Yesterday on Clubhouse we heard Liz Atherton of CastVoices talk to Adam Creighton, the founder and studio head of Enduring Games. Adam works in many aspects of video games production — as a voice actor, a casting director, a developer, and also provides support to video game studios on ambitious and specialized projects. Some recent achievements that he’s proud of are bringing the Crunchyroll app to the Nintendo Switch, and the enablement of cross-platform play for Gearbox’s Borderlands 3 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands on Xbox, PC, and most recently Playstation.
As a lover of all things pop culture, Adam was able to combine that with his background in the start-up tech sector and his collaboration and problem-solving skills in the formation of his own company. In July, Enduring Games will celebrate its third year. For Adam, it’s all about bringing together the things that he loves to do, like grow people, being able to contribute to pop culture, and include voice acting side of things. He says that while it’s challenging running a start-up, “It’s that great mix of making a difference, and being able to make decisions that benefit everyone who’s making the thing successful.” Liz said that she loves that outlook.
Nick and Adam discussed the evolution of narrative in games and how many games use storytelling to move players through an immersive experience, as if playing through a movie. This cinematic style of game requires great voice acting, but unlike a two-hour movie or a season of a TV show, these types of games could be a 60-hour experience, Adam notes. The decisions that players make throughout the game lead to different sets of dialog, and all of that needs to be recorded by the voice actors. This can differ from voice acting for animation because of the amount of recording to be done due to the variations of the lines. Adam says it’s important for the actors to understand the differing context of the lines and to be consistent in all those different variations.
Liz asked about the requirements of the voice actors that fill those roles, and Adam said there are several things that he’s looking for when casting for video games: actors who are a good fit for the role, and actors who can do multiple takes and emotions to produce diverse reads. He finds that as a voice actor for games, he puts more of himself into the role, and that because of the choices that players make as the play, he may have to react in a number of different ways emotionally.
Just to get an idea of the scope of what goes into producing a large game, Adam said that some studios will create their own tools to stay organized. This means keeping track of things like the script, script changes, localization, voice over files, and auditions. Imagine the organization needed to manage hundreds of characters and then have it translated to 14-18 languages, and also designing the game, and making decision-point changes in the design, narrative, and consequences of player choices. And don’t forget that the dialog pieces have to fit into the sound and design, the background sounds, and it all has to work together.
“That’s part of what’s fun” Adam says. “I’ve done voiceover for games where I wasn’t sure it was my voice because the context is so much different from what I recorded in the booth. When you hear fighter jet engines or things like that over top of things, it’s really a fun part of them making me sound better than I probably do on my own — it’s great. I love it.”
And that’s just the sound of a game — the visuals, game play, story, and more also have to be created and managed. This extensive production process is why it may be several years from the time that an actor is cast in a role to the time they can hear themselves in a game. Adam said that for very small games, production may take around 9 months, but for larger games it’s around 3-4 years. In fact, game production is such an involved process that larger companies have their own internal casting directors, relationships, and system in place to find talent.
Liz asked the big, hard question: Are video games leaning toward using AI voices? Adam said that yes, there are initiatives around that, but there’s still an enjoyment of the in-person actor. AI voicework is being looked at by some, he said, reminding us to think about the number of takes and iterations there could be in a script, as mentioned before.
Something that is important to Liz, Nick, and Adam is the element of community around a game. As Adam says, it comes down to engagement. Some games, Factorio for example, add content, mechanics, and visuals that change over time to keep people coming back. Other games like Fortnite offer many different multiplayer options. And massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) like Final Fantasy XIV have the community built into the game. But, Adam notes, “Community within a game can be a double-edged sword, because there can be the very positive and elevating protective communities and there can be the toxic and unpleasant and not-fun communities.”
He said that the gaming industry has made strides in acknowledging toxicity and taking steps to reduce it. There is live support for many games now to help grow the communities that build around games, because the community need to be nurtured and that there should be a way to report bad actors.
Community is important to Adam as a player, voice actor, and head of Enduring Games. “If there are games that have a more negative community that’s not a fun thing for me and not a thing I want to support or contribute to. I tend to make business decisions based on the quality of the community and the people involved whether that’s the company we’re working with or the community of the game that they make. That’s a very active part of my decision process for the projects we work on.”
In terms of reaching out to Adam, he likes to understand what the person is about as a professional and individual. So people should introduce themselves, give a link to their demo, and say what they’re about as a human being.
Adam also mentioned that he doesn’t give much weight to how many followers an actor has on social media, but that he will check that someone isn’t toxic, abusive, etc. He added that a positive following is good for everyone, as it could be elevating for all involved. For him, it’s more about whether someone is pleasant and professional to work with and whether can they nail the role. And Liz and Adam agreed that the acting chops have to be there in this type of work.
The conversation closed with Adam offering advice to voice actors to “follow your passion — if you’re excited about voice acting or video games, really pursue that in a thoughtful and researched way where you can take that knowledge and passion and turn it into a vocation.” Adam, who said that he tends to want to pole vault before he can crawl, shared some great advice that he got when he started voice acting: “Get trained, get good, get work, get an agent, get paid.” In other words, doing things in the right order and taking it step by step is what he suggests.
Thank you so much to Liz, Nick, and Adam for your time, and to the wonderful audience questions as well! You can catch the replay on Clubhouse. Be sure to check out CastVoices, too!