Henroid

The Business Side of Video (Space) Games EXCLUSIVELY ON IDLE THUMBS

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Yeah I can understand the comparison to movies and the like, but movies don't have DLC, only last a couple hours, don't have optional content, and the list goes on. I'm not against voice actors sharing in the profits, but the 2 million sales number seems arbitrary considering they quoted some payout amounts given to executives based on the entirety of the company's earnings and not just one game. Plus there are questions like screen time and lines spoken that are easy to calculate in movies and TV that I don't think correlate directly to games. I see the precedent exists, but I don't know how much of that precedent can be applied.

Take a telltale game for example, would this apply to each episode or total sales of the series? How do you quantify something like screen time? Again I don't know how it works in movies so these questions might be answered already.

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Yeah I can understand the comparison to movies and the like, but movies don't have DLC, only last a couple hours, don't have optional content, and the list goes on. I'm not against voice actors sharing in the profits, but the 2 million sales number seems arbitrary considering they quoted some payout amounts given to executives based on the entirety of the company's earnings and not just one game. Plus there are questions like screen time and lines spoken that are easy to calculate in movies and TV that I don't think correlate directly to games. I see the precedent exists, but I don't know how much of that precedent can be applied.

Take a telltale game for example, would this apply to each episode or total sales of the series? How do you quantify something like screen time? Again I don't know how it works in movies so these questions might be answered already.

I'm confused. Are you actually arguing against this because developers aren't being included in the pay raise?

 

Because why would they and why should they? They are not SAG members, nor is SAG their responsibility to represent. Not everyone who makes movies / TV is represented by SAG either by the way. The behind the scenes folks are not on-screen talent.

 

Again, I think developers need to unionize. I'm not saying that as a flippant dismissal. They REALLY need to, and have needed to for at least 20 years because EA, for example, is goddamn TERRIBLE to its employees.

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Interesting link posted by Rami on tweeter

 

http://frydawolff.com/2015/09/23/sag-aftra-interactive-media-agreement-aka-the-games-contract/

 

Overall, if I had to say yes or no, I'll probably say yes.  But as usual, I'm not 100% sure (mostly due to the issues being largely foreign to me) on some of the technicalities (that are mostly  not publicly listed anyways).

 

And about performance based bonus, perhaps the focus should be on about how devs deserve it as well?

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And about performance based bonus, perhaps the focus should be on about how devs deserve it as well?

 

Overall, absolutely, but I'm in agreement with Henroid that it's not the SAG-AFTRA's job to advocate for anyone but its own members, which appear to be in need of a pay raise. In fact, trying to advocate for workers that it doesn't represent is somewhat dangerous to its utility as an organization for collective bargaining.

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Overall, absolutely, but I'm in agreement with Henroid that it's not the SAG-AFTRA's job to advocate for anyone but its own members, which appear to be in need of a pay raise. In fact, trying to advocate for workers that it doesn't represent is somewhat dangerous to its utility as an organization for collective bargaining.

 

Oh yeah, it's not their job to advocate for that.

 

To clarify, what I meant was instead of using devs' plight as a reason to argue against this, perhaps this should be used to argue against devs' plight.

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To clarify, what I meant was instead of using devs' plight as a reason to argue against this, perhaps this should be used to argue against devs' plight.

 

Oh, of course. We agree, then. Good!

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I'm confused. Are you actually arguing against this because developers aren't being included in the pay raise?

Because why would they and why should they? They are not SAG members, nor is SAG their responsibility to represent. Not everyone who makes movies / TV is represented by SAG either by the way. The behind the scenes folks are not on-screen talent.

Again, I think developers need to unionize. I'm not saying that as a flippant dismissal. They REALLY need to, and have needed to for at least 20 years because EA, for example, is goddamn TERRIBLE to its employees.

I'm not against it, but the idea that the residuals be based on a particular number of sales seems odd to me. Most agreements of this type, even the ones groups like SAG negotiate with film and TV studios, are based on either revenue or profit. Why is a sales number the thing here? What if a game is profitable that used a voice actor, but only sells 1 million units? Shouldn't the voice actor be compensated then as well? I'm not saying SAG needs to think of anyone but their members, but by making the metric an arbitrary, nominal figure they are not doing that. In other words, many of the demands seem like something right at home in movies, but don't make a lot of sense in games. Many of the demands are out of sync with how games are made, funded and sold.

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But sales are how the money is made. For movies, if an actor takes a scaled pay, their pay is based on box office performance. If the contract is right, home-viewing releases will be factored in as well. Again, all sales. What else is it supposed to be based on if not sales?

 

Keep in mind this two-million metric is not the final line at the bargaining table. People go on strike to resume or start the bargaining process. I really doubt the two million sales mark will be the final decision. It could be higher, or lower, but in the end if it's agreed to it means the SAG actors will be okay with it. Even if they take a bad offer on this specific issue, it puts them in a better financial position than they are currently in.

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But changing the number doesn't address the fact it is a nominal value. The points on SAG's website say downloadable games start to turn a profit at 2 million sales, which probably wasn't true 2 years ago and likely won't be true 2 years from now. Sales make sense in movies because ticket prices and the like are basically the same across the industry, and there is a known shelf life. A game might sell half a million units at 60% off 2 years later in a steam sale, but that doesn't necessarily mean it went from unprofitable to profitable. That's why software has always considered relative measures like profit and revenue-- the industry is so fluid they are the only things that make sense. I mean look at how many remakes have come out in the last year, and how common they are becoming. Then consider the effect of different platforms, technologies, and steaming services.

That article brings up other concerns as well like stunt actor presence at mocap sessions and the use of employees for quick fixes for things, but the 2 million mark seems to me the most arbitrary. From reading their talking points it seems like whoever SAG has put in charge of handling these negotiations understands film and TV development well and assumes games are more or less the same.

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I assume that it's possible to fudge how much a game has "made" in terms of money but not in terms of units sold. If they went by measures of gross profit, stuff like the rarely-stated marketing budgets could swallow up all of a game's money even though it's making it hand over fist.

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Isn't it common Union negotiation procedure to demand more or different things than they want so they can "compromise" on what they do want...?

That would be the smart thing, yes. You introduce an over-offer, and then work toward what you actually want or expect. And hell if you over aim and get it immediately then why not take it? Negotiation!

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But changing the number doesn't address the fact it is a nominal value. The points on SAG's website say downloadable games start to turn a profit at 2 million sales, which probably wasn't true 2 years ago and likely won't be true 2 years from now. Sales make sense in movies because ticket prices and the like are basically the same across the industry, and there is a known shelf life. A game might sell half a million units at 60% off 2 years later in a steam sale, but that doesn't necessarily mean it went from unprofitable to profitable. That's why software has always considered relative measures like profit and revenue-- the industry is so fluid they are the only things that make sense. I mean look at how many remakes have come out in the last year, and how common they are becoming. Then consider the effect of different platforms, technologies, and steaming services.

That article brings up other concerns as well like stunt actor presence at mocap sessions and the use of employees for quick fixes for things, but the 2 million mark seems to me the most arbitrary. From reading their talking points it seems like whoever SAG has put in charge of handling these negotiations understands film and TV development well and assumes games are more or less the same.

A game being multiplatform doesn't require the voice actor to do that many more retakes of the lines. Unless, say, Nintendo were to say "can you change this one line?" But that would be done at the same time as the general development and recording for the talent.

 

As for remakes, television and the motion picture industry alike do remakes all the time. And who gets paid for what is based on who was involved in making which particular iteration, with the exception of say a series creator (the top dog as it were).

 

And on your point about when a game reaches those sales benchmarks and such... Hey, that would probably affect how often sales happen, or it may change how the price to consumers adjusts over time. Though I can't imagine the voice talent would affect a game's budget that much. Unless you're talking about getting Kiefer Sutherland to do some work. Which, by the way, affects the game in a different way - remember a couple Idle Thumbs episodes ago when they talked about how little Big Boss speaks in MGS5? I can promise you it's a direct result of how much Kiefer Sutherland is worth for x amount of line reads. They didn't cut into their other development budget much to accommodate having a big star; they reduced his role to save on money.

 

Overall I think you're taking the 2 million number to heart too much. The other thing to remember is that when you're talking about millions of copies sold, at two million it's obvious that this is meant to target AAA production level (not that there's much voice acting going on in indie games). Unions are business oriented. They aren't talking out of their ass, they are likely researching things thoroughly before making demands. As much as I follow the business side of the industry, 2 million is actually a pretty damn good number to benchmark; I would say within 3 months or so, on average, that's when AAA games would have to start paying out this additional money to voice actors. 6 months at the latest. 2 million is not that big of a number for AAA games at all. And yet it's so weird when you think about the immediate cutoff that mid-tier games bring in on sales numbers. Advertising is a powerful thing. As is playing to target demographics (which is to say, Call of Duty and Assassins Creed will always sell to non-vg enthusiasts; general consumers matter).

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I assume that it's possible to fudge how much a game has "made" in terms of money but not in terms of units sold. If they went by measures of gross profit, stuff like the rarely-stated marketing budgets could swallow up all of a game's money even though it's making it hand over fist.

 

The unions are also used to negotiating with Hollywood, which has done as much as it can to try and obfuscate just how profitable their movies are.  The unions have to negotiate based on things like gross sales numbers (tickets/discs/downloads/etc) with movies, because any other metric is too easily manipulable by accountants.

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Hmm, will this discourage large developers from putting things on sale, since they could reach the 2 million mark with significantly less gross revenue?

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Hmm, will this discourage large developers from putting things on sale, since they could reach the 2 million mark with significantly less gross revenue?

Yeah. But this definitely goes down the political path of how executive pay rates have skyrocketed while worker wages have dropped in growth substantially. And production / manufacturing has still grown. Like seriously, if executives took pay cuts, it would easily compensate for this. But y'know, why do that when you can hoard money?

 

Fuck Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mitt Romney, etc etc etc.

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Yeah. But this definitely goes down the political path of how executive pay rates have skyrocketed while worker wages have dropped in growth substantially. And production / manufacturing has still grown. Like seriously, if executives took pay cuts, it would easily compensate for this. But y'know, why do that when you can hoard money?

 

Fuck Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mitt Romney, etc etc etc.

 

Oh yeah, not disputing that, also not disputing that everyone in games should unionize, but unfortunately I doubt that game companies are going to make cuts where they probably should. They're probably going to either just hire non-union, or meddle with sales numbers and such to try and get out of it.

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You guys remember the Oculus Rift right? A lot of people, myself included admittedly, gave up hope for it when Facebook bought it out a year or two back. I've been dreading what terribly bland corporate scheme they had in mind for it.

 

Well today I've been seeing all the buzz on Twitter about what that is. Apparently the best they can do is making movies watchable in VR. Not interactive software. Just shit you watch no matter which direction you look in. And of course it's 20th Century Fox they are partnering with to do this, because that's the EA of the motion picture industry.

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Considering a lot of AAA games raking in the cash are dependent on all of this motion capture acting and much more taxing performances than what we had in the 90s, it seems fair.

 

Again, I think developers need to unionize. I'm not saying that as a flippant dismissal. They REALLY need to, and have needed to for at least 20 years because EA, for example, is goddamn TERRIBLE to its employees.

Yes! I would prefer to see the actual developers get paid more but like you Henroid, I don't see these two as the same. If you have a union you have leverage.

 

Unions are socialism though, do we want to be stinkin' commies?

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Wait, listening to the Beastcast and they want 3k extra for a game that sells 8 million copies? That's like a drop in the bucket.

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Wait, listening to the Beastcast and they want 3k extra for a game that sells 8 million copies? That's like a drop in the bucket.

Keep in mind they're striking for this, which means the previous negotiation was a "no."

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