Yeah, you gotta realize, it only takes one taxing session for an actor to blow their voice out, then they literally *cannot work* until they're healed. It's incredibly damaging to their livelihood in addition to the physical stresses involved.

 

So it's something that a few of them do as well as voice acting, but it's not requirement for the VA job? Am I understanding correctly?

 

yikes, I can see this strike effecting the gaming industry as a whole, with an exception to the indie game development_ scene, but yeah, I can see this resulting in games with a lot of reading from now on until the strike is resolved.

 

Doubtful, the following is mostly like to happen.

Production is stopped until the strike is over. Production goes on in other areas and voicing portions resumed after strike is over. Production goes on with non union voice actors taking over and redoing the lines.

 

How dangerous is voice acting...?  

 

Over the last several years voice actors have been doing stunt work with their movements recorded for the game. Unlike on tv or movies, there's no require stunt coordinator. So some have been injured during that process.

Along with excessive amounts of straining their vocal cords through actions like screaming. On the tv and movie side, there a time limit for such action during a day. In the game industry though, there's no such limit for a recording section. So say after five hours of screaming and other straining vocal actions, the voice is wrecked. Many of these voice actors have to do other projects and auditioning throughout a day/week. So any strained voice will impact them greatly.

 

I had no idea there were stunts going on. I remember when voice acting was just standing in a booth, talking.

 

A lot has changed with more involvement of motion capturing programs. There are still voice actors who only do the booth, but many others actually do stunt work. Especially the younger or more fit voice actors these days.

 

Ah, well that does make a little more sense, this would explain why there aren't many games being actively produced right now. Heck, Transformes Universe seems to have been scrapped recently, I suspect that the strike might be the cause of it.

 

For those who still need a better understanding of what the VA's pretty much want out of the strike, check this interview out done by Chris Niosi with VA Crispin Freeman (voice of Sawtooth in RID and Breakdown in WFC)

 

Without being a party-pooper, there's a thread in the video games section discussing the strike for VOA's in video games. (Just in case you're not already aware of it)

My own view is that many of the demands are pretty reasonable, but the calls for residual payments and trying to make out that VO work is more important than the other work (code, content, design) is not on. On the flip-side, if a deal is struck for residuals (along with other demands), it also leaves the door open for the core development staff in studios to demand better conditions, job security and compensation for overtime worked. That could mean a re-structure of the games industry in many ways, but that might not actually be a bad thing (talking as a game dev veteran).