Writers in the Recording Studio - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 98

11
Writers in the Recording Studio
Haris Orkin
11.1 Does Good Voice Acting Even Matter?
Nintendo's Zelda games tell their stories with text. There's no voice acting other
than the occasional grunt, groan, or strange excited fairy laugh. Yet the stories are
still epic, emotional, and immersive. If those games are just fine without voices,
why do we need voice acting in games at all? Well, to be honest, we don't, just like
silent films don't need sound to be funny, moving, or exciting. But times change,
technology continues to march forward, and different kinds of games and stories
require different techniques in the telling. As games become more like films in the
complexity of their characters, they require a greater sophistication in the writing,
the dialog, and especially in the voice acting.
The days of drafting voice actors from the ranks of artists, programmers, and level
designers are long gone. To spend millions of dollars developing a game, creating a
story, crafting the artwork, perfecting the programming, and then spend too little
money and time on the voice acting is more than counterproductive; it's a disaster.
Yet, that is exactly what many developers have done over the years.
So why does it really matter? After all, we've all played popular best-selling games
with horrible voice acting. We grit our teeth and get through it because the game
itself is so much fun. But who knows how many more units they would have sold and
how many more people they would have reached if the acting and the story rivaled
the quality of the game play.
The best designers have always known the importance of good writing and voice
acting. Their mission is to create immersion. Games can achieve this in ways movies
can't even begin to dream of. With atmosphere, environment, sound, and most
importantly, interaction, the player becomes a participant, not a viewer. One way
to help this process along is to create strong, complex, and engaging characters. We
want the player to form an emotional attachment to the characters, just as they would
watching a movie or reading a novel.