GTA4 Voice Actor Airs Complaints
Michael Hollick’s voice has become popular among gamers because of the ads and trailers for Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA 4) that continued to appear just before GTA 4’s release. He is the voice behind GTA’s Niko Bellic. Despite his popularity, Hollick hasn’t raked in millions yet. Understandably, he feels that he has not received enough compensation for the work he did.
Under the terms of the present agreement, voice actors are to receive nothing beyond their standard Screen Actors Guild pay. For GTA4, Hollick earned only $100,000 but since the initial GTA4 trailer has made about 40 million hits online, he believes that he deserves to be given extra compensation for giving life to Bellic.
Hollick is right in saying that radio spots and television ads should give voice talents the proper compensation for their work in pretty much the same way that singers receive royalties each time their song sells.
Giving in to Hollick’s request will give game executives a hard time because they might be flooded with similar requests from other talents.
However, choosing to ignore the issue might blow it up to bigger proportions, which might lead to a voice talents’ strike that’s quite similar in proportions with the recent writers’ strike. The entertainment industry is definitely not ready for another blow as big as that. Not this soon.
A good alternative would be for the involved parties to sit down and discuss the matter in a way that would allow them to reach a compromise. This way, both sides can win.
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Written on January 16th, 2009 with
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