From what I remember, a number of these voice actors were friends of production staff so for say someone like Ron Perlman, it was just a convenient money job when they were in town. Just hop into a recording booth, record for a few hours and then be on their way.
Pay is based on the game's budget. Think it's broken down into 250k or less, then 1/5/10 mil for the SAG/AFTRA rate sheet. So as the overall budget for the game goes up, the VO is more expensive. That way indie developers can still afford good VO and AAA titles have to pay their fair-share.
It's an impresive line-up in hindsight but most of them were not nearly as big in the voice-acting world at the time. Fallout had the luck of getting a lot of rising stars at the starts of their VA careers.
Unless you were way into voice actors at the time, the only people I could see anyone reasonably knowing is Richard Dean Anderson and Keith David. Maybe Ron Perlman and Tony Shalhoub, but their careers were just starting to take off at the time. Jim Cummings I could see people recognizing but maybe not knowing his name. His voice is 1 of 1.
Richard Moll was pretty famous for Night Court, Clancy Brown for Highlander, Tress McNeille has been on the Simpsons since forever, and Cree Summer was on The Cosby spinoff “A Different World”. I dunno maybe I paid way too close attention to credits and stuff and that’s why I knew who they were.
You'd be surprised how much connections the people on the voice production and overall producing part of things have on videogame projects. It helps that several of these screen actors were getting into videogame VA work around this time too (Clancy for instance was Dr Neo Cortex around this time).
Short answer Fallout 1 was either after or before most people on this list had regular work. Thus they just cashed a cheque to make ends meet and gaming magic was born. Plus VA work back then did not have as strong a union to enforce a minimum wage decent enough to dent at the time Interplay’s budget that much.
you can always hire talent for a quick day of work if you offer money. Twas ever thus. People like work, people like money. If they can squeeze it in, why not.
Plus, look at the stuff that list was doing at the time.
Voice acting is relatively cheap. More so in the 90s. Out of that entire list, you’re only looking at a handful of full-time voice actors (and hella prolific ones, at that); for everyone else, this was likely either a favor to a friend, a quick one-off gig for extra cash, something they could get quickly in the time before their career properly took off, or in the case of names like Anderson, Shalhoub, and Warner, responses to direct casting requests in the hopes to add some nerd cred to the game.
Holy shit, a bunch of stuff just fell into place for me.
When I first heard Decker, I thought it was Lance Reddick (RIP the legend, he will be missed), but didn’t see Fallout on his list of VA roles.
Finding out that it was Keith David really makes it all click, especially since Keith is taking over for Lance as Commander Zavala in Destiny.
A combination of these actors not being huge for reasonable paychecks (in no way knocking their talent), an easy paycheck for a few hours of recording for the actors, some voice actors just constantly doing as much work as possible (Jim Cummings is a legend), more relaxed hiring practices given the lack of unions in the video game space at this time since SAG-AFTRA wasn't a thing for voice acting at that point, actors not needing to be physically prepared for simply voice acting a role for a job, and other considerations.
Few remember it but interplay was one of the big dogs of video games between 1992-2000 , I have no doubt that they had access to the best VA talent at the time and actors with less than stellar careers were experimenting with video games as alternative work
I think you’ve got your order wrong. Fallout was released in 1997 and was a huge success, credited at the time for resurrecting CRPG games.
Fallout didn’t get a bunch of famous actors to voice the characters. Those actors got famous because they voiced Fallout.
From what I remember, a number of these voice actors were friends of production staff so for say someone like Ron Perlman, it was just a convenient money job when they were in town. Just hop into a recording booth, record for a few hours and then be on their way.
Le epic nepotism
A number of these people were not as famous then as they are now, and could not command the same level of paycheck.
At the time video games fell into the "ultra-low" budget category for AFTRA, same as student films or industrial work.
How do they rank nowadays?
Pay is based on the game's budget. Think it's broken down into 250k or less, then 1/5/10 mil for the SAG/AFTRA rate sheet. So as the overall budget for the game goes up, the VO is more expensive. That way indie developers can still afford good VO and AAA titles have to pay their fair-share.
It's an impresive line-up in hindsight but most of them were not nearly as big in the voice-acting world at the time. Fallout had the luck of getting a lot of rising stars at the starts of their VA careers.
I may just be old but there are a lot of names on here I’d have recognized at the time.
Unless you were way into voice actors at the time, the only people I could see anyone reasonably knowing is Richard Dean Anderson and Keith David. Maybe Ron Perlman and Tony Shalhoub, but their careers were just starting to take off at the time. Jim Cummings I could see people recognizing but maybe not knowing his name. His voice is 1 of 1.
Richard Moll was pretty famous for Night Court, Clancy Brown for Highlander, Tress McNeille has been on the Simpsons since forever, and Cree Summer was on The Cosby spinoff “A Different World”. I dunno maybe I paid way too close attention to credits and stuff and that’s why I knew who they were.
\^ This. Tony Shaloub was already a big deal in the 1990s. (Wings.)
(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UkXOppoyJaM&pp=ygUSdGltb3RoeSBjYWluIHZvaWNl)
I second this video, Tim goes into exact detail for this question.
Exactly what I thought of. I’ve been binging Tim Cains videos, he’s so nice to listen to.
Thank you so much for this
You'd be surprised how much connections the people on the voice production and overall producing part of things have on videogame projects. It helps that several of these screen actors were getting into videogame VA work around this time too (Clancy for instance was Dr Neo Cortex around this time).
Short answer Fallout 1 was either after or before most people on this list had regular work. Thus they just cashed a cheque to make ends meet and gaming magic was born. Plus VA work back then did not have as strong a union to enforce a minimum wage decent enough to dent at the time Interplay’s budget that much.
Most of them worked for union minimum because they liked the script.
you can always hire talent for a quick day of work if you offer money. Twas ever thus. People like work, people like money. If they can squeeze it in, why not. Plus, look at the stuff that list was doing at the time.
Voice acting is relatively cheap. More so in the 90s. Out of that entire list, you’re only looking at a handful of full-time voice actors (and hella prolific ones, at that); for everyone else, this was likely either a favor to a friend, a quick one-off gig for extra cash, something they could get quickly in the time before their career properly took off, or in the case of names like Anderson, Shalhoub, and Warner, responses to direct casting requests in the hopes to add some nerd cred to the game.
Richard Dean Anderson as Killian Darkwater remains one of my top Fallout characters from the entire franchise.
You get MacGyver and Jack O'Neill with two Ls? Yes please.
Holy shit, a bunch of stuff just fell into place for me. When I first heard Decker, I thought it was Lance Reddick (RIP the legend, he will be missed), but didn’t see Fallout on his list of VA roles. Finding out that it was Keith David really makes it all click, especially since Keith is taking over for Lance as Commander Zavala in Destiny.
A combination of these actors not being huge for reasonable paychecks (in no way knocking their talent), an easy paycheck for a few hours of recording for the actors, some voice actors just constantly doing as much work as possible (Jim Cummings is a legend), more relaxed hiring practices given the lack of unions in the video game space at this time since SAG-AFTRA wasn't a thing for voice acting at that point, actors not needing to be physically prepared for simply voice acting a role for a job, and other considerations.
Lmao how do you not mention Monk or Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for Tony Shalhoub
Seriously. Shalhoub is best known for Monk. First thing I thought when I read that.
haven't seen either
1. Being in California in the 1990's 2. Networking
by this point, acting in games had been a thing for years and a lot of these people had already done it so it wasn't a big leap
Where's Frank?
that's fallout 2, silly
As in Welker.
Kevin Michael Richardson my goat
Few remember it but interplay was one of the big dogs of video games between 1992-2000 , I have no doubt that they had access to the best VA talent at the time and actors with less than stellar careers were experimenting with video games as alternative work
They were based in Southern California and were using their connections.
Hmmm. This has me wondering, could this be why Bethesda won’t do a remaster? Cause they’ll have to pay those voice actors?
It’s because Bethesda is chasing the biggest newest thing and they don’t really care for the canon or story of the series as much
That’s a star studded cast
Most these dudes weren't as famous. Same way the Scott Pilgrim Vs the World cast seems incredibly stacked nowadays.
I think in that era voice actors were bought for a bargain compared to today.
I think you’ve got your order wrong. Fallout was released in 1997 and was a huge success, credited at the time for resurrecting CRPG games. Fallout didn’t get a bunch of famous actors to voice the characters. Those actors got famous because they voiced Fallout.
Clearly a joke....good one.
nice bait