The voice actor behind "PEGI 18" says he was paid just €200
You may not know his name, but Richard Wells is one of the most-heard voices in video games - and now he's blowing up o…
That's fair, it's €100 per word.
Eight and teen make it 3
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/eighteen
It's Eighteen, not Eight Teen.
His PEGI 18 work is great, but his PEGI 12 work is overlooked. I think it's where he really hit his stride in that role.
His PEGI-18 work was a little too new wave for my taste. But when PEGI-12 came out in '03, I think he really came into his own, commercially and artistically. The whole message has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the message a big boost. He's been compared to ESRB, but I think PEGI has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humour.
I can hear it when I read it
Damn PEGI
Damn, Didn't expect him to be this old.
He really put Pegi17 out of business
dude did it for the exposure
Sorry but is he complaining? It's two fucking words. It took more effort to type this comment than say the two words.
The quote of him in the article doesn't sound like it's a complaint. I think only the headline is pushing that angle. 200 pounds sounds pretty reasonable, given it has to be worth his time to get to the recording, listen to any feedback/change requests, etc.
I'd be interested what people think he should be paid. Based on the downvotes on your comment, people say 200€ is too low? It was in 2009, so inflation adjusted it's 300€. And the article has the complete raw recording, it took him less than a minute.
Seems fair both ways to me. That doesn't seem an unreasonable amount of pay for a day's work, as even if the 'final product' is only a minute, it will still have stopped him from doing much other work that day. Contrariwise, if he'd been asking for any more, the client would have been able to find someone else to do it just as well at the original price, since the requirement is basically 'clearly spoken'. Wouldn't make sense to get Ian McKellen in to interpret this bit of acting work.
It's ok for the day's work but the usage rights seem to go on forever and that should be compensated as well
The rights for usage should be much much higher. Just like recording Siri's voice and an e-learning project might have taken the same time but the usage and how many people are going to hear the voice is widely different.
Furthermore, "it only took him a minute" is akin to say to a graphic designer why pay him so much for a website that took him less than a day to do: it takes years, practice, and skill to be able to do in only a minute.
If anything, considering that a lot of people seems to recognize his voice, he should have been able to retire on this simple few words.
Just like one good jingle or one hit wonder can make their author very rich.