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.
[Via Yahoo Game!]
So everyone thought that GTA IV would do well, but Guinness was keeping their eye on this one for some time now. Looks like Rockstar with GTA IV has spanked the previous record for the highest grossing video game in it’s first 24 hours on the market. This title previously was held by the MS juggernaut that is Halo 3, it also beat out Spider Man 3 and Harry Potter. GTA has already solidified it’s place in the record books and in gamer’s hearts already. Bravo to Rockstar.
Here is the official word:
The famed Grand Theft Auto series has made headlines yet again! As newly-released sales figures show, Grand Theft Auto IV has crushed the competition by selling 3.6 million units and earning $310 million in its first day of release, earning Guinness World Records™ for the Highest Grossing Video Game in 24 Hours and the Highest Revenue Generated by an Entertainment Product in 24 Hours. These records establish GTA IV as the most profitable entertainment release of all-time, far surpassing other video game, film and book releases. According to Guinness World Records™, this is how the game stacks up against the competition:
Fastest-selling video game in 24 hours: Halo 3 at $170 million
Fastest-selling theatrical movie in 24 hours: Spider-Man 3 at $60 million
Fastest-selling book in 24 hours: Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows at $220 million
Rockstar has thrown the ball back at Sony in terms of the freezing issues plaguing PS3 gamers with Grand Theft Auto IV. Apparently, Rockstar didn’t do any testing with the 60GB console and the extra hardware inside is what’s causing the issue. At least that’s what they told a forum poster over at the official PlayStation forums.
So let me get this straight. I bought a 60GB console so I could have complete backwards compatibility and now there’s issues caused by that SKU? I hope Sony gets this straightened out so these issues don’t ever come up again because of differences in internal parts.
We’ll keep you posted as we hear more from Sony and Rockstar regarding the issue.
Rockstar may have hidden a clue to upcoming expansions on GTA IV on their Social Club website. An astute reader over at GTAForums found the above ticket on the Story Gang portion of the site by dragging a few items around on the screen.
There are three options here. The first is that it means nothing, which is highly unlikely. The second is that we’ll be seeing a new game where Niko travels to San Andreas in the near future. The third is that San Andreas will be part of the DLC for the Xbox 360 version of the game. Since no one knows exactly what the Xbox 360 version of the game is getting, we’ll have to speculate. I personally think this will end up being a new game at retail. Sure, Microsoft floated Rockstar a ton of money, but creating an entire new story and all the textures and graphics for an entire city? You also will have to take file size into account, as this type of expansion would end up needing at least 4GB of space for all the graphics and gameplay elements.
Only time will tell, though, on what this really means. We’ll keep you posted.
GTA IV is still spinning in my console disc trays and already Rockstar is out looking for a location for GTA V. Could it be they want to get the ball rolling before EA comes in and just rehashes GTA IV? Here’s the list of choices going down at Rockstar:
- Beijing, China
- Paris, France
- Havana, Cuba
- Cancun, Mexico
- Venice, Italy
Not sure how I feel about Venice, although you could try and sink the city. I think the best choices would either be Havana, Cuba or Cancun, Mexico. Some decent debauchery already happens there, which could make a pretty good settings. Only time will tell, though.
[via Sarcastic Gamer]
Thanks to EHT for the tip!
In a recent study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission only 20 percent of teens under the age of 17 were able to buy M rated video games. Pretty impressive statistic to show all the enraged parents that blame video games for causing violence that only a small percentage of children are able to get their hands on the titles.
The Federal Trade Commission report studied kids’ success at buying tickets to R-rated movies or purchasing R-rated DVDs, mature CDs, and M-rated games. In every case, the FTC found, the success rate had dropped over every previous year it conducted its study.
But nowhere was the drop sharper than with video games.
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With a total of 19 stations to listen to as you drive around Liberty City in GTA 4 there is a ton of programming to listen to, from Reggae to Rock to Talk Radio. Some players even decide to turn off the music and listen to the sounds of Liberty City by themselves, the beautiful sounds of cab drivers cursing at you. My personal favorite station is San Juan Sounds, probably the first video game to include Reggaeton as a genre and even have Daddy Yankee as the DJ. What do you listen to as you mow down pedestrians on the way to the boardwalk and get some bowling in?
Here is the complete list of stations:
Electrochoc - Dance music
L.C.H.C. - Hardcore Rock
K109 The Studio - Disco music
IF99 - International funk
The Beat 102.7 - Hip - hop
Vladivostok FM - Russian music
The Classics 104.1 - Old school hip - hop
Fusion FM - Funk and Jazz
JNR 108.5 - Jazz
The Journey - Smooth music
Liberty Rock Radio 97.8 - Rock
Massive B Soundsystem 96.9 - Reggae
Radio Broker - Alternative Rock
San Juan Sounds - Reggaeton
Tuff Gong Radio - Reggae
The Vibe 98.8 - R&B
Integrity 2.0 - Talk radio
PLR - Talk radio
WKTT Talk Radio - Talk radio
With all the discussions revolving around the freezing and bugs in both versions of GTA IV within the last few days since the launch it brings to question the validity of anyone having a shot at the Rockstar contest from the Rockstar Social Club Site, “Key to the City”. The contest was to last a week and give players that finished 100% a prize, but this is almost impossible for any gamers being plagued with freezing issues. Will Rockstar decide to extend or cancel this exclusive contest or perhaps they will just re-schedule post a possible patch? What do you guys think Rockstar should?
We will keep you posted if we hear anything back from Rockstar.
There has been widespread complaints about a GTA IV freeze that is driving gamers batshit crazy. This has affected Matt who is on the PS3, yet my Xbox 360 version has had no problems. Apparently both versions have been reported as broken and Rockstar claims to be working their collective asses off to get things straight. Kotaku editor Brian Crecente recently phoned Rockstar and they insist that a patch could be ready “any minute or day now”. They have fixed the PS3 multiplayer freeze but the other issues remain. This is not the first time a Rockstar game has been glitched; Bully had similar issues. Hopefully this will all get straightened out soon. (Shakes fist).
The Daily Show brings the funny and this time had some fun with the release of GTA IV. They showed the chaos that was the launch of the game with unruly fans waiting in the rain with umbrellas, yes umbrellas. They even had Aasif Mandvi reporting directly from the streets of Liberty City, good times.
Hit the jump for another Daily Show clip that brings the funny using some GTA footage.
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