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GTA IV Voice Actor Gets No Cut of Rockstar's Take

by Tim Stevens on May 28, 2008 at 04:33 PM


By now, the thick accent of 'Grand Theft Auto IV' main character Niko Bellic is ingrained in the minds of millions of gamers worldwide, having listened to him preach, threaten, and complain for hours on end. The game sold $500-million in its first week alone and another $100-million in its second, but would you believe voice actor Michael Hollick, the voice of Bellic, gets no share of that? He earned a (relatively) measly $100,000 for his 15-month stint in a recording studio, and no matter how much more the game sells, won't see another dime.

Hollick's union, the Screen Actor's Guild, has no special rules for rates regarding video game voice-over work, so he got paid the standard wages for a day's recording, roughly $730. If he had instead been doing work in an animated movie he would have also gotten a cut of residuals, meaning a small chunk of that $600-million would have been his. Hollick is pushing for updated rules regarding payments for video game-related work, though hopefully they won't have to strike to get it. [Source: Yahoo! Games]

Tags: grand theft auto, GrandTheftAuto, video games, VideoGames, voice-over

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