General Discussion

From GamePro (SOURCE) by Blake Snow

The raging commercial success (nearing a half billion) of Grand Theft Auto IV is bittersweet, says the voice behind Niko Bellic, because behind the scenes video game talent doesn't see royalties like movies and music stars.

Michael Hollick was paid $100k over 15 months for voicing Niko Bellic (NY Times)

"I'm incredibly thankful to Rockstar for the opportunity to be in this game when I was just a nobody," said Michael Hollick, who received $100,000 for 15 months of voice-over work, according to the New York Times.

"But it's tough, when you see Grand Theft Auto IV out there as the biggest thing going right now, when they're making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don't see any of it. I don't blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games."

Unlike movies and music, the Screen Actor's Guild doesn't have policies in place to guarantee residual pay above and behind the work-for-hire rate, which Hollick knowingly agreed to before Grand Theft Auto IV became the biggest thing in 2008 since sliced bread.

Though Hollick asserts, "it's the human performances within [games] that people really connect to," others, like entertainment lawyer Ezra J. Doner, say "the conception of the creative director" drives game sales, not behind the scenes acting talent.

"The actor whose appearance or voice is used [in video games] is more analogous to a studio musicians [who] don't get residuals on the sales of the CD," says Doner. "It's not like the star quality of Tom Cruise that's getting people to buy a video game."

Only a 100k.. now those devs are really stingy

That's roughly $1600.00 a week before taxes.

i propose we march the money makers of GTA4 before congress and demand answers. than we should have some loser democrat ask them how many millions they made last year.

any loser knows that if demand goes up profits follow. ive been hearing for a couple of years how demand is rising dramatically...so...profits rise dramatically.

commie pinko bastards.

oh, niko signed a contract. hes SOL and I have no bad feelings about that. bragging rights and resume padder is his residuals.

he signed it, he didn't have to, he didn't have to be hired(assuming he went with royalties).

voice actors in video games really aren't worth royalties, they don't get any reconition by the fan base making them pretty expendable.

That actually sucks, but he signed it. Now if he did some research, he would have seen before signing the contract that this was gonna be a big game. I bet the guy that did Brucie got payed like millions. I'M BRUCIE BABY! YEAHHHH! GET ME THAT CAR!

what a business minded company.

It may be that he signed the contract but for that we can't put all blame on him; we don't know the position he was in when he did it. While paying extreme sums of money has always been quite stupid if you ask me I still believe that when a game sells this good the actors should be payed much more.

Apparently his contract was negotiated through his union.  The way I look at it, he got paid an agreed amount for his work, he really has no place to complain.

Originally posted by Par-Salian

Apparently his contract was negotiated through his union.  The way I look at it, he got paid an agreed amount for his work, he really has no place to complain.

Exactly, he shouldnt complain.  In his own words he was a "nobody" before doing GTA IV, he should be grateful for the experience which is probably going to lead to more work for him.