[Once A Villain]

In a modern, third-person adventure game, is voice acting a MUST?

[Kingzjester]

Silly question, you silly person! Voice acting is not a must because modern, third-person adventure games are not a must!

[Brandon]

Your poll is weird and strange. LOL. Why did you put in a price? That just confuses the issue.

[noknowncure]

I don't know who I am any more.

[Huz]

I'd rather have no voice acting than either lame voice acting, or an artificially restricted script for reasons of cost.

[Once A Villain]

Originally Posted by Brandon

Your poll is weird and strange. LOL. Why did you put in a price? That just confuses the issue.

I can clarify the issue if you wish. Basically for the game I'm making now, the setting is Japan in the early 17th Century. We were inspired by Japanese films (NOT anime). In much the same way that the Al Emmo team tried their best to stay true to the classic adventures, we want to stay true to our Japanese setting. That includes having Japanese voice acting. However, this may not be possible for our first game (translating the script into Japanese, hiring Japanese actors, etc.). So we were thinking of just releasing the game without voices. If this poll is any indication though so far, we may reconsider. $24.99 is what we are thinking of pricing the game at.

[MdaG]

Hehe, it took a while until I understood the poll options
For me, voice acting is better than no voice acting. Ok, that's not entirely true, but it have to really suck, for no voice to be an option.

[AFGNCAAP]

No voice acting is fine by me (and preferrable to some voices I've heard in my gaming career). Note, however, that I'm not that likely to shell out $25 on a game to begin with. But since you made a disclaimer about it being "otherwise great", I did vote for the first option.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

If there is to be no voice acting at all I hope you guys make up for it in other ways, such as a rich art direction, striking characters, and conveying drama and atmosphere in creative ways. Most people expect voicework in games today so if you wow them in other ways they'll forget the lack of such.

[mrdriller]

I don't care either way. Voice acting is definately not a must for me. I'm just as happy reading well written dialogue.

[Kingzjester]

You can always do something Katamariish or nonsensical like in the Sims.

Voice acting is very important as far as I'm concerned. If it's as good as some games such as dreamfall, then it really enhances the experience. In the same way great actors make a movie more enjoyable than amateurs would. But even if it's sub standard such as in the black mirror, I'd rather it were in anyway because the spoken word brings a game to life.

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by MC

You can always do something Katamariish or nonsensical like in the Sims.

I'd far rather have this than no voices at all. If anything is going to convince me that a game had a production budget of precisely nothing it would be the lack of a feature such as voices that would nowadays be considered standard.

[Lee in Limbo]

I would respond to the poll, except that my choice would be false.

I would have chosen the second, but I did just pay $30 for a copy of a game which turns out to have had all of the voice work stripped out, because it was originally in Russian, and apparently the budget to rerecord for English audiences didn't exist.

That said, I bought it for 'work purposes' (please, just don't ask), and didn't really have a choice in refusing it based on its shortcomings. And besides, it isn't an adventure game... just a game an adventure gamer co-worker of mine insisted I check out. But for me, the same principles apply to all genres...

For anything above the $13 mark, I insist on at least adequate voice work and 3D figure animations, even if on prerendered 2D backdrops.

For anything above $30, I expect good to excellent voice work and fully rendered 3D environments and animations, even if the camera is constrained to certain shots and the furthest backgrounds are flattened, like in Uru and Syberia.

Add another ten to thirty dollars and I don't want to hear that you didn't want to use a 3D engine because it's 'just not necessary for adventure games'. What I do expect for anything between $40 to $60 dollars is state of the art 3D animation and professional actors, including celebrity actors with distinctive voices.

[simpson_yellow]

Since it's a Japanese setting, you could always hire Chinese actors to speak English lines.

To answer the question, I'd be hesitant to pay for a game without voice unless there were stylistic reasons for its absence. Not saying I absolutely wouldn't buy it, but it would have to be damn fine in other aspects.

[stepurhan]

For personal opiniion I'm quite happy playing games with and without voice acting. Mediocre voice acting can be as much of a game killer as poor camera placement or pixel-hunting.

But for a commercial proposition I think you have to include voice-acting these days. I can't comment on the game Lee in Limbo bought but it's been a very long time since any game I've bought new didn't have voice acting. The only way you could get away with it is to not have dialogue at all. Otherwise I agree with Rob that it's considered "standard" these days and you'll have trouble selling without it.

[Dasilva]

Voice acting is essential, even if its average or mediocore, reading wads of text that you're not very interested in can be a bore, but if the actor delivers it well it would be better.

[insane_cobra]

If you want to sell your game to anyone but the most hard-core adventure crowd, your characters need to have voices. But as some people already noted, they don't necessarily have be in any real language, especially since it's supposed to be in Japanese which I presume the majority of your core audience wouldn't be able to understand in the first place.

[Once A Villain]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

If you want to sell your game to anyone but the most hard-core adventure crowd, your characters need to have voices. But as some people already noted, they don't necessarily have be in any real language, especially since it's supposed to be in Japanese which I presume the majority of your core audience wouldn't be able to understand in the first place.

I think if we were going to do it we'd want real Japanese acting. I mean, couldn't a bunch of gibberish coming out of the characters mouths in a game like this be seen as racist. I dunno...

[artwking4]

Fake languages with English subtitles worked well enough in Knights of the Old Republic. Although they could have done with a few extra lines just for variety, I suppose.

Originally Posted by Once A Villain

I think if we were going to do it we'd want real Japanese acting. I mean, couldn't a bunch of gibberish coming out of the characters mouths in a game like this be seen as racist. I dunno...

In South Park, Trey Parker does that with this one Asian man who runs the "City Wok" restaurent. When he speaks to his wife, he just yells a bunch of Chinese-sounding gibberish. Probably not a great a example of whether or not it's considered "racist", but damn, it's hilarious when he does it!