“If Wil Wheaton gets royalties on a game before myself or
any of the others who spent years (not weeks) working on it, the system is
broken.”
When Alex Hutchinson wrote this on Twitter, he meant it as a
rebuke of the recent threat by voice actors to go on strike, but it comes off
as a commentary on the unhealthy status of the industry as a whole. The
system is broken, and Hutchinson’s words, along with the threat by the Screen
Actors Guild should sound some alarms among game publishers that big changes
could be coming.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and as Hutchinson – Director
of Far Cry 4 – points out, the system currently in place is certainly not
right. That system sees developers often working 80 hour weeks with no overtime
pay, sleeping at the office, working for years without taking vacations and
living in constant fear of layoffs or corporate reshuffling. And no, most game
developers do not receive any royalties when a game sells well.
That’s not to say compensation isn’t a common practice. Many
publishers will provide teams with bonus payouts if a game reaches a certain
Metacritic score or hits a specific sales milestone. These are typically
one-time payouts, that don’t include compensation for any continued success a
game might have. These types of deals are built into the contracts developers
enter into with publishers before production even begins on a game. Publishing
agreements determine what kind of long-term compensation the developer will
receive for any given game. Development studios do typically receive royalty
payouts from publishers if a game is successful. Those payouts go back into the
costs of running the studio and anything left over is passed down to employees
through either stock options or bonuses at the discretion of the company.
This situation has been simmering for years. There have been
complaints about unfair work conditions for as long as video games have been in
existence, but the current issues became compounded when games became a more
complex, involved venture late in the PS2 era and through the previous console
generation. Game development became more expensive than ever and the industry has
had a hard time keeping up. Game budgets ballooned, bearing commonly derisive
practices like DLC, micro-transactions, and season passes more out of necessity
than pure greed.
In that time, developers and publishers have had talks about
improving compensation, with some success, but for the most part, game
developers have never received the kind of compensation deserved by the time
and commitment required to create AAA video games in the last decade. Lev
Chepelsky of Blindlight, a union relations agency, was involved in some of
those talks years ago. As he recalls, “It was interesting to see how difficult it was for the game
publishers to wrap their heads around what was coming across the bargaining
table.”
That sounds eerily similar to reports of the recent talks
between SAG-AFTRA and the publishers including EA, Activision and WB. As a
recent email from SAG-AFTRA to its members points out: “Our employers have
rejected every proposal we’ve put on the table.” Which confirms prior reports
that publishers were unwilling to even listen to any of the union’s demands.
“We realize how many developers spend their every waking
hour at the office, sleep at the office, have a child during the process of the
game. We know and empathize with everything that was said.” Said an anonymous
actor responding to Hutchinson’s comments in an interview with Game Informer.
“We think they deserve everything they want and more. If the developers don’t
get a bonus before the actors do, then the system might be broken, but we also
think they should have the ability to ask for it in an organized way. They have
every right to do that.” There’s an air of bewilderment to that statement isn’t
there? Of course developers should be compensated. It’s dumfounding that such
practices aren’t already common.
So while it’s off putting to see publishers digging their
heels in and refusing to even entertain the notion of residual pay for voice
actors (let alone game developers), it’s not surprising, nor is it completely
unreasonable. This is the industry that we’ve created, and this is the corner
publishers and developers have backed themselves into.
But it’s time to change.
It’s time that people working in this industry stop dealing
with absurd hours and hardship for the sake of making a video game. It’s time
to stop sacrificing personal relationships or missing huge milestones like the
birth of their child all because the game was on a strict deadline. It’s time
to stop unwritten laws that essentially make anyone feel bad for prioritizing
their personal life over their professional one. It’s time to stop pretending
that UNION is a four-letter word not to be uttered or even imagined.
Young people come into the industry with a sense of
bewilderment every day, often taking opportunities from their veteran colleagues.
They have less commitments, they’re less expensive, and they’ll do whatever is
asked of them. Why wouldn’t they? The precedent has already been set. They
don’t have much choice, or any reason not to. Voice actors on the other hand,
do. They don’t need to assimilate, and they don’t need to buy into the
ridiculous practices of the video game industry. They have other options, like
animated shows, films, or the stage. They come from a business where actors are
commonly awarded with royalties when a film or show has sustained success.
The video game industry wants to ride next to films and
television without paying for the ticket to get on the party bus. It’s going to
be difficult going forward to convince actors that video games are a great
opportunity for them, when other businesses are simply offering more. Then
again, it’s going to be impossible to expect developers to be ok with voice
actors receiving royalties, when they themselves do not. That’s a really
difficult fight, and it seems that neither game developers nor publishers are
ready to have it.
But there might not be much of a choice anymore, and that’s
what has people like Alex Hutchinson nervous. He knows that if voice actors
organize, that people like him might need to organize as well, and that’s not
an easy thing to do. The SAG-AFTRA union will vote Monday to decide whether or not
to go on strike. The results could set off a chain of events as developers
begin to realize that they deserve better. This is a change that’s been a long
time coming and it’s something that seems inevitable. What better time then,
than right now?
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