The Star of Grand Theft Auto IV finds a Somewhat Small Paycheck

[#98QBKiller]

Something for the GTA junkies :

A Video Game Star and His Less-Than-Stellar Pay

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/arts/television/21gta.html?ref=technology#

Michael Hollick never thought his big break would come in a video game.

All those years when he was struggling to get by as an aspiring actor — tending bar, working in a bagel shop in Morningside Heights, spraying perfume at Bloomingdale’s — he was aiming for Broadway and prime time. As he moved from regional theater to soap operas, middling musicals and “Law & Order,” he remained just another good-looking guy hoping for an audition.

His face still isn’t famous, but Mr. Hollick’s voice and gait have moved into the pop culture firmament recently as those of Niko Bellic, the sardonic, textured Balkan criminal at the heart of Grand Theft Auto IV, the acclaimed gangster fantasy that has become the fastest-selling game to date. Produced by Rockstar Games and its corporate parent, Take-Two Interactive Software, the game has generated at least $600 million in sales over the last three weeks.

Yet even as “Saturday Night Live” has spoofed the Niko character, even as Mr. Hollick’s voice has been heard in tens of millions of homes in advertisements broadcast during “American Idol” and the N.B.A. playoffs, even as fans have flocked to his MySpace page, his triumph has been bittersweet.

That’s because Mr. Hollick was paid only about $100,000 over roughly 15 months between late 2006 and early this year for all of his voice acting and motion-capture work on the game, with zero royalties or residuals in sight, he said.

Had this been a television program, a film, an album, a radio show or virtually any other sort of traditional recorded performance, Mr. Hollick and the other actors in the game would have made millions by now. As it stands, they get nothing beyond the standard Screen Actors Guild day rate they were originally paid.

That is because the contracts between the actors’ union and the entertainment industry make little or no provision for electronic media like video games and the Internet. It is a discrepancy that is expected to dominate negotiations between Hollywood and the guild this summer, with many predicting an actors’ strike to parallel the writers’ strike last year, which revolved around similar issues.

“Obviously I’m incredibly thankful to Rockstar for the opportunity to be in this game when I was just a nobody, an unknown quantity,” Mr. Hollick, 35, said last week over dinner in Willamsburg, Brooklyn, shortly after performing in the aerial theater show “Fuerzabruta” in Union Square. “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. Yes, the technology is important, but it’s the human performances within them that people really connect to, and I hope actors will get more respect for the work they do within those technologies.”

Rockstar declined to comment for this article, but it is an issue that has been hanging over the video game industry for years. On the one hand, through both creative and technical ambition, game makers are infusing their wares with more realistic characters and stories than ever. On the other hand, the $18 billion United States game industry has steadfastly refused to pay royalties to voice and motion-capture body actors along the lines of other entertainment media.

To the actors it is a simple issue of equity: equal pay for equal work, regardless of the medium.

“For instance, our contracts say nothing about the use of voices for promotional purposes over the Internet,” Mr. Hollick said. “The first G.T.A. IV trailer generated something like 40 million hits online, and that’s my voice all over it, and I get nothing. If that were a radio spot, I would have. Same thing for the TV ads. I recorded those lines for the game, but now they’re all over television. It’s another gray area.”

One of the big differences between games and traditional media is that while a film, play or TV show is usually marketed around a few well-known stars, games almost never highlight the people behind the digital characters, and almost no one buys a game based on which actors are in it.

“What drives video games is not Tracy and Hepburn; what drives it is the conception of the creative director,” said Ezra J. Doner, a former Hollywood executive who represents entertainment companies as a lawyer at Herrick, Feinstein in Manhattan, N.Y. “The actor whose appearance or voice is used is more analogous to a session music for a band. The session musicians don’t get residuals on the sales of the CD. They get paid a session fee. It’s not like the star quality of Tom Cruise that’s getting people to buy that video game.”

Mr. Hollick said he “asked about residuals when we negotiated, but I was told that was not a possibility.”

Ryan Johnston, the 29-year-old actor behind the Irish hood Patrick McReary, one of the main supporting characters in the game, said he believed it was just a matter of time before actors’ financial participation in games caught up with their popularity. He said the general guild-negotiated rate for actors is around $730 a day. Mr. Hollick said he had been paid about 50 percent more than the standard rate, or about $1,050 a day. A spokeswoman for the union said this week that no one was available to discuss the issue.

“What we’re seeing is a basic shift in the way that people seek their entertainment,” Mr. Johnston said. “People want their entertainment to be convenient. They want it in their home or in their iPod for the train ride, which is a lot different than the old mode, where I had to spend hundreds of dollars to see a Broadway play or pay $12 to sit in a crowded movie theater where I can’t even pause or go to the bathroom. And games are the first entertainment product that has taken full advantage of that shift.”

The game companies that make millions in royalties appear reluctant to share. Among their executives, one real fear is that if they start paying royalties to a handful of actors, they will soon face similar demands from the legions of artists, designers, audio producers, musicians, programmers and other people who work for years to make a top-end game. If the actor doing a police officer’s voice-over gets royalties, the argument goes, why not the artist who designed his face, or the artificial-intelligence programmer who designed how he chases the bad guys?

Mr. Doner, the lawyer, said the situation fit into the general food chain of the media business. “When it comes to video games, the actors are being paid for their work for that initial use, and what they get paid is what they get paid,” he said. “If they can negotiate a big fee for themselves, great. If not, well, that’s too bad. So long as it’s the medium for which they were hired, the logic of the industry has always been that that you get paid for the work that you do.”

Compensation is a particularly delicate issue for Rockstar, which has positioned itself as a creatively independent voice amid what the company construes as the staid mainstream game industry. Rockstar markets itself as a hip entertainment company along the lines of a record label or movie studio, rather than as a mere game publisher, and that carefully cultivated image could suffer in any dispute with actors or other artists.

For Mr. Hollick, Niko has still been the role of a lifetime. A native of the eastern shores of Maryland, Mr. Hollick developed a talent for dialects as a theater student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he said. In the game Niko is a war-scarred Serbian who has worked as a human trafficker before landing in New York (known in the game as Liberty City). Mr. Hollick’s masterly performance as the voice and body of Niko appears to stem both from Mr. Hollick’s rich conception of the character as well as from a stellar script.

“Developing Niko, the dry sense of humor, as the story begins, he’s this really hard guy with this really difficult background, but what gives it depth is that there is this naïveté as well,” Mr. Hollick said. “He comes to the big city and he’s not on firm ground. He’s not sure where he stands. So there is a lot to work with. And as he becomes more confident, the sense of humor comes out. The screenwriters and directors were really hip to that and really did a great job of making the character three-dimensional.”

Of course, because this is a video game, in addition to thousands of lines of dialogue, there were the more, shall we say, atmospheric effects.

“So we would have the 50 pages of screaming, 10 pages of being shot, 10 pages of being thrown off a roof, 20 pages of being burnt alive, just screaming,” he said. “The ones being burnt alive were the best. And I’d just be like: ‘Bring me more hot tea and honey and lemon. Earl Grey.’ “

[artmonkforHOF]

That’s because Mr. Hollick was paid only about $100,000 over roughly 15 months between late 2006 and early this year for all of his voice acting and motion-capture work on the game, with zero royalties or residuals in sight, he said.

I think like most people who read this thread, I lost sympathy for they guy after reading that sentence. Pro rate that its $80k/year. Not too shabby for talking into a microphone and having some white ping pong balls stuck to your clothes and have some one tape you walking around.

[PleaseBlitz]

I think like most people who read this thread, I lost sympathy for they guy after reading that sentence. Pro rate that its $80k/year. Not too shabby for talking into a microphone and having some white ping pong balls stuck to your clothes and have some one tape you walking around.

Agreed.

[Stophovr6]

I got to the part where he made 100k in 15 months. I'm supposed to feel bad for this guy? Bite me.

[Corcaigh]

What I'm amazed about is what they well-known pay actors for voice-overs in movies and TV shows.

If I go to see an animated movie I don't care who is doing the voices.

For example, the folks doing the Simpsons make millions. Would I really care if Homer's voice changed a little as they replaced the 'actor' doing his voice? Nope.

There is no shortage of unemployed actors who could do as good a job.

[Smoot Point Really]

I think like most people who read this thread, I lost sympathy for they guy after reading that sentence. Pro rate that its $80k/year. Not too shabby for talking into a microphone and having some white ping pong balls stuck to your clothes and have some one tape you walking around.

Since you are going to Pro-rate it, that's $40/hour with 2 weeks vacation. I pay the guy to mow my lawn more than that!

[Stophovr6]

Since you are going to Pro-rate it, that's $40/hour with 2 weeks vacation. I pay the guy to mow my lawn more than that!

You pay a guy more than 40 dollars an hour to mow your lawn?

[Disco Dave]

Yeah I'm really going to feel bad for someone that makes $100,000 for providing a voice and motion capture on a video game.

[DGreenistheBest]

Since you are going to Pro-rate it, that's $40/hour with 2 weeks vacation. I pay the guy to mow my lawn more than that!

So I'm guessing this guy was the only one who could prove he was a naturalized citizen?

[RedlightG20]

I think you guys are missing the point.

It's not about how much he gets paid for doing the voices and "acting" for the motion sensors.

It's that his voice is plastered all over the world: in peoples homes, on the radio, on the tv, on the internet. His voice is being used for a widespread marketing campaign that reaches millions of people, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits in less than a month, and in the grand scheme of things, he's seeing very few royalties for his work.

[Corcaigh]

I think you guys are missing the point.

It's not about how much he gets paid for doing the voices and "acting" for the motion sensors.

It's that his voice is plastered all over the world: in peoples homes, on the radio, on the tv, on the internet. His voice is being used for a widespread marketing campaign that reaches millions of people, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits in less than a month, and in the grand scheme of things, he's seeing very few royalties for his work.

I think we do get it. Famous actors are paid an obscene amount of money for what they do. If this guy wants to be rehired and the company wants to make use of his now famous voice then he'll probably have a pay day, if his agent is smart.

Do you think the unknown actors whose image appears in a worldwide Pepsi commercial, for example, get paid any better?

[Stophovr6]

I think you guys are missing the point.

It's not about how much he gets paid for doing the voices and "acting" for the motion sensors.

It's that his voice is plastered all over the world: in peoples homes, on the radio, on the tv, on the internet. His voice is being used for a widespread marketing campaign that reaches millions of people, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits in less than a month, and in the grand scheme of things, he's seeing very few royalties for his work.

Maybe he should've worked a better contract. He wasn't forced to make a crap load of money to speak into a microphone.:applause:

[Heidenreich]

Since you are going to Pro-rate it, that's $40/hour with 2 weeks vacation. I pay the guy to mow my lawn more than that!

Do you live on a golf course????

[RedlightG20]

I think we do get it. Famous actors are paid an obscene amount of money for what they do. If this guy wants to be rehired and the company wants to make use of his now famous voice then he'll probably have a pay day, if his agent is smart.

Do you think the unknown actors whose image appears in a worldwide Pepsi commercial, for example, get paid any better?

How is this the same? Let's say in one Pepsi commercial you have LeBron James drinking from a can. He will probably get a good chunk of money up front when he signs a contract, then will get paid in royalties for every time his commercial airs. So yeah, he'll get paid much more money than an unknown person like you or me, otherwise it'll be a waste of time for him.

In this case of GTA, it says in the article there are really no rules as far as contracts between actors and game developers. This guy Hollick says his voice and character were in a GTA ad that generated over 40 million hits, and he received nothing for it. For the face of perhaps the biggest video game of all time, he's getting paid next to nothing.

[Stophovr6]

How is this the same? Let's say in one Pepsi commercial you have LeBron James drinking from a can. He will probably get a good chunk of money up front when he signs a contract, then will get paid in royalties for every time his commercial airs. So yeah, he'll get paid much more money than an unknown person like you or me, otherwise it'll be a waste of time for him.

In this case of GTA, it says in the article there are really no rules as far as contracts between actors and game developers. This guy Hollick says his voice and character were in a GTA ad that generated over 40 million hits, and he received nothing for it. For the face of perhaps the biggest video game of all time, he's getting paid next to nothing.

He's an actor that's getting face time, and tons of free publicity. Sorry, but I won't be losing any sleep over this one.

[Corcaigh]

How is this the same? Let's say in one Pepsi commercial you have LeBron James drinking from a can.

LeBron isn't an actor, but he's hardly an unknown.

I understand that there's a huge disparity between the obscene money that a movie actor makes andthei six figure some this guy got paid.

[RedlightG20]

He's an actor that's getting face time, and tons of free publicity. Sorry, but I won't be losing any sleep over this one.

I agree, he did make good money for the 18 months or whatever he worked! I'm not denying that. And there's no doubt he could cash in big time on this in the future, say if he signs on for GTA5 and does his contract differently so he gets royalties for games sold and the marketing campaign.

But what if he stays as a nobody? What if Rockstar wants someone else for GTA5? What if he's a bad actor and couldn't get work in Hollywood? If it were me, I'd be pissed that I didn't cash in on this opportunity. An incredible amount of face time doesn't mean getting paid.

[Duckus]

Since you are going to Pro-rate it, that's $40/hour with 2 weeks vacation. to mow your lawn more than that!

You complain that the government wastes your hard earned money and then you pay someone 40 an hr, and give vacation time, for a guy to mow your lawn!

But in all seriousness, there is probably a 12 year old in the neighborhood who will do it for $10.

[#98QBKiller]

But in all seriousness, there is probably a 12 year old in the neighborhood who will do it for $10.

I was about to say the same thing.

And just for the record, I didn't post this so anyone could feel sorry for the guy... just sharing.

[Stophovr6]

I agree, he did make good money for the 18 months or whatever he worked! I'm not denying that. And there's no doubt he could cash in big time on this in the future, say if he signs on for GTA5 and does his contract differently so he gets royalties for games sold and the marketing campaign.

But what if he stays as a nobody? What if Rockstar wants someone else for GTA5? What if he's a bad actor and couldn't get work in Hollywood? If it were me, I'd be pissed that I didn't cash in on this opportunity. An incredible amount of face time doesn't mean getting paid.

I still contend that he got paid plenty for what he did. HE isn't the reason GTA4 is so popular. He is only a small part of it. Just because well known actors get overpaid for voice over work, doesn't mean he should be pissed. He did well for who he is. He should be proud and move in with life.

[terpfan]

You people are cold. He obviously deserves some kind of royalties for this...

[[[ghost]]]

I think like most people who read this thread, I lost sympathy for they guy after reading that sentence. Pro rate that its $80k/year. Not too shabby for talking into a microphone and having some white ping pong balls stuck to your clothes and have some one tape you walking around.

I don't think he's complaining about being paid below what he needs, but what he ought to make compared to others in the industry.

I know I'd be upset if I was making $100,000 when I ought to be making at least $500,000.

[PleaseBlitz]

]']I don't think he's complaining about being paid below what he needs' date=' but what he ought to make compared to others in the industry.

I know I'd be upset if I was making $100,000 when I ought to be making at least $500,000.[/quote']

Rockstar could have gotten 100 different people to do that job. This guy isnt anything special and therefore had no leverage.

[Smoot Point Really]

So I'm guessing this guy was the only one who could prove he was a naturalized citizen?

You totally hit the nail on the head there! It's a 1/3rd of an acre... Actually, he probably does it in about 30 minutes and I think I pay him $50. Am I getting ripped off? His gas, his machine, his travel time... I dunno.

[Smoot Point Really]

Do you live on a golf course????

I live in a golf community... Is that why?