I figured you would say that. Look, you can never have enough money when developing a game. Just because a specific department has enough money doesn't mean they couldn't do with more. Especially when the extra money is going toward something superfluous. Think how many more good voice actors could be employed instead of having a big name associated with your game.

Yeah, but your logic is that somehow if they incorporate big name voice actors into the game they aren't going to be able to do other things, and that's just not true. You think they are seriously so close to wire? Do you think Bethesda is hurting for money? They are simply adding a feature, which im sure they're accountants penciled in in the original budget meeting. Unless you just don't trust Bethesda, I'm not sure why you'd care. Movies could hire no-name actors and save money too, but they don't because they don't have to.

No, you're still missing my point. I know they enough for everything they want to do in the game, I just think the extra money should go to something more important than an expensive voice actor.

This, pretty much. I don't mind that there was one voice actor for one (or more) race in Oblivion. I think it would be a nice touch if they put more in though.


But then wouldn't putting the money they took out of the Voice acting and put into something else disadvantage voice acting?
I don't know how much they are paying these voice actors, but wouldn't paying ~50 no names be equivalent or near equivalent to paying 5 big names?

EDIT: Spelling is hard.

They can put the money into voice acting... just toward a larger cast of unknown-but-good voice actors, rather than a popular tv/movie actor or two.

Which I made a point for below that.

Personally I did notice Liam Neeson in FO3 and Patrick Stewart in Oblivion, I admit I found it to be a really awesome novelty at the first listening.

However, I do agree that if not having these people could mean another 20 more slightly "lower grade" voice actors for all NPC's in the game, then I am completely fine with that.
Odds are, the voice acting wouldn't sound any worse, but it would mean that there would be far more varied voices.


In regards to the Budget subject, I can't say I know anything but I'd assume they have a set budget, then the budget is split into sections for the game.
Which can probably transferred more or less to other sections when needed, but this doesn't exactly matter here.

We're just discussing the preference of a few big names VS 20 or so lesser known names for voice acting.

Huh... I certainly don't see why having known actors do a little VA would be detrimental to the games quality... I got more psyched for Oblivion because I knew a talented actor would be voicing the emperor. And wow, Sean Bean as Martin certainly stood out from the rest of the VA's. About the argument of thousands of struggling actors, who cares? I'll take a master at their craft that can help with my immersion into this world as opposed to Joe Nobody who can only manage to bang out some half-assed English accent.

Lets say their voice acting budget is X. With X amount of money they can afford 5 famous actors, and 8 non-famous actors because the famous actors will obviously be paid more. If you take those 5 famous actors out, lets say they cost about four times the amount of a non-famous actor, then you would have 28 non-famous actors all-together, allowing them to have a more varied cast.

Some people would just like a more varied cast (not having all of the Elves sound exactly the same). I mean maybe they're not "hurting" for money, but they're still probably going to try to get by with the lowest amount they can, whilst still trying to have it the quality that they think is adequate. And some people just don't agree that it is adequate. I think this is the case of what happened with Oblivion, but I believe they are changing it with Skyrim (pumping more money in the budget that is, because it just wasn't quality enough).

Totally agree with op and shadowbeast368 on the need for more varied voice actors.

I love the voice over in the Skyrim ad, but i don't know the voice...but the hears still stand up on the back of my neck everytime i was it.

I'm sure they could have found a lesser known actor with a very similar voice and it would have still had the same effect on me...think i'll give it another watch now

You have to realize that Bethesda is a business. Businesses want to make the most money possible. That includes hiring well-known actors to attract new buyers.