10 Gaming Industry Secrets You Didn't Know
9. Voice Actors Aren't Paid Royalties For Their Work
In recent years there have been significant campaigns on the part of video game voice actors to secure better working conditions for themselves, especially in the form of financial residuals for commercially successful games they lend their voices to.
Though royalties are a well-regimented aspect of the film and TV industries, that's unfortunately not true of video games.
Case in point, Michael Hollick, who voiced Grand Theft Auto IV's protagonist Niko Bellic, was paid just $100,000 to spend 15 months voicing the character, despite the game grossing $500 million in its first week alone.
Similar stories eventually led to video game voice actors striking against almost a dozen developers and publishers in 2016, and after almost a year, an agreement was struck to provide voice actors with a sliding-scale of bonus payments for voiceover sessions.
Sadly, though, there's still no agreement on residuals, meaning that even voice actors playing extremely iconic, massively marketable characters aren't invited to take a slice of the pie they're responsible for helping bake.