system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Video game voice actors should not be paid based on game performance

I didn't want to stuff the title full of qualifiers, so let me put it here: **I only hold this opinion because of the current Video Game industry, where artists, developers, and designers are not paid based on performance.**

The facts:

* You cannot have a game without code. Duh. Games are code.
* Games without good art assets are harder to become immersed in, and are harder to grab audience with a screenshot.
* Any game has inherent rules. For a game to be fun, the rules must be fun, so you need game designers.
* Games existed without voice actors.
* There are games without voice actors.
* No-one else is being paid more if the game does better (AFAIK).

My opinions:

* If anyone buys a game for the voice acting, they are in the minority.
* Voice acting is not as important as programming, design, or art.
* The strike reeks of elitism- "I'm an actor, and actors should be paid *more*, like in actor-driven industries such as television or film."
* A universal strike would be more useful- pay everyone based on how well the game does.
gpt
I don't know if you're aware of this fact and objecting to it, or if you're unaware and this may change your view, but: actors being paid as a portion of the revenues of their performance is part of the regulations of SAG-AFTRA (The Screen Actor's Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Actors) - a union that most professional actors belong to. 

Actors are paid differently than (for instance) programmers because actors have a union and a condition of their union membership is that they may not perform in any capacity that does not pay according to union standards: one of which is a potion of the finished product's revenue. For that same reason, SAG-AFTRA members may not appear in (for instance) community theater productions in which the actors are not paid: if they do, they risk losing their union membership. 

SAG-AFTRA membership is *tremendously* valuable to actors, such that an actor will pass on a single, lucrative job if it would jeopardize his union status. Since most television, film, and professional theater productions hire *only* union actors, VO actors can't afford to give up their union status by taking jobs that don't pay according to SAG-AFTRA standards. 

You may object to SAG-AFTRA's pay standards, but the fact remains that a.) most VO actors are members of the union, and b.) to use those actors, game studios must pay according to union standards. The best VO actors are all union members, and the games industry's refusal to cooperate with union standards is already forcing the union to consider a strike and boycott of video game voice acting. 

VO acting is *acting*, and acting requires skill and professionalism. If the games industry wants to use professional actors, it must pay according to the standards of professional acting.