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March ’08 Round Table – UPDATE 3/31
By Corvus | March 31, 2008
This month will finalize our trio of audio topics for the Round Table. As always, everyone is welcome to join in, so write a post, read the FAQ, include the code and let me know!
March ’08
Our Masters’ Voices Having opened the 2008 Round Table by covering music and sound effect, we now move on to the third leg of videogame audio–voice talent. Do you like having character voices supplied for you, or do you hate it? Is the hiring of voice talent another indication of the industry’s drive to be more like Hollywood, or an important part of our maturation? Does spoken dialog help of hinder a game? Is there a particular game’s voice work you enjoy, or loathe? All these, and so many more, topics are open for discussion in this month’s Round Table!
Have fun with it and make sure I get you entry before midnight on Monday, the 31st of March (and much sooner if possible)!
In what is probably some sort of record, Max has launched the inaugural post of the Round Table! Head on over and let him tell you about how, “I Love All These Voices in My Head.”
I railed against the voice heavy approach of many games in Shush Please, I’m Trying to Play this Game
Tormod, a new voice at the Round Table, responds with a bit more of a balanced take on the topic in Filling the void of voices.
Andrew has joined us once again, with a post on the power of the imagination titled voiceacting in your head.
Chris adds his voice to the mix, or rather, adds the voice of several very talented voice actors to the mix as he writes about how remarkable it is to hear your words brought to life in My Words in Other Voices.
UPDATE
Thomas joins us over at Mile Zero with a few handy tips that’ll make voice acting in games much better in a post titled Vox in Socks.
This is the last day to add your thoughts about voice acting in video games! If you haven’t read through the current entries yet, please do so. I’m sure at least one of them will spark a response.
Tagged:Blogs of the Round Table, voice acting. | 5 Comments »
March 1st, 2008 at 9:59 am
Voice acting in videogames is an important audio element that deserves more attention. When companies hire professional voice actors to record the voice overs for dialogue and gameplay they do their fans and customers a great service.
Voice acting in videogames isn’t necessarily related to a direction to become more Hollywood, it’s an evolution of the gaming process, and will be even more important down the road as the gaming industry starts to fully recognize the significance and role of audio and how it affects the overall gaming experience.
Of course, some games are successful without voice acting (The Legend of Zelda, for example), but when examining the big picture, voice acting contributes in many ways to videogames and when done well, heightens the gaming experience.
I’d be interested to hear what comes of this discussion and be involved.
Thank you,
Stephanie Ciccarelli
Co-founder of Voices.com, the voice over marketplace
March 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Man, I wish the owner of http://www.audioatrocities.com/ could join this round table
Plenty to discuss on this, voiceacting is sometimes a very underused medium in videogames, although sometimes it’s entirely impossible to use it, hmm.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Wow, I’ve now bookmarked Voices.com, maybe that will come in handy later.
Anyway, Stephanie, I, for one, would love to read a blog post from your side of this as a part of this round table.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 am
Darn it Andrew… I finally followed that link and it’s way too funny.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I would agree that voice acting adds a lot to a game, that’s almost impossible to argue, but I think even more, BAD voice acting is a subtracts even more.
I’m getting memories here of trying to slog through Xenosaga, listening to cutscene after cutscene of mediocre delivery. Ugh…