The union representing people who provide the shouts, screams and roars of video game characters says ferocious sessions are damaging its members’ health

It’s the death rattles that really get Jack De Golia, a voice actor in Las Vegas who does video game characters.

“Blood-curdling screams, choking to death, then that final death rattle,” De Golia recalled. “There’s breathing exercises you can do to calm things down, but you need to know your limits and be able to say, ‘No’.”

Most actors won’t say no, though: “The risk is, [game makers] will say, ‘Fine, we’ll get somebody else.’”

The union representing actors and performers – Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or Sag-Aaftra – has asked the state of California to investigate the video game industry’s allegedly brutal vocal recording sessions. Sag-Aaftra’s national executive director, David White, cited reports of bleeding and long-term damage including vocal cord paralysis. Conversations with those in the booming video game industry – predicted to be worth $99.6bn by the end of 2016 – paint a picture of a high-pressure world that is constantly rushing to keep up with technology platform trends. And it’s a world that treats voice acting talent as largely interchangeable.

“For up to four hours, actors are asked to perform not just voices, but noises, death screams, creature voices, combat yelling and other sounds, with so much force and explosive vibration, that they are causing internal damage to their vocal cords,” White wrote. “Medical problems … include vocal nodules, cysts, polyps and, in some cases, cord hemorrhaging.”

Ovais Malik does commercials, films, trailers, but says voicing video games is especially hard – and sometimes more fun because of that.

“You can really get wild with your voice. You can mess with the different intonations and all sorts of stuff,” Malik said. “But if you’ve ever seen a voice actor perform you see how physical it is. That’s something the listener doesn’t see. What you don’t see is how physical it is. You sweat. You move. It’s very taxing.”

This Tuesday, Malik voiced 15 different characters for a game called Blade and Soul. “They want some to sound like Mickey Mouse, some to sound like the voice of God,” he said. “Yesterday, I was a guard combatant, a battle monk, a gatekeeper.”

Malik said he feels voice actors sometimes don’t get proper respect within the broader entertainment industry. At the upcoming major games convention E3, developers don’t have to pay for tickets while voice actors do. “Voice talent is what makes the game,” he said. “All of us acting are what takes them to the next level. It’s messed up.”

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The video game voice actors have been asking for better conditions and pay for nearly a year now. Last September, seeking better pay, the union members voted to authorize a strike. Unlike actors in movies, video game actors usually just get one-time payments, and the union wanted residual payments to reward those who worked on successful games. Members rallied around the hashtag #PerformanceMatters and the group included prominent actors from hit games like Resident Evil and Deus Ex. Video game developer and publishing house Capcom has sold 68m copies of Resident Evil games.

Raghav Mathur, co-founder of game publisher and marketing studio Black Shell Media,said the whole video game industry is high stress and competitive, especially as it struggles to keep up with constantly evolving platforms.

“The games always have to be synched with the new consoles, and now those are coming faster than ever, especially with the advent of virtual reality,” Mathur said. “So not only does the pressure come internally with higher-ups but also within the industry – no one wants to play a game two years outdated.”



This pressure extends to everyone in the industry. Actors are often directly affected by that pressurised working culture because they are more easily replaced than a game’s engineers, whose complaints would be taken more seriously.

“Everyone on a game dev team has felt the pressure coming from the producers, the directors – heck, the fans. The second a game is announced, gamers want to hear what comes next,” he said. “They’re one of the most passionate fan bases of any industry. Once you have that much pressure, budgets in the tens of millions, safety and health becomes a concern for programmers and voice actors.”

And if a voice actor complains: “There are so, so many talented voice actors.”

Added to that, post-production technology that could have made their jobs easier has actually had the effect of making it more challenging because producers want even more. “The blood-curdling screams or demon voices can often be modulated in post-production, but because of that the producers want the actors to bring more gusto to the table so they have even more to play with,” Mathur said.

“So they’ll be like, ‘Do this one scream eight different times.’”