No. That budget could be better spent on other things, like more voiced over things for people to say.

Famous voice acting is a waste of money, nobody really care about it.
So scrap that an invest the saved money on the gameplay of Skyrim.

Oh yea.


Because sitting and staring at someone who's staring back at you, with no facial expression, is totally more realistic than VO and makes it more 'Immersive'.

Mass Effect did have famous voice actors, although I suppose Keith David and Martin Sheen aren't up there with Liam Neeson and Patrick Stewart. Even Dragon Age had a few TV actors in it.

I wouldn't be opposed to a few famous actors in Skyrim. Quite honestly, I don't think we can dictate Bethesda's ability to spend money. I believe that Bethesda has the ability to hire a few famous actors and 70 professional voice actors if they wanted. You'd have to know Bethesda's finances to make an accurate judgment of their budget. But I'd be willing to bet that Oblivion and Fallout 3 left them pretty well-off financially.

THIS!!

I hate caps spam, as a rule, but...

BETHESDA, STOP WASTING YOUR VOICE ACTING BUDGET ON TWO CELEBRITIES. There isn't even a point having voice acting if it's all so obviously the same two people over and over again.

Bioware gets this right. Bethesda fails at voiceovers.

That would be Claudia Black.

Meh, not really a Di Caprio fan. Maybe if it was Liam Neeson or Gerard Butler or Christian Bale or someone like that. Also, your punishment is ridiculous. If they hire enough big name actors they'd only have enough money for one cheaper actor for all of the other NPCs so listening to them all would just sound like one guy saying a bunch of stuff.

I don't care about VO, if written carefully and very well simple text can show emotions. Voice acting is nice but it drains money and they could use time and money for better writers and more content and story ideas for quests and such.

Besides the second time you play through do you really want to listen to their long-*** speech again?

I don't mind main characters having voice overs, but full voice overs is over doing it.

I think you guys are wrong about the money thing. I doubt money is even an issue for Bethesda anymore... I'd like to see a good mix of famous actors, returning voice actors from past Bethesda games(Wes Johnson and Lynda Carter), and other voice actors too. In terms of famous actors, here are some that I think would work well in Skyrim:

Max Von Sydow(all but confirmed)

Mads Mikkelsen(Casino Royale, King Arthur)

Alexander Skarsg?rd(True Blood)

Stellan Skarsg?rd(Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean)

Vladimir Kulich(13th Warrior)

Michael Fassbender(300, Inglorious Basterds)

James Earl Jones(Star Wars, Sandlot)... I think he'd be great as old Redguard warlord or something...

Hugo Weaving(Lord of the Rings, V for Vendetta)

Ian McKellen(Lord of the Rings, X-Men)

I don't know many voice actors, but there are two I really like, both from Halo: Reach. Hakeem Kae-Kazim was the voice of Jorge. His voice is amazing. I also really liked Alona Tal, the voice of Kat.

Rupert Grint as the leader of the Greybeards.

Totally.

i'd rather see a lot of good but not necessarily famous actors. variety is key imo.

LOL you guys saying it's too expensive. It's expensive to be making this game for an extensive amount of years with resources and people. The making of this game has easily surpassed a mili.You guys are forgetting that Bethesda GOT THAT KIND OF MONEY TO AFFORD FAMOUS/WELL KNOWN PEOPLE. This is business. You have good actors you get more money. People who have been experience into being immersed in their role regardless if it's for a movie, a video game, or a cartoon.

If some of you are actually wanting Bethesda to budget, go play one of their older games, because these guys have been going up. Take note with Oblivion and Fallout's cast.

EDIT

If you guys really worried about money they put into this game, yall might as well play daggerfall. THIS IS MAINSTREAM GAMING. THEY CAN AFFORD ALL THAT GOOD STUFF, THEY CAN AFFORD AN ORCHESTRA TO MAKE MUSIC. Many of you got to stop mentioning money, time, hassle, etc. When you got money you can do a lot of things.

I dont mind hearing famous folk doing voice overs in games, But famous dosent mean the best,

Except love....

There are some really good voice actors who are also semi-famous actors..... I bet gamers like Zachary Levi and Felicia Day would do it just for the nerd prestige

if valve has fired any of their fantastic voice actors, get them (aside from father grigory,alyx the hl2 rebel and the day of defeat Americans- they were terrible)

When I watched the video I was almost certain that I heard the voice of Max von Sydow or perhaps Patrick Steward.

I think Patrick Steward could be a good voice actor, because Max is not young anymore. There is a lot of famous actors but not that famous.

No famous voice actors. As it is I can hardly tell who they even are half the time, they sound similar to the regular voice actors. Though, I do think Patric Stewart was a good one though, not because I was a fan of his or anything, but because I think he is just generally good at it.

I think there are two major reasons though why I would not want famous voices in the game. One being that it just seems like a gimmick, or something like that. Something that'll draw people into the game for the sole fact that they recognize that persons voice, and that is something that I'm not interested in at all. Two, it just kills immersion. It makes me think of the actor so much more than it does to create a character in the game world (same reason I don't like when famous actors are used too much in movies).

No we are not. We are just saying that Bethesda could spend all those money on better things.

Yes, like a bad-ass engine. Or a more diverse landscape... or a bigger landscape.
Those things would be 100x times better than a famous voice actor.
"Regular" talented voice actors do more than fine.

No but don't pay the voice actors more like OP suggest, hire more voice actors.

Good voice actors and good actors are not necessarily equal, but Sean Bean, Patrick Stewart and Terrance Stamp really nailed it in OB. Could it have been done cheaper with less well-known names? Probably. I'm not sure that it would have made that much of a difference in the final sale price of the game and I don't have any data on which to conclude that their inclusion boosted sales. Regardless, I'm not sure if he's still working, but I nominate David Warner for almost any major bad guy. He does/did villains extremely well (Jon Irenicus for any Baldur's Gate fans).

Since there seems to be some assumption that Nordic people have Scottish accents and since he already has voice acting experience (and is a good voice actor as well as actor), I'd like to propose Gerard Butler if both voice acting and famous voice actors must be included.

Those are better things. When you got money to work on a big project, that is just a part of the better things that you can do.

Yes in your opinion.

As for me, i couldn't care less about who the voice actor is and how famous he is as long as he is good.