Rockstar vs. GTA Voice Actors: The Problems Over Pay, Lack of Royalties, or Other Issues? 

He said some great stuff in gta 3. I can't forget the time he said "...", this moment hit me deep.

Even though i started with GTA SA instead of gta 3,some of his lines are so deep

Yeah... The best voice actor indeed

Also huang lee

Voice of an angel i agree

This is actually funny af xD

Ahahaha of course he couldn't give a crap 😂

And afterwards someone behind me said "how come no one asks me to be in video games?" And I turned around and it was David Arquette. That was weird 🤣

@@nubbyknob Dude just entered a real life GTA cutscene by accident

People have this expectation we’re in the studio doing lines day after day. It’s like one day then maybe brings us back for another if need re takes. How the fuck he supposed to remember, especially if you’re in character I don’t remember half that shit I say.

he should of got paid more i agree with him

He even played the character Billy Handsome in Mob of the Dead on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. Rest in peace man.

I agree; I was 12 when VC was released and had a slight crush on Tommy Vercetti because Ray Liotta did a great job. He was a great dramatic actor in Goodfellas and comedic actor in Heartbreakers. RIP.

@@kimberlys8422 I was not even 1 year old when Vice City came out. yeah i was born in the 2002 year lol. but i played this game like it was no tomorrow when i was 7 and loved the acting Ray did for Tommy.

@@CWG8926 In a way I miss the old days where the voice actor was separate from the character in video games; in all honesty I didn't know who Ray Liotta was until VC and I was thinking, this guy has an attractive voice and I want to know his character's story.

or how about instead play to them so you could actually make money instead of losing out

Getting pissed at his fans for not liking a certain type of music? Yeah that would not be good PR. It’s a good thing you aren’t in a position like him.

@@Pepe-ts9ec i dont think he ever exploded like this on GTA fans before, so its safe to assume he did kept ignoring all those SA reference for a very long time, until recently where he might just saw the billionth "all you had to do is follow the damn train" joke directed at him worst time and it finally made him snap,

bocodamondo lmao i know i would not have lasted this long, thats for sure. Hell im tired of it and im not even him!

@@bocodamondo I think he popped off cause they put GTA sa on mobile and he dont get royalties despite GTA sa being sold on a new format yet again.

@Your Dad Avery Duggan

Kek

Lmfao, nice.

damn they really know how to hood a grudge lol

@@olliegoria Would also explain why rockstar had Avery's fate the way they did in Liberty City Stories. SPOILERS: Toni kills him and Donald Love eats his corpse.

@@chrisspeed270 All his dialogue there is reused from the base game tho?

@@chrisspeed270 Are you referring to the "Hey man" line he says in the Playboy mission? Cuz I think that's actually a trimmed version of a line from the base game for when you call someone. That said, I'm not playing through the entirety of either the base game or TLAD just to dispute this so I'll just concede on this.

Bullshit.

There's a line that actually references this but Lester says "nah, but he went quiet" which has historically been the kind of phrasing they use to denote voice actors not returning.

lester did have a line about how he did a few jobs and then dismissed the idea because "he went quiet" makes total sense..

Not gonna lie, I saw Ned Luke in a diabetes medication commercial, and all I saw was Michael recommending medication. But I guess that's what happens with popular titles, especially by Rockstar. It's like the actors who played memorable characters on really popular TV shows and movies. The cast of Seinfeld will forever be seen as their characters on that show (Jason Alexander even made fun of this on Curb Your Enthusiasm). And I remember Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) was on CNN once, and while they were on the air. one of the anchors for another show or something was surprised to see him and said "Hey! It's that guy from The Office" and Wilson sounded pretty annoyed at him and said "I have a name, you know!" To the general public, he is forever Dwight.

@@BadgerGoodger I suppose you're correct, I just kind of sympathize with them, someone who makes art, like Young Maylay whos been trying to make music for years, only to be known as CJ, would be motivation killing I'd imagine, but maybe I'm looking into it to much lol

Oh, for sure. I'd imagine Maylay feels a lot different about this compared to other voice actors. He isn't really a career voice actor, he's a rapper. He probably wants people to know him for his music and he wants to show what he can do, and while him voicing CJ definitely helped him in terms of building a bigger audience, everything he does now is drowned out in a sea of memes and quotes from 15 years ago. Do many of the people flooding his music videos and pictures with comments even listen to or care about his music?

@@BadgerGoodger Its a rough situation, but I wish him and every other actor the best, Glad to hear the Samuel L Jackson had no issues with Rockstar

@@TheMobJob This whole thing reminds me of Jani Lane of the band Warrant. You know Warrant as the band who made Cherry Pie, Jani hated that song, not only because it is dumb as shit, but also because he had to sing that song for over 20 years. He was only known for that song and that fact alone drove him to Suicide, multiple times, he died of alcohol poisoning in August 11, 2011

Also I believe the members or the composer of Sting worked on the original Spyro soundtrack, so Phil Collins likely seena lot of familiar faces in the studio that helped pull him into the videogames too, if they got into it he might have said "okay let me try". Also he strikes me as a guy that would have been into dragons and fantasy mythology as a kid so I'll bet Spyro was right up his alley.

I’m surprised because I thought he hated it due to rockstar being unable to rerelease vice city stories because of Phil Collins presence but i guess that’s just licensing, whereas I always thought it was cause Phil Collins said he didn’t want to be in it

A lot of PEOPLE seem to have a hard time grasping the fact that people working on lower-tier jobs are not managers or CEO's...

Half of rockstar fanbase were kids

@@ididntmeantoshootthatvietn5012 rated M for "Mature" but yet they're kids, but not the good kids, they're toxic kids (also, your name is funny)

@@Theoss-sl1fk lol hello đồng chí 😂

@@qq5847 xin chào

he has also stated that he knows nothing about video games and only did it for the paycheck

Saying Liotta is difficult, is like saying Babe Ruth was a bit rotund. They both delivered though.

Arsenal123 he was in mob of the dead and the bee movie. Those are the only other voice roles that I know he did

@@Zillasucks Goodfellas

@@Khadafi_1986 hi Luís, why have you never called me?

Yeah Yeah. Salvatore Leone was an underrated legendary character in GTA franchise. I play GTA Liberty City Stories again and again for him and the protagonist Toni Cipriani, just like how I play GTA Vice City again and again for Ray Liotta(RIP LEGEND my most favorite Hollywood actor).

Some actors are like that. Once they really click with what they are producing and get into the role, they are just a freight train and they absolutely kill it. Look at Dean Norris from breaking bad, he is a genuine joy to be around and he is like your bosterious uncle that shows up out of nowhere. He makes everyone laugh and have a good time, and he loves his fans and the time he spent on breaking bad.

@@HuskyGamersUNITE RIP to one of the great ones ❤️

Mr Leotardo was probably just a pleasant person to work with, a gentleman! Not a Hollywood diva. R.I.P Mr. Vincent, you propably were the most civil person to work on a GTA game.

Troy baker is so damn good that sometimes i hear him on JRPGs as well.

Default caucasian male main character

Is kinda like GTA 1, 2, 3 and LCS they had ther own writing soundtrack and not use only license songs make the soundtrack has is own vibe.

As much as I love Troy Baker and Nolan North, I'm starting to get really tired of hearing them in every game

That's actually the problem...because they were "unknown" actors...when we look at them...we see GTA characters they played instead of the actual person..which pisses someone

MOOOOOOOOTHERFUCKERS RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

To this day I agree. 4 has aged like a fine wine

​@@jamescario2292Its so good no matter how you look at it. Best Soundtrack, Great Voice Acting, Darkest and most realistic Story, Amazing Physics and so much more. Peak GTA

@@BLACKSTA361 while I do think 4 had great voice acting, I will say it’s hard to pick between 4 and 5 for the “best” voice acting. I do think 4 had a better and more meaningful story (to me) and niko felt really relatable.

Ngl i think his accent is wonky at times but he does a fine job, that game in general has some pretty good vaing

Ikr. Imagine watching your social media filled with "GTA 6" all day and night.

@@alterego9791 which sucks because on one side that just shows how great your performance was, but at the same time you're only known for that one piece of work

Feke if it wasn't for San Andreas no one would know who the fuck he is. He made it huge with that game, he just doesn't know what to do with it and how to handle it

some gta fans are just dumb

Verdarius Davis you may as well say some people are dumb cos everyone between the ages of 5 and 45 has played gta

Best actor of our generation.

"Ungh" "Heugh" "OH!"

And that line when he said ' '. That was beautiful

.@@TaylorBlack_6

He's been in every Rockstar game since GTA3

RosieJonesRules Union must have improved since 2008

@Youre Gonna Need a Bigger Boat sure looks n sounds like him 😛

@Youre Gonna Need a Bigger Boat he's in the credits. He did a cameo as a villain in the epilogue part 1 and gets killed by John. Micheal de santas actor also recorded audio for a cameo but they never had time to finish his side quest

@@leojay5076 Steven Ogg said himself, that isn't him.

@Youre Gonna Need a Bigger Boat imbd. Are you serious. More research pal

Tommy Bahama

You should see my collection of them! I have one that's actually similar to Tommy's, but in a dark blue instead of light blue/turquoise.

@@BadgerGoodger are they going to be featured in future videos? 😅

Well, this isn't a fashion channel, but maybe I'll find some way to show off my summertime Vercetti chic :P

Hey,i also wore hawaiin shirts because of tommy.

Bruh

lmao

Not funny. Bad dark humor joke.

@Scratchy Buddy, I'm just stating my opinion. You however look like you have a problem with it.

WTF???

I heard Phil Collins likes the GTA games, he also had a concert in vcs

He play games before so yeah he didn't have a problem with it

Why do you think there is a Phil Collins song in GTA V on the Los Santos Rock Radio

Yeah he was actually a major character in Vice City Stories and he didn't even feel out of place. He did a great job.

@@Deadsea_1993 he probably won't renew music licenses anymore lol

You didn’t ask him about his role as diaz? He reprised his role in vice city stories so i doubt he had any beef with rockstar.

@@marksantiago9841 I briefly mentioned his role as Diaz, and a couple of other roles where I recognized him. That’s about it.

@@princessmarlena1359 coolio!

Afghan Dan I think Michael would’ve done it if offered. He does every trash movie going

Chinese is a wonderful language

Grunt, grunt, gruuunt, grunt. Ran Fa Li says thank you for all your wonderful comments.

Funnily enough, he's voiced by Hunter Platin, who also provided voices for characters in Manhunt such as various gang members and Piggsy.

Nah, bro. Everybody know by fact that Claude's voice actor was the real deal and top of the GTA crew

Or calling him as the "character" from said game. It could be annoying, but some of them are handling it professionally.

@@lucaswibisono1316 that’s literally all celebrities who get called by there character .

I miss him alot...

"ughh" what a heart warming line

Which mission

they spun it to the interviewer that they were uncomfortable when it reality they probably politely laughed at the reference and moved on. It’s damage control so people feel okay about them underpaying their staff.

I don’t wanna sit and listen to an old man talking about how he recaptured Grove Street.

jbiehlable No.. he was trolling like the voice actors of Michael and Trevor also did before. Nice joke to say something like that and let the cousin earn even more hate for that😂

jbiehlable That’s true but Franklin’s voice actor made it even more worse for his cousin cause he said CJ might be in GTA 6 and then people trolled him even more.

jbiehlable Trying to reason” is this still English? I’m just bringing a fact that these voice actors are just trolling sometimes and/or making fun to not lose relevance.. but that doesn’t mean they are bad people.

jbiehlable Nah you don’t understand that they are mostly trolling.

@hacktor_92 Awesome comment.

preach man

YEA. these arse heads don't even play the game and say that San Andreas is the best cuz of the games. I'm a 14 year old. But I play and respect every GTA. Unfortunately I don't have GTA 5 or Online. Kinda lucky for not being toxic I guess. One day I asked my friend what is your favourite GTA and he said San Andreas. I replied "good thing that tenpenny died" and he says "sorry, I don't know the story" like bruh.

No one some actors hate the characters they’ve played. They don’t want to be known as a specific character for the rest of their life

Oh my gawd, what a Greek tragedy, people call him CJ, quick, book him some therapy!

I don't think many people realize this. I just read an article that referenced "GTA 5's Trevor" and claimed that Steven Ogg possibly knows something or "accidentally" revealed GTA 6's release date, just because he gave an answer of "Rockstar's games can take years to make, do the math" (this followed a very sarcastic response where he was saying that the game would be announced or released in May). What a load of clickbait garbage.

@@BadgerGoodger the internet for you

That's if they're allowed to talk about it, which obviously they ain't

Fancy seeing you here. Breaking all kinds of boundries aren't ya?

the boundary break guy

I was also surprised no one caught that it was a nice reference

Agreed, the Houser brothers sound kind of stuck-up to me

Definitely came off as p*ssies when he did that lol like seriously dude its a famous scene in a movie

Idk how he negotiated a contract to get 100k. But GTA was already an established entity in the videogame space by the time of GTA 4. Everyone knew it was going to sell as well as it did. There's no reason for anyone to get paid that kind of money with no other incentives on such a major title. Yea he may have shot himself in the foot. But again... Should have never been put in that position in the first place.

Hollick could have asked for royalties when negotiating his contract, and apparently he did, but at that time Rockstar could easily have picked some other no-name actor willing to work for less. Hollick was not in much of a position to negotiate, still received decent pay, gained a lot of name recognition (but IMDB suggests it did not really help him), and could probably have returned for more work if he had kept his demands in check. Btw, his voice acting was great, but the creative work was not his but Rockstar's.

He should've been mad at his agent, not Rockstar.

He was the shiniest of all shineboxes.

Hydraulic underwear

He was also in GTA2

Those two are not the same Claude.

@@BrunodeSouzaLino he is to me.

You missed his voice line which was “…”

It's a rumor but I wish both parties said something about it.

Thanks! I don't know if many people were aware of what Hollick said about Rockstar in that article. In a way, I feel like the headline screwed him in terms of the situation that occurred back then and how people perceived it. Most people just glance at headlines of articles, and when fans saw a headline where it appeared that he was complaining about his pay, people probably just took it as "Oh, he must hate Rockstar." And that belief stuck since 2008.

@@BadgerGoodger aka, no-one has heard about the saying, "don't judge a book by it's cover".

@@Duckingheights Caught with your pants down mission.

@@Duckingheights To be fair, those sites are horrible with ads

@@BadgerGoodger It probably because how it relates to the fans, most folks on GTAForums take on position with Michael Hollick

ThaYoungWolf rockstar’s end credits are 40 minute, that says how huge the team is

Truue

I think you have it all backwards. Just because you're a game dev, doesn't mean that you're entitled to the best acting talent for your silly game. Let alone, have the right to pay voice actors peanuts, just because "they're not the programmers." As a game dev, you also have a responsibility as to how to manage the vision of your game. After all, as a dev, you wrote the d@mn storyline and character arcs for your effing game. So, as a dev, if you don't want to deal with the headaches of big name $$$ actors, then don't hire big name $$$ actors or base your characters off their acting style. Or even better, have your game's character dialogue, entirely text based, if you don't want to deal with any actors, at all. Because these people are actors, that's their craft, and it's all they know, and they don't know sh#t about videogame development, and they don't have to. Acting is their job, not sitting behind a desk coding and getting yelled at by an incompetent project manager. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but respect the value of other people's craft. Because, if you plan to add voice actors to your game, then you're by default entering territory that you are not an expert in. How? You are trying to add an aspect to your game that you have no clue how it works. In this case, trying to implement something that required from the realm of acting. A realm that any programmer will have close to zero clue how it works. Again, if you don't want to pay $5 million for an acting role, then don't base your characters off a $5 million actor. This is already true in the movie industry. Why should it be any different in the videogame world when it comes to voice acting? Don't go about saying that actors need to be played less when it comes to video games, simply because it's the devs that are the backbone of the code and not the actors. Voice acting is a supplement to a videogame, not a requirement. A game can be fully functional without any voice acting. And at the end of the day, the backbone of the soul of the character is the actor, not the programmer. You can't code acting. Lastly, unless you already plan to make a trash game, then yeah, it will be easy to find anyone to do the voice acting and motion capture. Trash takes no effort to make. But if you plan to make a good game with a good story, then good voice and motion actors will quite hard to find if you don't have the $$$. No good actor works for peanuts on the dollar, kid.

The College Nerd rockstar gave the actors a contract, they signed it. They are not to complain

@@Frost-bs6xr By the looks, you have to clue how the acting industry works. Trust me, kid. Every actor that ever did a gig for R* is already complaining. You won't see any of them sign a second contract with rocky. Why? Because lowballing actors creates bad relationships. This is why rockstar games' storylines are becoming more and more stale and generic. No good actor is gonna work with these guys. This is why you will never see characters like Cj, Tommy Vercetti, Niko Bellic, and most of the Gtav protags ever make a comeback. The VAs for those characters have now ghosted Rockstar Games. This isn't 2005 where videogame voice acting was a niche.

No offense to Michael Hollick - but his voice acting made me cringe If you don't speak my language fluently - DON'T USE IT. I cringed every time I listened to him speak my language (even if it only a few lines) Literally anyone who is Croat/Serbian/Bosnian or whatever could have voiced instead of an American who did not even bother to learn a proper pronounciation of the words he was suppose to read

@@thegloriouspyrocheems2277 Sorry being in America I didn't know it wasn't fluent. Maybe the actor Vladimir Mashkov should've taken it more seriously? My years of dreaming before having the game made me think the voice actor would've been Jason Statham.

@@erincarson8998 Then ya may not like my suggestion of Nick Rekieta

@@erincarson8998 the fuck are you blabbing about?

The problem here is the ammount of work, if you bother taking a look at the list of voices of Niko in the game, there are over tens of thousands lines, not to mention the taxis, telephones and some cut dialogues, really its just surprising they only give him in such ammounts

He wanted to fuck a woman, he compromised. He played GTA instead.

@@PohTrain He Went from fuckin women To gaming

Nah he sounds like a total dick.

Sounds similar to The Postal Dude

Just like Hollywood

Duc An Nguyen Agreed, got to Appreciate High Quality vids.

Charlie Murphy as well.

@@crazychristopher1989 Who did Charlie Murphy play in GTA?

@@leejones8582 Jizzy B. of The Loco Syndicate in San Andreas

@@crazychristopher1989 Ah cool thanks for the info.

@@leejones8582 Anytime

Different people will have different reactions.

Well blame the morons they called “fans” who keep annoying him with repetitive questions that he clearly doesn’t have any answers for.

I liked the part when they all said “ “ sooo inspirational

@@applesafari3481 deserve an oscar

So did GTA Advance

Let’s not forget about claudes voice actor

I now their Chinese is very authentic

They wouldn't dare!

@Lord Skeletor I-I don't know. The kind that you eat?

@Lord Skeletor "No. I don't"

Yeah, but he was a SMART rat.

Nor will niko bellic

Aren’t those characters from a different universe anyway?

@@dl5fse990 Yep you are correct but what I wanted to say is as the voice actors of Tommy Vercitti & CJ are pissed off by Rockstar they won't ever return back to work with them lol.. So that's why I told that we may never see Tommy Vercitti & CJ.

@@EngineeredFemale Honestly I'm okay with that, they're in their own game, and I don't think we need more of them, especially after nearly 20 years

@@dl5fse990 No, the 3D and HD universe are shared. You just don't see a lot of crossovers between them. Protagonists usually don't return anyway because they had enough screen time.

Theo Stadick I think it was something soon cause I’m some gta 5 promotional vidoe with Shawn he sees young maylay on the street and he didn’t mine doing the cj voice and even said “I’m cj from grove street” so I think he just for tired of it recently

@@dankmansalley417 he said he would never work for rockstar again. He seems to be very open and proud of voicing CJ. He's posted CJ fan content to his Insta even. I think what set him off was so many people wanting him back in GTA 6

I respectably disagree. San Andreas memes are quality but I can imagine how annoying it must be for Young Mayley.

They don’t need to die but they need to learn to contain themselves, not sperg out with their shit everywhere.

You a comedian asshole ?

There YES and NOT for people are abusing always mention the same thing reminds how Tyler James Williams was cross with the fans always mention somenthing the was to do when Everybody Hates Chris.

Didn't somebody once bite Tyler James Williams? And that's the thing sometimes when a character becomes famous. Jerry Seinfeld said he'd often get asked "Where's Kramer" and during Q&A sessions people would always ask him to say "Hello, Newman." Meanwhile, Wayne Knight, the guy who played Newman, once got pulled over by a cop just so the cop could say "Hello, Newman" to him, and the same line has been bombarded at him thousands of times by now I'm sure. I'm not gonna say I feel sorry for any of the cast of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time (I love the show, but they're all pretty much financially set for the rest of their lives because of it), but I can imagine the lines and memes being thrown at them constantly getting pretty annoying. It takes a strong person to take that in stride, and even then some can break. Wayne Knight said in a documentary that he was in Vegas for a relative's funeral, and at a restaurant people kept yelling "Hello, Newman" and he admitted that he flipped out on one of them.

Bruh i found out that it was him 5 years ago

@@spoderman7455 yall deaf

Pickle rick

Damn, you live in a cave? How come you don't recognize him just by listening to his character voice?

Jk i already know that it would be him

I wouldn't doubt that Fonteno (as well as Luke & Ogg) got paid way more for their roles. They all seem very happy with Rockstar and haven't complained at all about anything. I was talking about this to one of my friends, and he suggested that there could possibly even be some jealousy at play, given how Fonteno probably not only made more up front, but over 6 years later he's STILL getting a ton of recognition (and I'm sure his appearances at conventions around the world are not for free, he's likely getting paid to attend each of those, so while he might not even be getting royalties he's still getting money off of it). Of course, that's just another suggestion that came up in the conversation. We can't read Maylay's mind and so far we've only got his posts and Fonteno's response to go on, so anything's possible.

I think the only reason they don't complain is because they learned with the experience of previous actors that if they complain, they don't get any more work.

That's what I don't get. I love that movie. I'd have found his reenactment humorous. Odd they were bothered by it.

Yeah but come on it's still kinda dicky

"i don't remember asking you a goddamn thang"