Video Game Voice Actors See Improved Wages

Whether it's Kristin Bell lending her voice to Assassin's Creed II or Mickey Rourke doing Rogue Warrior, there are more and more big name actors entering the video game realm. Apparently, up until now they haven't been getting paid properly. Fortunately, the Studio Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) have come to the rescue and reached an agreement with video game publishers which will leave a smile on a lot of actors' faces.

In a press release which was issued late Friday, SAG and AFTRA members have comparable pay scales. SAG members are benefiting from a three percent pay increase, and both SAG and AFTRA will be seeing two and a half percent increases as of April 1st, 2010. Actors who lend their voices to multiple characters in a single project will now be able to do so in one recording session with the newly established "atmospheric voices".

Also noted several times in the new contracts, which lasts until March 30, 2011, is the importance of warning actors about "vocally stressful" work. This likely concerns voice actors such as David Hayter, who has to gargle lighter fluid and broken glass in order to prep his Solid Snake voice.