"This is why I support a SAG-AFTRA strike authorization for video games — and it isn’t about money."

[kane_magus]

It sounds pretty shitty, if you ask me. (By that, just to be crystal clear, I mean that I agree with Mr. Wheaton and his reasons for supporting this.)

Why yes, video game industry, just keep right on fucking around and fucking up on things like this. I mean, on the whole, you treat all of your other employees like shit, and have for decades now ([EDIT] with, of course, the exception of the high-level executives in these big companies, who make their disgusting fortunes on the backs of all the others [/EDIT]), so why not the voice actors as well? Very intelligent on your part, video game industry. Um hmm. Yep.

This (among so many other things which I've already ranted about ad infinitum in previous entries) just brings the next big video game industry crash ever closer. I, for one, can hardly wait for it to occur. I really do now think more and more that all of these recent events might very well be it, or at least the start of it. It might actually be happening, finally. The bubble may finally be bursting, or about to.

*giggles and rubs hands together*

Oh, perhaps I should go pop a bag of popcorn...

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

Well, this might well put another nail in the coffin at the very least.

After all, if they refuse to even TALK to the voice actors union, then that's going to cut popular actors out of the newer AAA titles.

And given that voice talent like that at times are the only things propping some AAA titles up to begin with... We'll see games sell worse due to unfamiliar voices that can't act for shit being put beside the same old trash that's been pushed out year after year for the last decade. It just might cause more publishers to jump ship - leaving a lot of room for new devs that'll need at least 5 years to become as corrupt and soulless. ;)

I've had my popcorn for a while now.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Another potential side effect of this is that if this is successful, all those other video game industry employees (programmers, artists, designers, testers, etc.) who don't currently have unions could perhaps finally get the notion to form unions of their own and stop merely swallowing whatever scraps the fat cat executives deign to toss down to them.

That would have the effect of either allowing those employees to actually make a decent living without having to kill themselves with ludicrous crunch times and other such horseshit... or, if nothing else, it'd drive still more companies out of the industry if those companies simply can't afford to not cut corners and treat their employees like complete shit for whatever reasons.

I'm not going to hold my breath on that ever happening, but it'd still be nice if it did.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I say this mainly because one of the biggest points people are (poorly) trying to make in the comments in opposition to Wil is along the lines of "none of us other employees in the video game industry get that kind of good deal, so why should Wil Wheaton?" Then people reply with "wait, so, you're trying to say that just because you guys get shafted, voice actors should necessarily have to get shafted as well?" And the opposing guys reply to that with "No, it's just that voice actors have a union, but the rest of us don't, so we're just plain fucked." And then, of course, the reply to that is, "And... you don't have a union... why again?" That's usually around the point where the crickets start chirping as the only reply, from what I've seen.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

A big part of the problem here is that unions (generally speaking, and not talking about the video game industry in particular) have been so demonized in the United States lately to the point that it's fairly difficult to convince a lot of people that it would be in their best interests to join/create one. And, of course, that's pretty much yet another thing that can be laid at the feet of the Republicans. The GOP, on the whole, is actively opposed to unions of any sort.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

But here's the real crux of the problem, though: there are far too many otherwise clueless geeks and nerds coming straight out of college (assuming they have even that much experience) who would cheerfully sell their souls to Satan just for a shot at working in the video game industry. As such, they either don't realize that they're being treated like puke and exploited by these big publishers or they don't fucking care even if they do know. They've heard for so long from so many people who came before that "video games don't pay as well as other sectors of the comp sci industry" and they simply take that as a given, rather than trying to improve conditions, and then they pass on the same "wisdom" to those who follow in their shoes. It's a cycle that's going to be very difficult to break.

Truly, it's the same sort of reasoning behind why video game consumers tolerate eating shit from these big goddamn companies, too. They similarly don't know or don't care they they're sucking from the sewer pipe. And, by and large, the grunts who make games are indeed the same ones who play them, so that's not too awfully surprising.