Everyone by now is familiar with the voice of Niko Belic, GTA IV’s main character. What you may not be aware of is that the voice actor that is provided the voice for Niko, which is almost iconic now, only got paid $100,000 for the job and does not see a residual penny after that.
In a New York Times article, Hollick revealed that he earned about $100,000 for 15 months of work recording dialogue for his role as GTA IV’s protagonist. The game, however, has gone on to rake in over $600 million in a mere two weeks.
Hollick does not hold a grudge against Rockstar, but instead says the following:
I don’t blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games.
A weak union is to blame for this voice actor and possibly many others getting left out in the cold while the GTA IV money train and others like it roll on by. Some are speculating that this could lead to a possible strike of voice actors against Hollywood, if you think about it the voices in a video game are pivotal to it’s success, just imagine GTA IV without Roman or Niko.
5 Comments
Write a Comment»I honestly don’t understand why his management didn’t try and secure a Royalty deal,maybe they wanted too much?
Yeah quite surprised when I read this. I cant believe he didnt even make money off the commercials they used his voice in, they just cut it from what he recorded from the game.
Worst. Agent. Ever.
No video game actors get royalties. It’s the way of the industry. I’m sure that’ll change in the near future, but sadly it’s the way of the world right now
At least he’s becoming “prominent” and he may score more voice acting rolls. It still really sucks that he wasn’t paid more when in fact Rockstar knew GTA4 would make history with this much hype.