‘Devs see voice actors as disposable,’ criticises dumped Uncharted performer

Uncharted 2 performer Steve Valentine has criticised the apparent perception of voice actors as ‘interchangeable’ by developers.

Valentine voiced antagonist Harry Flynn in the 2009 PS3 exclusive, a character who is set to reappear in the multiplayer mode of this year’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.

However, Valentine won’t be returning alongside the character. He claimed that developer Naughty Dog didn’t ask him to reprise the role, and lambasted what he believes is poor treatment of actors by studios.

“It would be easy to discuss the realities of the voice over business, and point fingers and complain,” he tweeted (via DualShockers). “But it doesn’t get actors anywhere.

“It takes a lot of skilled people to put a project together. I respect every single one of them. Sadly it’s not reciprocal.

“Actors have a history of being offered ‘take it or leave its’. And as much as I loved the work, I had to ‘leave it’.

“It really comes down to how much fans care about who is in their games. If they buy and play no matter what, we’ll always be interchangeable.”

Naughty Dog’s director of comms Arne Meyer responded to Valentine’s comments via the PlayStation forums.

“I don’t want to turn this into a he-said, she-said, but we did reach out via his representation as we always do with all our actors,” he said. “And the typical contract negotiations were had.

“In this case, we made the best effort to make it work, but ultimately we couldn’t strike a deal that both sides were satisfied with. Sometimes that happens in this industry, among many others.

“We did our part to make it work and it didn’t work out when it should have – when we were casting the roles and negotiating agreements. Unfortunately, the opportunity had long passed us by, even back in December, and we won’t be re-recording any multiplayer voices.”

https://twitter.com/Stevevalentine/status/706755322338107392