Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what recognizable actors doing voicework get compensated? Do they even see residuals? I know that David Duchovny did voicework on Area 51 and XIII. What about Tim Curry when he did that Frankenstein game a long, long time ago?
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what recognizable actors doing voicework get compensated? Do they even see residuals? I know that David Duchovny did voicework on Area 51 and XIII. What about Tim Curry when he did that Frankenstein game a long, long time ago?
Didn't Ray Liotta mention being pissed about his salary for Vice City once he realized how big it was?
Speaking as a guy who will hopefully have a job one day programming stuff, fuck this guy. I'd be willing to bet almost all the behind-the-scenes guys worked harder than this dude, and I'd also bet few of them got paid so well. You could hire the bum from the alley outside to talk into a microphone for a case of beer, he might be somewhat more talented than that but he's got no basis to feel deserving of a million bucks.
Well, he isn't asking for a million is he? He just wants residual compensation.
What you are failing to see is that after he finishes this job, he might not get work for a few months, whereas all of those programmers still have a steady job of programming the next big thing.
Plus, anyone can be a code monkey. Regardless of what you might think, learning to code is not that hard. Talented actors are far rarer than talented coders.
Haha, right, four years of grueling discrete math and mind-numbing calculus isn't hard at all. Anyone can do it.
After looking at the Cell documentation, the idea that I'll probably have to code a complicated multithreaded application for it later this summer is giving me nightmares; whoever at Rockstar managed to extract more power out of that piece of shit than they could out of the relatively straightforward Xenon is getting a great deal more of my respect than any voice actor.
I just wanted to say how much this kind of shit pisses me off. Why should some coders get more respect than an actor? Because their job doesn't require complex mathematics they don't deserve the same amount of respect for their work?
I give coders more respect than voice actors because I'm a coder. I mean, duh. If I was in school to do voice work I'd pay more attention to that.
Llama's bullshit pissed me off, that's all. Saying "Anyone can be a code monkey. Talented voice actors are far rarer than talented coders" is goddamn retarded. It is equally as retarded as saying "Anyone can say shit into a microphone; talented coders are far rarer than talented voice actors."
The fact is that any asshole fresh out of high school can talk into a microphone, write code, design gameplay, or make 3D models and textures, but it takes a good degree of training, talent, and experience to do any of those things at all well, and for a project of GTA4's magnitude you'd better fucking believe that they hired good people. Buggy or inefficient coding, bad voice acting, and ugly or unoptimized 3D work can each just as easily sink a game like GTA4, and to say that one group of these people is more important than any of the others is kind of naive.
Excellent coders can and do negotiate for excellent salaries. My point was, due to the nature of that work, they don't get residuals. I don't have a problem with that.
I think it's worth pointing out that comparing Niko's voice actor to someone like Tom Cruise is also unfair because his complaint is about residuals, not points. Residuals are mostly union-controlled and are not huge sums of money, and are split up between a lot of different people (basically anyone involved in a film or game that's part of a union.)
Points, where someone gets X% of the profit above and beyond any other payment, is what some celebrities can demand. As an example, Keanu Reeves got 15% of gross for the Matrix films (over $200 million). "Niko" wasn't pretending to be a big shot and asking to get a cut of the profit, he was just complaining about the way his residuals were handled.
Vrtra Theory on
Are you a Software Engineer living in Seattle? HBO is hiring, message me.
Excellent coders can and do negotiate for excellent salaries. My point was, due to the nature of that work, they don't get residuals. I don't have a problem with that.
I think it's worth pointing out that comparing Niko's voice actor to someone like Tom Cruise is also unfair because his complaint is about residuals, not points. Residuals are mostly union-controlled and are not huge sums of money, and are split up between a lot of different people (basically anyone involved in a film or game that's part of a union.)
Points, where someone gets X% of the profit above and beyond any other payment, is what some celebrities can demand. As an example, Keanu Reeves got 15% of gross for the Matrix films (over $200 million). "Niko" wasn't pretending to be a big shot and asking to get a cut of the profit, he was just complaining about the way his residuals were handled.
The video game market is in kind of a weird place right now, though, and I don't know if they can afford to give away residuals to the voice actors (and, shit, you'd have to include the writers, too) when as it is, the majority of games don't even make back initial investment with the current model.
I'm not convinced that anyone should be getting residuals from video games. Movie/TV actors and writers may get them, but the product is being sold again every time it is rebroadcast - I don't hand over more money to Rockstar every time that I turn on the game.
It's like a BMW engine designer demanding a cut of every car sold.
I'm not convinced that anyone should be getting residuals from video games. Movie/TV actors and writers may get them, but the product is being sold again every time it is rebroadcast - I don't hand over more money to Rockstar every time that I turn on the game.
It's like a BMW engine designer demanding a cut of every car sold.
Then you must hate it that authors get royalties, don't you?
I would like to point out that there are still the "episodes" that are supposed to come out on X-Box live later this year. I am pretty sure they are going to be brining both Hollick and Zumwalt back to reprise their rolls.
FYI, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories were about characters that were not the mains, so anticipation of Hollick and Zumwalt's return may not bear out.
I'm not convinced that anyone should be getting residuals from video games. Movie/TV actors and writers may get them, but the product is being sold again every time it is rebroadcast - I don't hand over more money to Rockstar every time that I turn on the game.
It's like a BMW engine designer demanding a cut of every car sold.
How is selling a TV show (say the dvd boxset so all the products are physical), a book, a game, or a car really any different?
khain on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I mean what does an actor do in a typical workday? They stand around waiting a lot, that's what. They read some lines a bunch of times, they smoke a cigarette or two. Their day ends at six, seven o'clock.
Boy, I can see that you know just what you're talking about when it comes to how acting works. Yessiree.
also, i'd just like to point out that voicing niko would have been a considerably larger and more daunting task than, say, voicing an episode of futurama. think about how much shit niko says in that game. every time the car breaks down, all the stuff he shouts during combat, every cutscene, every interaction with another character, every conversation you can have when you go out with someone, every person you can date and friend you can have has to interact with niko, all the things he can say when he jacks someone...
if you really think it would have been easy (or that it only would have taken a couple of weeks or something) to sit there with a phonebook script and slog through it all (and you can bet he didn't get it perfect the first time every time, either), then you've got a stronger voice than me.
also, i'd just like to point out that voicing niko would have been a considerably larger and more daunting task than, say, voicing an episode of futurama. think about how much shit niko says in that game. every time the car breaks down, all the stuff he shouts during combat, every cutscene, every interaction with another character, every conversation you can have when you go out with someone, every person you can date and friend you can have has to interact with niko, all the things he can say when he jacks someone...
if you really think it would have been easy (or that it only would have taken a couple of weeks or something) to sit there with a phonebook script and slog through it all (and you can bet he didn't get it perfect the first time every time, either), then you've got a stronger voice than me.
Especially considering you have to put yourself into Niko's frame of mind for each line, I believe reading sets of lines from wholly different segments of the game back-to-back would be quite difficult.
Oh look, tech types shitting all over the humanities. How novel.
Well if it doesnt involve math it has to be easy right?
EDIT- To actually contribute, the guy should have tried to clear this stuff up with the actor's union prior to getting into GTA, it sucks but getting 100k plus recognition of doing work for GTA IV isn't exactly horrible. It sucks whenever people who work on something don't get the rewards they deserve, but debating about inane stuff like "lolo he's just a prima donna actor/whatever performing arts guy what does he know about work" is pointless and dumb.
also, i'd just like to point out that voicing niko would have been a considerably larger and more daunting task than, say, voicing an episode of futurama. think about how much shit niko says in that game. every time the car breaks down, all the stuff he shouts during combat, every cutscene, every interaction with another character, every conversation you can have when you go out with someone, every person you can date and friend you can have has to interact with niko, all the things he can say when he jacks someone...
if you really think it would have been easy (or that it only would have taken a couple of weeks or something) to sit there with a phonebook script and slog through it all (and you can bet he didn't get it perfect the first time every time, either), then you've got a stronger voice than me.
now that i think about it, i cant really remember a better voice performance than Niko for a game. Better than David Hayter by miles, although MGS 4 might change that (not too likely though)
Buggy or inefficient coding, bad voice acting, and ugly or unoptimized 3D work can each just as easily sink a game like GTA4, and to say that one group of these people is more important than any of the others is kind of naive.
Unless any one of us have experience in both fields, stop talking.
I always kind of appreciated the slightly campy voicing in the MGS games.
also, i'd just like to point out that voicing niko would have been a considerably larger and more daunting task than, say, voicing an episode of futurama. think about how much shit niko says in that game. every time the car breaks down, all the stuff he shouts during combat, every cutscene, every interaction with another character, every conversation you can have when you go out with someone, every person you can date and friend you can have has to interact with niko, all the things he can say when he jacks someone...
if you really think it would have been easy (or that it only would have taken a couple of weeks or something) to sit there with a phonebook script and slog through it all (and you can bet he didn't get it perfect the first time every time, either), then you've got a stronger voice than me.
Especially considering you have to put yourself into Niko's frame of mind for each line, I believe reading sets of lines from wholly different segments of the game back-to-back would be quite difficult.
Michael Hollick isn't about to win any Oscars for his, er, performance.
Let me put it this way. Given enough time, any of us could have done Michael Hollick's job. Perhaps not as well as he did, but the game would still have voice overs. But there's only a few of us who could even begin to comprehend the code that runs a game like this. I mean, sure, this guy had to read 10 or so lines for picking up Girlfriend Number One, and then another 10 or so for Girlfriend Number Two, and so on. That can add up to a lot of time in the studio and I'm sure it was all very exhausting.
Programmers had to anticipate every possible scenario or player action with each girlfriend, and then code in the reactions and behaviours of the girlfriend. The girlfriend reacts differently depending on what car you roll up in, how you drive, how you behave, where you take her. The programmers had to write a series of step-by-step instructions that tell the computer, in laborious and endlessly tedious fashion, exactly what to do in each given situation. They probably had to write a hundred thousand lines of code devoted to girlfriend behaviour. And then they probably spent a year debugging that code.
Meanwhile Michael Hollick just had to pretend he was Niko Bellic. If you think that's harder than programming a video game as big and complicated as GTA4, then your understanding of computers is essentially "magic box that does all the work for you".
Azio on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Meanwhile Michael Hollick just had to pretend he was Niko Bellic. If you think that's harder than programming a video game as big and complicated as GTA4, then your understanding of computers is essentially "magic box that does all the work for you".
And if you think making a character come to life using only your voice is easy, then your understanding of acting is essentially "playing pretend."
The unedited vocals weren't anything special though, just a woman talking in a stilted, imitation robotic voice.
Note that I'm not saying GladOS didn't make the game. I'm just saying Ellen McLain didn't make the game. It wouldn't have been hard to have someone else do the same thing, as opposed to the techs and programmers who took years to learn how to do what they do and months/years to make the game work versus a woman who did maybe a week or so of talking into a mike.
Edit: I'd even give Jonathan Coulton more credit, for having the skill to write the song and do the instrumentals. Maybe I'm unjustly looking down on voice actors but I'm not easily impressed by them.
One word: Haze.
I'm not exactly saying that voice actors are more important than everything else, just that they have the power to make or break a story line.
victor_c26 on
It's been so long since I've posted here, I've removed my signature since most of what I had here were broken links. Shows over, you can carry on to the next post.
I never said it was easy, just that it's easier than software engineering.
Apples, meet oranges. Oranges, meet apples.
Thank you.
In essence, what I'm trying to say is this: for one person, acting might be the easiest thing in the world, but God help them if anyone sits them down in front of a computer and says "write some code." Conversely, coding might be as simple as breathing for another person, but hand them a script and say "act, and don't suck" and they'll shit their pants. They are too very different things, and doing either one well takes a considerable amount of effort and talent not typically found in your average Joe Somebody.
Hacksaw on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
Hey guys, coders are talented but they aren't heart surgeons. This means their job is easier and therefore they aren't as important.
I never said it was easy, just that it's easier than software engineering.
Apples, meet oranges. Oranges, meet apples.
Thank you.
In essence, what I'm trying to say is this: for one person, acting might be the easiest thing in the world, but God help them if anyone sits them down in front of a computer and says "write some code." Conversely, coding might be as simple as breathing for another person, but hand them a script and say "act, and don't suck" and they'll shit their pants. They are too very different things, and doing either one well takes a considerable amount of effort and talent not typically found in your average Joe Somebody.
Thank you.
And while we're at it, let's not completely gloss over the people involved in making a video game that aren't voice actors or coders. GTA4 must have had a massive art team, for instance, who essentially had to build a city from scratch. Every line that any of the voice guys said was written by somebody at some point. Cutscenes had to be storyboarded and directed. There are people, indispensable people, whose only jobs were to synchronize these different groups. Etc.
Daedalus on
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
I wonder if programmers have to call tech support if something goes wrong with the computer.
I wonder if programmers have to call tech support if something goes wrong with the computer.
Given that half the fucking time the IT desk doesn't trust them enough to give them administrator access to their own machines, it happens more often than you think.
I've worked both sides of that particular relationship in the past.
Most of the coding or dev jobs I've seen do call for some degree of computer literacy, including being able to maintain and troubleshoot a workstation.
I don't know though, IT are often treated as computer janitors who have nothing better to do than to clean up people's messes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen at a large studio or publisher.
Most of the coding or dev jobs I've seen do call for some degree of computer literacy, including being able to maintain and troubleshoot a workstation.
I don't know though, IT are often treated as computer janitors who have nothing better to do than to clean up people's messes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen at a large studio or publisher.
I'd expect that in Sales and Marketing, HR, QA, Production, Risk Management, etc. But the coding team?
victor_c26 on
It's been so long since I've posted here, I've removed my signature since most of what I had here were broken links. Shows over, you can carry on to the next post.
0
KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
Most of the coding or dev jobs I've seen do call for some degree of computer literacy, including being able to maintain and troubleshoot a workstation.
I don't know though, IT are often treated as computer janitors who have nothing better to do than to clean up people's messes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen at a large studio or publisher.
I'd expect that in Sales and Marketing, HR, QA, Production, etc. But the coding team?
Software and Hardware people are like Bloods and Crips.
Most of the coding or dev jobs I've seen do call for some degree of computer literacy, including being able to maintain and troubleshoot a workstation.
I don't know though, IT are often treated as computer janitors who have nothing better to do than to clean up people's messes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen at a large studio or publisher.
I'd expect that in Sales and Marketing, HR, QA, Production, Risk Management, etc. But the coding team?
The problem in my experience isn't that the coding people are illiterate, it's that they tend to be single-minded in getting their shit done and the IT people are there to make sure everybody else can get their shit done too, so you have situations like one group of coding guys going "well, I need this $SOFTWARE running on the main cluster that everyone uses, and $SOFTWARE requires $DEPENDENCY, so time to install $DEPENDENCY on this cluster" without realizing that $DEPENDENCY involves a server that stays around in memory forever, even when they're not using it, and just slightly fucks up everyone else's work.
For instance.
But this is venturing slightly off topic.
Hey, I've been wondering something: how does a giant CGI studio like Pixar divvy up residuals? Does anyone know?
Most of the coding or dev jobs I've seen do call for some degree of computer literacy, including being able to maintain and troubleshoot a workstation.
I don't know though, IT are often treated as computer janitors who have nothing better to do than to clean up people's messes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen at a large studio or publisher.
I'd expect that in Sales and Marketing, HR, QA, Production, Risk Management, etc. But the coding team?
The coding team gets payed to code, not waste their time fixing their workstations regardless of who broke it.
I wonder if programmers have to call tech support if something goes wrong with the computer.
They do. And they're the worst clients in the world to serve, because they don't call until they've really fucked everything up after trying a few hours of "self-help", and they're impatient as can be. Unless they're contractors... in which case they're still getting paid to wait around.
It's very simple. How do you decide how much a GTA4 software coder is worth? And how do you decide how much a voice actor is worth?
It's based on tradition, but if you trace it all the way back, it's more or less arbitrary. The fact is, actors in popular media have "celebrity" status and are paid well for it while coders do not and will likely never have the same status (but, hey, you never know).
Voice actors exist in popular media and are fighting for the same celebrity status.
However, Take 2/R* hired this guy in much the same way corporate America outsources many of their functions to bangalore. Because it's cheaper and because they don't have any clout in getting higher pay. The whole reason functions get outsourced is so we can pay less. You know how many would-be actors there are out there looking for exposure? And do you understand that an actor you can see is very different from an actor you only hear? A voice is part of the scenery unless you can identify that voice...like Keifer Sutherland in Armitage III.
They pick no-name actors because it's cheaper and the voice becomes more of a cog than an ad point. Actors are willing to do it because they get work. And no, this guy most likely had no bargaining power. Because the voice-over industry is kind of a purgatory between "actor" and "not an actor" and I don't ever see that changing. They don't have celebrity status but they perform the same or a similar function (acting) as those who DO have celebrity status, so it chafes them. At the same time, they most likely understand that they have the job specifically because they do NOT have celebrity status. Frankly, if voice-actors were paid as much as screen actors, people like the Michael Hollick would not even have a job to begin with. Silicon Valley would just pull from the same established names that Hollywood draws from.
I certainly understand his point and can sympathize with him, but it is unrealistic.
And Azio, your suggestion that it is "easier" to act than code is ludicrous. I'm not saying it's "harder" either, but the apples/oranges responses are right on point. I mean, I seriously hope that your comments were made in jest.
Ok again, speaking as both an actor, and as a coder -
Being a shitty actor is easy, and being a shitty coder is easy. Being very good at either is very hard. Allow me to disabuse any notions here, and say that getting a good reading takes quite a lot of work, lots of analysis of the lines, lots of trial and error of seeing what works, lots of going back and forth with the director over what makes the most sense for the character, and in the context of the script as a whole.
I'm not saying that one is easier or harder than the other, because that's retarded. Coding requires a lot of specialized knowledge which really just doesn't apply in a comparison to acting. However, they both require lots of analysis, attention to detail, and patience.
Isn't the important thing that people seem to be forgetting is that he can now go on to another job and have higher demands because he was Niko Bellic in GTA4.
That right there is a huge benefit to anyone who can put that down on their resume.
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Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I give coders more respect than voice actors because I'm a coder. I mean, duh. If I was in school to do voice work I'd pay more attention to that.
Llama's bullshit pissed me off, that's all. Saying "Anyone can be a code monkey. Talented voice actors are far rarer than talented coders" is goddamn retarded. It is equally as retarded as saying "Anyone can say shit into a microphone; talented coders are far rarer than talented voice actors."
The fact is that any asshole fresh out of high school can talk into a microphone, write code, design gameplay, or make 3D models and textures, but it takes a good degree of training, talent, and experience to do any of those things at all well, and for a project of GTA4's magnitude you'd better fucking believe that they hired good people. Buggy or inefficient coding, bad voice acting, and ugly or unoptimized 3D work can each just as easily sink a game like GTA4, and to say that one group of these people is more important than any of the others is kind of naive.
I think it's worth pointing out that comparing Niko's voice actor to someone like Tom Cruise is also unfair because his complaint is about residuals, not points. Residuals are mostly union-controlled and are not huge sums of money, and are split up between a lot of different people (basically anyone involved in a film or game that's part of a union.)
Points, where someone gets X% of the profit above and beyond any other payment, is what some celebrities can demand. As an example, Keanu Reeves got 15% of gross for the Matrix films (over $200 million). "Niko" wasn't pretending to be a big shot and asking to get a cut of the profit, he was just complaining about the way his residuals were handled.
The video game market is in kind of a weird place right now, though, and I don't know if they can afford to give away residuals to the voice actors (and, shit, you'd have to include the writers, too) when as it is, the majority of games don't even make back initial investment with the current model.
It's like a BMW engine designer demanding a cut of every car sold.
Then you must hate it that authors get royalties, don't you?
How is selling a TV show (say the dvd boxset so all the products are physical), a book, a game, or a car really any different?
if you really think it would have been easy (or that it only would have taken a couple of weeks or something) to sit there with a phonebook script and slog through it all (and you can bet he didn't get it perfect the first time every time, either), then you've got a stronger voice than me.
Well if it doesnt involve math it has to be easy right?
EDIT- To actually contribute, the guy should have tried to clear this stuff up with the actor's union prior to getting into GTA, it sucks but getting 100k plus recognition of doing work for GTA IV isn't exactly horrible. It sucks whenever people who work on something don't get the rewards they deserve, but debating about inane stuff like "lolo he's just a prima donna actor/whatever performing arts guy what does he know about work" is pointless and dumb.
now that i think about it, i cant really remember a better voice performance than Niko for a game. Better than David Hayter by miles, although MGS 4 might change that (not too likely though)
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Unless any one of us have experience in both fields, stop talking.
I always kind of appreciated the slightly campy voicing in the MGS games.
Let me put it this way. Given enough time, any of us could have done Michael Hollick's job. Perhaps not as well as he did, but the game would still have voice overs. But there's only a few of us who could even begin to comprehend the code that runs a game like this. I mean, sure, this guy had to read 10 or so lines for picking up Girlfriend Number One, and then another 10 or so for Girlfriend Number Two, and so on. That can add up to a lot of time in the studio and I'm sure it was all very exhausting.
Programmers had to anticipate every possible scenario or player action with each girlfriend, and then code in the reactions and behaviours of the girlfriend. The girlfriend reacts differently depending on what car you roll up in, how you drive, how you behave, where you take her. The programmers had to write a series of step-by-step instructions that tell the computer, in laborious and endlessly tedious fashion, exactly what to do in each given situation. They probably had to write a hundred thousand lines of code devoted to girlfriend behaviour. And then they probably spent a year debugging that code.
Meanwhile Michael Hollick just had to pretend he was Niko Bellic. If you think that's harder than programming a video game as big and complicated as GTA4, then your understanding of computers is essentially "magic box that does all the work for you".
Apples, meet oranges. Oranges, meet apples.
One word: Haze.
I'm not exactly saying that voice actors are more important than everything else, just that they have the power to make or break a story line.
Oh my god, I was going to type this exact same thing.
In essence, what I'm trying to say is this: for one person, acting might be the easiest thing in the world, but God help them if anyone sits them down in front of a computer and says "write some code." Conversely, coding might be as simple as breathing for another person, but hand them a script and say "act, and don't suck" and they'll shit their pants. They are too very different things, and doing either one well takes a considerable amount of effort and talent not typically found in your average Joe Somebody.
Thank you.
And while we're at it, let's not completely gloss over the people involved in making a video game that aren't voice actors or coders. GTA4 must have had a massive art team, for instance, who essentially had to build a city from scratch. Every line that any of the voice guys said was written by somebody at some point. Cutscenes had to be storyboarded and directed. There are people, indispensable people, whose only jobs were to synchronize these different groups. Etc.
Given that half the fucking time the IT desk doesn't trust them enough to give them administrator access to their own machines, it happens more often than you think.
I've worked both sides of that particular relationship in the past.
I don't know though, IT are often treated as computer janitors who have nothing better to do than to clean up people's messes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see that happen at a large studio or publisher.
I'd expect that in Sales and Marketing, HR, QA, Production, Risk Management, etc. But the coding team?
Software and Hardware people are like Bloods and Crips.
The problem in my experience isn't that the coding people are illiterate, it's that they tend to be single-minded in getting their shit done and the IT people are there to make sure everybody else can get their shit done too, so you have situations like one group of coding guys going "well, I need this $SOFTWARE running on the main cluster that everyone uses, and $SOFTWARE requires $DEPENDENCY, so time to install $DEPENDENCY on this cluster" without realizing that $DEPENDENCY involves a server that stays around in memory forever, even when they're not using it, and just slightly fucks up everyone else's work.
For instance.
But this is venturing slightly off topic.
Hey, I've been wondering something: how does a giant CGI studio like Pixar divvy up residuals? Does anyone know?
Probably, they handle it like any below-the-line system - residuals pay for the pension and healthcare plans of Pixar employees.
The coding team gets payed to code, not waste their time fixing their workstations regardless of who broke it.
They do. And they're the worst clients in the world to serve, because they don't call until they've really fucked everything up after trying a few hours of "self-help", and they're impatient as can be. Unless they're contractors... in which case they're still getting paid to wait around.
It's based on tradition, but if you trace it all the way back, it's more or less arbitrary. The fact is, actors in popular media have "celebrity" status and are paid well for it while coders do not and will likely never have the same status (but, hey, you never know).
Voice actors exist in popular media and are fighting for the same celebrity status.
However, Take 2/R* hired this guy in much the same way corporate America outsources many of their functions to bangalore. Because it's cheaper and because they don't have any clout in getting higher pay. The whole reason functions get outsourced is so we can pay less. You know how many would-be actors there are out there looking for exposure? And do you understand that an actor you can see is very different from an actor you only hear? A voice is part of the scenery unless you can identify that voice...like Keifer Sutherland in Armitage III.
They pick no-name actors because it's cheaper and the voice becomes more of a cog than an ad point. Actors are willing to do it because they get work. And no, this guy most likely had no bargaining power. Because the voice-over industry is kind of a purgatory between "actor" and "not an actor" and I don't ever see that changing. They don't have celebrity status but they perform the same or a similar function (acting) as those who DO have celebrity status, so it chafes them. At the same time, they most likely understand that they have the job specifically because they do NOT have celebrity status. Frankly, if voice-actors were paid as much as screen actors, people like the Michael Hollick would not even have a job to begin with. Silicon Valley would just pull from the same established names that Hollywood draws from.
I certainly understand his point and can sympathize with him, but it is unrealistic.
And Azio, your suggestion that it is "easier" to act than code is ludicrous. I'm not saying it's "harder" either, but the apples/oranges responses are right on point. I mean, I seriously hope that your comments were made in jest.
Being a shitty actor is easy, and being a shitty coder is easy. Being very good at either is very hard. Allow me to disabuse any notions here, and say that getting a good reading takes quite a lot of work, lots of analysis of the lines, lots of trial and error of seeing what works, lots of going back and forth with the director over what makes the most sense for the character, and in the context of the script as a whole.
I'm not saying that one is easier or harder than the other, because that's retarded. Coding requires a lot of specialized knowledge which really just doesn't apply in a comparison to acting. However, they both require lots of analysis, attention to detail, and patience.
That right there is a huge benefit to anyone who can put that down on their resume.
I never asked for this!