Why is so little invested in voice acting?

[Discrodia]

When you can get Grizzled Male Protagonist #17, Russian Villain #3, and Sassy Female #42, why would you need voice acting?

More seriously, I think it's because it's the easiest part of the budget to cut out of. You can hire a few cheap actors for not much money, and as they can't do any other work besides voice stuff, that's a supposedly good value for money.

Ergo, voice work is pretty low on the list of things they're willing to devote lots of money to. So a lot of it ends up crappy.

 

[Wayneguard]

I think developers are trying to go the resident evil route by having voice acting so bad, their games become infamous and highly sought after as a joke.

Honestly thought, many games coming out nowadays have fantastic voice acting. Bioshock, Gears of War, and even the CoDs have great voice acting. It's easy to point out the bad ones but keep in mind there are plenty of good ones too.

 

[WanderingBiscuits]

Bethesda should just hire Johnny Yong Bosch and Morgan Freeman to voice every character. Nobody would complain.

For female voices? IDK

 

[Defense]

How about we just scrap voice acting? It ruins bad games but it rarely makes games good, and I feel text boxes can convey emotions just as well if executed properly.

At least scrap in handheld systems. I never saw the point of voice acting in TWEWY when the vast majority of the game was told through speech bubbles.

 

[Vault101]

Okay, I can answer part of this myself. The big talent costs money. Keith David and people can't be cheap, let alone the hollywood casts. But I don't understand why companies like bethesda studios appear to invest so little in voices, considering its integral to the immersion the franchise prides itself so heavily on. We've all played new vegas. You've got the black guy, the old guy, the kid, the old woman, the young bastard, the greaser, the soldier etc. which seems to apply to EVERY person you meet.

I mean come on. Voice acting cannot be that expensive. Heck Bethesda, you're building an open world game here, an entire state practically populated with thousands of people, and you only hire 81 voice actors? What does it cost to hire a voice actor? everyone's got a voice. I'm damn sure a lot of people have a lot of good voices, but heck any voices would be better than only 80 good ones. Give your game some variety.

I dunno. When you're working on a big budget franchise like Fallout I'd expect a bit better. You don't need to hire from agencies or studios, just get five hundred people off the streets and throw them into a recording studio and give em $20 each to record 20 or so lines for an hour each. I cannot imagine that would be too much of a strain on a company that made an estimated $300 million.

to be honest Ive found its actually not bad most of time in alot of games, worst being oblivion and ONLY because there wasnt that many people, its gotten alot better since resident evil days

How about we just scrap voice acting? It ruins bad games but it rarely makes games good, and I feel text boxes can convey emotions just as well if executed properly.

At least scrap in handheld systems. I never saw the point of voice acting in TWEWY when the vast majority of the game was told through speech bubbles.

no...just no...

ok Im not a bad reader I love to read books

but I CANNOT read large amounts of texts in video games I dont know why I think my attention span is just set to another "mode" but it just breaks imersion terribly for me, like I had to turn subtitles off in fallout 3 and NV and it imporved the game alot

and I cannot get into a games story if all it gives me is a wall of text

I mean the charachters and story in ME 1 and 2 wouldnt be so awsome and memorable if it was just text

honestly I dont think voice acting in general is as terrible as everyone seems to think

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Cause they are games, not chit chat simulators?

 

[noxymoron19]

Sorry here, but how has no one brought up Portal 2? It's all people have been talking about on this site for the last 2 weeks and yet no one threw it out there as an example of well voiced games. J. K. Simmons is a beast

 

[Risingblade]

No one buys a game to listen to people talk. that it not the main focus therefore the money is not focused as much on it.

you say that, but the vocals alone really push portal 2's quality way up. So it shouldn't be ignored for major cast members.

Btw the OP is being silly as 81 people is plenty people as voice actors can utilise a whole range of vocal accents. So he's just being angry for the sake of it.

Yes but you didn't buy portal to listen to the vocals (well most people didn't) you did it because you enjoyed playing it, but portal 2 is a short game and they already had the formula down

 

[Nomanslander]

Because Bethesda is cheap and likes to cut corners.

What? The answer is that simple, really!

 

[Indecipherable]

I guess being a huge Bioware fan I don't get exposed to as much awful voice acting as other people.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Nintendo - We save sooo much money by making everyone silent.

 

[Defense]

but I CANNOT read large amounts of texts in video games I dont know why I think my attention span is just set to another "mode" but it just breaks imersion terribly for me, like I had to turn subtitles off in fallout 3 and NV and it imporved the game alot

That's just you then. I'm perfectly fine with text boxes in video games, and my immersion isn't broken unless there's a typo or it just sounds wrong. In fact, immersion is even easier to break for me when the voice is unfitting, plain bad, or when the cast of voice actors is really small.

and I cannot get into a games story if all it gives me is a wall of text

A good game doesn't need a wall of text to explain everything. A good game explains its universe, plot, and characters through interaction.

I mean the charachters and story in ME 1 and 2 wouldnt be so awsome and memorable if it was just text

Disagree on two points. One, Mass Effect 2 hardly had awesome memorable characters, but that's just me.

I also disagree that they wouldn't be as "awesome and memorable" if they were voiceless. I think Garrus was the best character not because he sounded great, but because he was a likable character with real issues. The voice didn't add any depth to his character, and it made him only a little more likable.

 

[Vault101]

but I CANNOT read large amounts of texts in video games I dont know why I think my attention span is just set to another "mode" but it just breaks imersion terribly for me, like I had to turn subtitles off in fallout 3 and NV and it imporved the game alot

That's just you then. I'm perfectly fine with text boxes in video games, and my immersion isn't broken unless there's a typo or it just sounds wrong. In fact, immersion is even easier to break for me when the voice is unfitting, plain bad, or when the cast of voice actors is really small.

and I cannot get into a games story if all it gives me is a wall of text

A good game doesn't need a wall of text to explain everything. A good game explains its universe, plot, and characters through interaction.

I mean the charachters and story in ME 1 and 2 wouldnt be so awsome and memorable if it was just text

Disagree on two points. One, Mass Effect 2 hardly had awesome memorable characters, but that's just me.

I also disagree that they wouldn't be as "awesome and memorable" if they were voiceless. I think Garrus was the best character not because he sounded great, but because he was a likable character with real issues. The voice didn't add any depth to his character, and it made him only a little more likable.

ohhh C'mon......Urdnot Wrex?

anyway I guess this just goes to show its subjective, ...really when it comes to story telling in games voice acting just enhances it it for me like Bioshock or half life 2, I mean half life wouldnt be the same if alyx vance had a text bubble above her head or GLaDOS was just text

Personally just presenting me with a wall of text just doesnt cut it (Borderlands....and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. BUT stalker wasnt too bad in this regard)

and really Im being completley honest in that ALOT of the games Ive played have never had bad voice acting...and usually its more the fault of the writing and charachterisation and I dont let it bother me

anyway I think cutting out voice acting all together jsut becaue "somtimes its bad" would seem like a step backwards...not that it would happen (the very Idea is redicuous) but yeah

but you know it depends on the induvidual

like some people are bothered by the "uncannyness" in Fallout 3 and NV personally it doesnt bother me

it did notice it more in Assanins creed 1 and 2 however

 

[Defense]

anyway I guess this just goes to show its subjective, ...really when it comes to story telling in games voice acting just enhances it it for me like Bioshock or half life 2, I mean half life wouldnt be the same if alyx vance had a text bubble above her head or GLaDOS was just text

It depends on the genre. An FPS's primary concern is to entertain through action, and long text conversations would only make the game suffer. RPGs are more focused on characters, story, and the overall universe, and not everything can be explained with voice acting only.

Personally just presenting me with a wall of text

Well, like I said a good game doesn't need to give you a wall of text to show something. You don't need a manual to know that some shit is going down when you kill the colossi.

and really Im being completley honest in that ALOT of the games Ive played have never had bad voice acting...and usually its more the fault of the writing and charachterisation and I dont let it bother me

Most games I played don't have bad voice acting either, it's just even more bothersome to have unfitting and/or bad voice acting than bad character dialogue. I also find that text boxes find a way to avoid cutscenes, something I've recently grown tired of.

anyway I think cutting out voice acting all together jsut becaue "somtimes its bad" would seem like a step backwards...not that it would happen (the very Idea is redicuous) but yeah

It's not that it's bad, just that it's unnecessary.

like some people are bothered by the "uncannyness" in Fallout 3 and NV personally it doesnt bother me

it did notice it more in Assanins creed 1 and 2 however

Well, it's much worse in Oblivion, but the people also have hollow facial expressions, even ignoring how hideous the Gamebryo engine makes them look.

 

[Saelune]

Well, you can get bad voice acting for cheap, or you can get good voice acting at a great expense. Do you know how much it cost Bethesda to pay Captain Picard for his like, seven lines?

I dont think he is actually expensive. He is a regular on Family Guy and American Dad and says the corniest things.

 

[Pearwood]

No one buys a game to listen to people talk. that it not the main focus therefore the money is not focused as much on it.

I think a big part of the reason Mass Effect 2 is one of my favourite FPS games is the voice acting. Jennifer Hale is one of the best in the business, I liked that they cast Lightning from FF13 and Kerrigan from Starcraft 2 as well.

I dont think he is actually expensive. He is a regular on Family Guy and American Dad and says the corniest things.

Who does he voice on Family Guy?

 

[iblis666]

This is really tricky. To little you sometimes get this:

The problem is that there's only so much money a dev team has to develop a game. The more they spend on voice acting, the less they have for other things.

Tidus well with the name I give him "dickbag" had terrible voice acting and before all FF fanbodys get on my case. One of my favourite games it going to be called on the same thing silent hill 2 take the stand. Next too all the characters had bad voice acting.

well thats just the thing the united states doesnt have a large pool of good voice actors mainly due to the fact that voice actors are not thought very highly of and anyone who can act usually tries for real acting. This is the exact opposite of japan where voice actors are idols and most live acting is so bad its painful.