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The entertainment industry isn't doing well right now. Nor gaming. US film+TV grew by 5x thanks to streaming money in last 20 years. Gaming sector also exploded

The entertainment industry isn't doing well right now. Nor gaming. US film+TV grew by 5x thanks to streaming money in last 20 years. Gaming sector also exploded. But everyone is competing for attention with each other and decades of backlog. Netflix has milked the game to the point where they're competing against sleep - there's only so demand for the occasional hit properties. IMO it's not the same supply/demand enviroment anymore that can support unions everywhere. Very few companies are Nintendos who has a few golden goose franchise and an entire hardware ecosystem to support long term vision. And of course if most of the industry doesn't unionize, the few that could likely won't, even if the should.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
Video game voice actors at the intersection of entertainment and gaming, but they're unionized and have maintained a strike for about 8 months now, forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. It's very doable if employees want to.
- maxglute 2y ago
  >forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. But not forcing suits to concede. Premature to assume voice actors will win in the end. On the continuum of "indispensible", "rainmaker" talent to easily replacable, screen talent has leverage to unionize because their faces sell tickets/subscriptions. My understanding is voice actors are bluntly not valued as much, hence the long strike, they don't have comparable leverage, especially with AI on horizon. Least valuable / most fungible are production, which is why the situation is increasingly shit for even existing unionized talent in entertainment and extra worse for non unionized sectors like vfx, or most of video games - they're replacable by neverending supply of talent willing to work for less, not just in US but abroad.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    if companies would rather release worse content than pay labor, that's a cost in and of itself. The writer's guild had similar impact in the 2010's. I don't know who will win, but it's not like these choices are not without consequence. These moves definitely slow down their plans.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      IMO with voice talent it's pretty obvious the AI will eventually win, especially when it pertains to video games where projects can contain 1,000s hours of dialogue. There's disruption right now because studios are being nice / have talent locked into existing projects that's hard to recast/pivot from. IIRC the voice acting drama also has a transnational dimension, something about blacklisting international talent from union projects if they don't join/pay dues to a US guild, which sits wrong with me. Either way the consequences of ceding to unions is bad for consumers, at least in video games. I don't want smaller projects to pick between either having all union voice acting and no AI which may be prohibitively expensive / not possible depending on scope. I want amateur RPG makers able to make projects with accessible AI generated voices, especially with how fast they're improving etc.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

Video game voice actors at the intersection of entertainment and gaming, but they're unionized and have maintained a strike for about 8 months now, forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. It's very doable if employees want to.

maxglute 2y ago
>forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. But not forcing suits to concede. Premature to assume voice actors will win in the end. On the continuum of "indispensible", "rainmaker" talent to easily replacable, screen talent has leverage to unionize because their faces sell tickets/subscriptions. My understanding is voice actors are bluntly not valued as much, hence the long strike, they don't have comparable leverage, especially with AI on horizon. Least valuable / most fungible are production, which is why the situation is increasingly shit for even existing unionized talent in entertainment and extra worse for non unionized sectors like vfx, or most of video games - they're replacable by neverending supply of talent willing to work for less, not just in US but abroad.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  if companies would rather release worse content than pay labor, that's a cost in and of itself. The writer's guild had similar impact in the 2010's. I don't know who will win, but it's not like these choices are not without consequence. These moves definitely slow down their plans.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    IMO with voice talent it's pretty obvious the AI will eventually win, especially when it pertains to video games where projects can contain 1,000s hours of dialogue. There's disruption right now because studios are being nice / have talent locked into existing projects that's hard to recast/pivot from. IIRC the voice acting drama also has a transnational dimension, something about blacklisting international talent from union projects if they don't join/pay dues to a US guild, which sits wrong with me. Either way the consequences of ceding to unions is bad for consumers, at least in video games. I don't want smaller projects to pick between either having all union voice acting and no AI which may be prohibitively expensive / not possible depending on scope. I want amateur RPG makers able to make projects with accessible AI generated voices, especially with how fast they're improving etc.