be in a lot of stuff

[Irene ❤]

Just cover your nose with finger and you'd sound different.