Voiceacting in Commercial VNs-- do you?

[Ghost of Crux]

All right, so I've been thinking a bit about a project I have in mind that will be commercial in the far future. It's going to be a bit of a paranormal mystery / thriller, and considering that it's the project that kickstarted my desire to create VNs 5 years ago, I want it to have as much polish as I could give it. I thought a bunch about things like professional GUI and soundtrack and all that nice stuffs, but then I thought about voice acting and now, well. Here I am, torn.

This is perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I do Not like voice-acting in VNs I play. Partial voice-acting, I'm all for, but fully reading out every sentence I just... am not a fan of. I don't turn it off, knowing that the devs put a lot into having voicing for their games and such, but I don't enjoy sitting through it either. The thing is that I read quite fast, and want to move on quite fast. Giving me the option to skip ahead while the voice is still on the first sentence makes me feel a bit like a jerk to the voice-actors for skipping their hard work just like that, especially when it's so good, but sitting still rereading the same passage for a solid minute while having an entire narration read out to me isn't exactly fun either. There's always the auto forward option, which is honestly probably what I should be using, but that just tempts me into doing something else while I listen to the VN a la a dub you're just listening to while you're washing the dishes. Not exactly the highest form of praise to the hardworking developers either.

On the other hand, I cannot deny the polish it gives to a game. While I'm not a fan of voice-acting on VNs (where I have the choice to advance anytime I want, and the temptation is worse when you give me some dang ctc, calling out to me and asking why I'm not on the next page yet), I absolutely LOVE some of the VN dubs out there. Alex Weitzman's dub of Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright's Rise from the Ashes comes to mind. I probably would marry Lana's voice if I could, and Gant's voice is just. Incredible. Clearly, talented voice-actors can take projects far beyond when done right. I really can't deny that and I have no plans to. I've heard some of the demo reels of the voice-actors in this forum and there are some incredible ones.

The problem is when you want to develop a game. My (awkwardly phrased title) question is sort of on... Okay, so. As a player and/or developer, do you often keep the voices on while playing, and how often do you like including it on your projects? How much do you enjoy having it? Voice acting takes quite a bit of budget, and if most people don't even listen to it, then it would be quite a waste. I mean, I like going the extra mile, but voice-acting is two extra miles because not only do you have to communicate with the voice-actors, if you're not familiar with all the intricacies of getting them all sound right and decent, if not high quality, you will need someone else to ensure that. (I'm totally dumb with this, so yeah.) Speaking as someone who takes care of art and writing by myself, adding more content on those two just means more Suffering for the Art; the same can't be said if I want to add quality voice-acting for polish.

Do give your thoughts-- I'm rather curious about what everyone thinks, since I so rarely touch upon this side of development.

[Graff]

It requires a lot of direction and the right voice actors; achieving both is not a walk in the park. It's easier for VN creators who don't care about believable voiceovers.

I feel a narrative could suffer if the voice acting isn't stellar; specifically if it is featured in a serious narrative. It should not be forced if it won't sound good. Players wil always appreciate the option of turning off voices.

[psy_wombats]

I've never put together a VN with voice acting before, but from a reader's perspective, I think voicing can add some nice polish, but they can detract a lot more from the overall experience if the actors are poor, the quality is bad, etc. For commercial games, I don't think I've ever turned voicing off, but I don't stick around to here the entire narration, either, and I doubt most players do... or pretty much everything would take at least twice as long to read. It's nice to be able to go back and replay a spoken line if it was particularly good though (especially for translations).

[Googaboga]

As a creator I can't imagine I'd ever do more than just partial voice acting (a few important scenes fully voiced and then little stock lines used throughout the rest of the game) because I doubt I'd ever be in a position to hire someone else to handle any part of it. So, there are just too many other things to and I'd rather start on a new project than significantly extend the production time of one game in order to have it fully voiced.

As a player I almost always keep voice acting on. Whether or not I skip past part of the lines depends on the tone of the situation and how much I'm enjoying the game. But just having the option to sit and listen to voice acting if I'd like to does improve my experience a lot (if the voice acting is enjoyable, of course). There are times when I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the script at all without the voice actors bringing it to life and giving it the personality the words lacked.

[trooper6]

First off, I'd say that if *you* don't like voice acting, then you shouldn't include voice acting in the projects you create, regardless of what everyone else here says. Don't do things you don't like. Life is too short and I think the quality always suffers if you are doing something you don't like.

Second, people often say, "Bad voice over ruins a game." I don't think that is a particularly useful position, as bad art also ruins a game...as does bad writing...and bad music. Bad quality stuff, no matter what it is, ruins a game. I don't think voice acting is special in that regard.

So, my opinion? I like good voice acting. If there is voice acting I'm going to listen to it as a player.
As a developer? Depends on my budget and the sort of project it is. Some projects I don't think are feasible for voice acting--is it an 80 hour game? Yeah...who has the budget for that much voice acting?!, or perhaps the gameplay makes voice acting awkward...for my current game, while voice acting might be interesting, and not too expensive, I have an interrupt mechanic that I think might make implementing the voice acting difficult. Maybe I could do it though. I'll see how I feel when I get there.

So...if I include voice acting or not is going to depend on my artistic vision for the project.

[psy_wombats]

Second, people often say, "Bad voice over ruins a game." I don't think that is a particularly useful position, as bad art also ruins a game...as does bad writing...and bad music. Bad quality stuff, no matter what it is, ruins a game. I don't think voice acting is special in that regard.

Voice acting is different in that it's optional. You can't exactly release a visual novel without any writing, and a player would certainly expect a VN to have art and music. But voice acting, animations, etc, are rarely part of the core mechanics and I see them more as icing on the cake. So if they can't be done well, the creator's under no obligation to attempt them.

[hoihoisoi]

As a player, I would try my best to get voice acting in a game I'm playing although it's not necessarily a necessity. I've played a few VNs now without voice acting at all and they all still provide a fantastic read.

It's what floats your boat really. Adding voice acting gives your project a rather nice finish although as said above, it has to be executed in a way which matches the flow of the game and doesn't bog it down. Taking out voice acting, you reduce one variable to keep track of when making your game which is less burdensome. So if you really feel like you want voice acting in your game, then go for it, although you'll have to take into account whether it is a financially feasible decision for you so it doesn't burn a hole through your wallet.

[KittyWills]

I'm the type, personally, that will mute voice acting in most game no matter the genre. Same with music. But my partner in crime loves voice acting, and is more likely to play a game that has it in it.

I'm also in the camp that will put a game/cartoon/etc down if the voice acting is bad. Bad writing or art I can get around and enjoy ironically. Bad voice acting I can't handle at all.

If you do decide to use it, you need to make extra sure your sound quality is high. Bad VA and Music will kill a game before art and writing does. In my humble opinion.

[sake-bento]

As a player, I'm picky about the quality of voices. If I don't like the first few minutes, I usually mute them. However, I do get pretty sad if there aren't any voices at all, and knowing a game is voiced makes me more likely to pick it up in the first place.

Full disclosure: My other job is casting and directing voices, so it's (resource-wise) pretty easy for me to get voices. (On that note, I cast and direct for several people here as well, so drop me a note if you're interested.) It's certainly pricey and it's doubled the production time for me on more than one occasion, but I've always been happy with the results. Especially in the case of a commercial game, I think the players appreciate having the option.

[AllegroDiRossi]

I generally don't like English voice acting in visual novels. So, I hate being "that person" who says the Japanese is better, because I am generally opposed to the weeaboo tone of such statements, but I prefer Japanese voice acting in commercial projects. A lot of the examples I have seen of English voice acting within the medium are usually... over-the-top. This is a general problem I have with anime as well. That's not to say that Japanese VA is vastly much better, but I feel the native tongue helps get the nuances that English voice acting often doesn't.

For an English project, I think the best comparison is radio drama. There's a long and continuing tradition of really top-notch voice acting in radio dramas the quality of which I don't think I've seen an EVN match. For example, the BBC does full-cast audio recordings of Agatha Christie mysteries (Agatha Christie, At Bertram's Hotel, Dramatized) and these are really top notch. I suppose that someone who does this kind of thing for a living, the way Sake-Bento does, for instance, would be able to obtain a high-quality result like this, but I haven't seen any English projects do this.

If anyone know English projects they think do this very well, I'd love to see them and change my opinion.

Specifically about your questions though and thinking best case scenario about quality, I think a full-cast dramatization (where all spoken dialogue is voiced, but narrative dialogue is not) is ideal. Partial dramatization where only some spoken dialogue within the narrative is voiced is irksome because I find the choice of what is or isn't voiced to be inconsistent and often breaks immersion. (This is as opposed to special scene dramatization where specific scenes are fully voiced, but not the full novel.) I would rather turn off partial dramatization than have it on, but I would leave full dramatization on.

Or, for simplicity's sake, my preference is:
> Full novel full-cast dramatization
> Special scene full-cast dramatization
> No dramatization / disabled partial dramatization
> Full novel narrative reading (a la audiobook)
> Full novel partial dramatization

For your case, I might suggest by-passing the the voice acting, and once your game is complete/released, see about reception of the game. If your game is a hit and gets fans, you can always release a master edition with tons of extra bells and whistles like voice acting. That's how a lot of the popular series end up fully voiced (Umineko, Fate/Stay, etc.)

*Edit: I have no preference between voiced/unvoiced. It's not a motivating factor in my choice of project consumption.

[Ghost of Crux]

First of all, thanks so much for taking the time to reply! The replies here are SUPER interesting, and I'm happy to see people's opinions on this! It's something I've been on the fence about for a while, since I wasn't super into some of the voice acting I've heard in some VNs, but also admit that I'm generally pretty bad with things involving sounds.

It seems like everyone seems to be on the unanimous "probably not if not done well", which I can agree with. I do feel like the fact that voiceacting is optional makes it a bit harder to ignore when it's bad; bad writing

For your case, I might suggest by-passing the the voice acting, and once your game is complete/released, see about reception of the game. If your game is a hit and gets fans, you can always release a master edition with tons of extra bells and whistles like voice acting. That's how a lot of the popular series end up fully voiced (Umineko, Fate/Stay, etc.)

This sounds like an interesting option, though! And probably a better one to take. Still, I do wonder-- has any EVN done this? I'm curious because well, I'm not really familiar with how JVN works (not really a fan of the premises nor am I interested in the characters) and especially not in terms of development, so I'm curious whether they pull off something like a Kickstarter to do this or not. I mean it's a mastered version, so I doubt people would be all that inclined to contribute unless they really liked what was in the original version, but yanno.

Most likely I won't end up having voices until I at least know the reception of the demo, but thank you all for the input!

[SexBomb]

It seems like most people go for either full voice-overs, or none at all... Personally, I much prefer the strong balance of partial voice acting to either. Games like Dangan Ronpa do a great job of this, using key phrases/sounds to enhance the tone of a character's text-based statements.

Partial voice acting allows room for interpretation, while also allotting players to experience a character beyond the visual realm.

Regardless of whether you opt for full or partial voice acting, as others have mentioned here, just make sure it's good. Nothing kills a game faster than a poor voice-over!

[E-l337]

Unless you are willing to invest a lot of time and money into doing the voice acting right, don't do it.

I know that you want to put as much polish into your project as possible, and that's great. But this is one of those areas you can't easily skip on, and getting people to work for nothing is likely to be a challenging endeavor.

You're also going to have a lot of dialogue to record, and multiple takes for each line (in case you aren't sure about the inflection of a particular set), and anyone working for free is not likely to enjoy being hounded to re-do their lines (of which I imagine there are a considerable amount).

So keep in mind that it will cost you time, money, or both. If you're willing to extend your development window by several months, then by all means go for it.

Just make sure you do it well.

From the sounds of things, you don't have an audiophile on hand. So focus on what you're good at. If people like it enough and want to put forth the money for you to add voices (or if you have someone on hand who could provide this for you), then that could be a way forward.

But were I you, I'd avoid voice acting this time around.

[somestrangecircus]

I also prefer not to have voice acting in visual novels simply because I don't use it. I read so fast that listening to someone read the dialogue when I could be finishing it quicker bothers me. Same reason why I don't do e-books. I might still consider it for a bigger project one day, but nothing I'm working on or plan to be working on will have it.

[Silken Sail]

Personally, I think that if the voice acting is good, it only makes the game better.

Admittedly, I'm not a VN player exclusively. Before I played VNs, I was a fan of RPGs and adventure games, and voice acting had a massive impact on both those genres in the mainstream. The classic example is BioWare's branching RPG Knights of the Old Republic, where fabulous voice acting took blocky, sometimes awkwardly animated character models and really brought them to life. Since then, the success of voice over in games like Portal, Uncharted, BioShock or Telltale's many endeavors have really proven the value of good voice acting in games. When done right, players love it, and it can elevate the entire experience. Imagine GLaDOS or Nathan Drake communicated through subtitles. It just wouldn't be as effective. The same principle applies to VNs, in my opinion. Yes, the genre is rooted in voiceless text, but so were RPGs and adventure games. I think the lessons they learned can be applied here.

Granted, I'm also a voice actor, so I'm totally biased. I can appreciate the craftsmanship involved in good voice acting. I also have personally seen the fruits of adding VO to a project in the form of a Skyrim mod I made. Most Skyrim mods have no VO at all, but players really appreciated good VO it when it was given to them.

However, I must also echo what some others have said - it must be good. Bad VO is distracting, and this can be the result of a lot of things. Poor microphone quality, miscast characters, odd line reads, etc. So if you add VO, I really recommend paying for professionals and either consulting a casting director or hiring someone to handle the casting/direction process if you are not familiar with voice acting at all. In your specific case, the latter would be a necessity. If you don't even like VO, it's going to be really hard for you to properly cast characters and provide actors with direction.

Despite the risks and costs, though, I think it's worth it. After all, players who really don't like it can turn it off or skip through it, and players who enjoy it will be better off. If you put in the effort, I think it's totally worth it. Especially for a commercial project.