The voice actor behind "PEGI 18" says he was paid just €200

nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksmod to Games@sh.itjust.works – 281 points –
The voice actor behind "PEGI 18" says he was paid just €200
eurogamer.net
39

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.

Being wrong isn't inherently funny though

It was clearly a joke based on wordplay, not someone trying to assert a fact. That's why I linked the Wiki article for Humor, because it seems like a lot of people don't understand it.

No, no we get it. It just isn’t very funny at all.

What is the wordplay?

I'll explain everything in this comments section.

Top level comment talks about how the voice actor gets paid 100 Euros per word.

Next commenter makes a dumb joke comment (no it's eight and teen) that probably sHoULd hAvE beEN wRiTTeN likE tHis to get the point across. That's the wordplay.

Then the next people to remark on that comment literally come in and act offended that someone didn't know the word 18, as the joke flew over their big dumb heads. (Linking the dictionary link for eighteen, "hurr durr being wrong isn't inherently funny"). I responded to the first guy with the Wiki link to Humour because wow, some of y'all need to lighten up and stop being pedantic twits.

Then after that some smug guy comes in and moves the goal post to "no we just didn't think the joke was funny."

Different cultures have different typical expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture.

I guess the joke came from a culture where being wrong is inherently funny.

Or was there another part of that page that you were referring to? Lol

I love when I try to explain things to people and provide information, they just cherry pick through the facts to only affirm their previous biases.

This is the sentence before your quote in the Wiki article:

The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational.

That's you.

Here's a picture since you don't seem to understand words:

Joke
You

Do you get it, since the joke went over your head.

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.

In all seriousness, I actually do like the PEGI12 one more. It's more poiniant in a weird way. I'm not even kidding.

Omg but have you heard the Australian R18 announcer?!?! SO POWERFUL and yet derivative of the groundbreaking ESRB M rating

I'd do it for half that amount. As many times as needed.

Damn, Didn't expect him to be this old.

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.

I suppose some people expect you should get royalties every time your voice appears anywhere so in their eyes he should be a millionaire from this gig or something ridiculous like that.

Definitely not ridiculous to think so, considering how many people recognize his voice. Just like one great book will be bought by many people and make its author rich, a great line recognized by many people should be remunated as such.

It's couple words that could have been said by anyone with nice voice and good diction. I'm probably not such person, but if you would pick 100 random people, you would get someone who could do a good job for this kind of quick announcement.

Most internal employees would even do this for free. One time payment of 200 eur seems fair.

It would be devaluating the value and the work of voice over artists.

I'm not even a well known voice over artist and I get paid way more for words that fewer people will hear. And I'm not even in an union.

He got shafted.

More than 300€ per minute?

Much more depending on the usage. The length of the audio counts in the rate but less than its use, how long and where it would be used.

For instance, a perpetuity buyout (one of the thing he should have negotiated), are very expensive. Audiobooks for instance are longer but cheaper. My rate is 350/per finished hour for audiobooks, which is pretty average in the field. While a 30 seconds national radio commercial for my country, I would ask between 350 and 500, and that's with a limited time they would be allowed to use/broadcast it.

Here is a rate sheet for standard usage, if you are interested: https://globalvoiceacademy.com/gvaa-rate-guide-2/

I'm so excited, I don't get to talk about this aspect of my job often :)) Thank you for your interest so far!

It's ok for the day's work but the usage rights seem to go on forever and that should be compensated as well

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.

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.