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xD Actually, that would probably sound pretty calming as a narration voice!

Well, my voice now is nothing like it used to be as a kid x3 I don’t even know how to describe my voice now tbh. It definitely sounds more common than posh! Though, I guess some folks would still say it sounds semi-posh just on account of the region I live in since it’s more sorta classic British sounding. Funnily enough though, when I’m at my most relaxed, I adopt a part northern/Lancashire accent xD I guess that kinda just happened from all the time I spent living up north, haha. A nurse who was once taking my blood asked me where I was from. I was stunned and replied, “Uhm… here.” And she was confused. She said it sounded like I had an accent of some sort. Heck knows what she heard, haha. Probably doesn’t help that I think I suffer from the sorta monotonous/not much variation in pitch and tone thing that some folks with ASD have >.<

Yeah, I don’t think anyone would hold it against me too much if I were to try more stuff with AI voices with me being indie and non-profit as you say. One huuuuge problem though is that, as you know, I love game jams, and many jams are now including quite strict rules on AI that state you cannot submit to the jam if you’ve used AI in any way >.<

For the yandere jams that I finished this project for, I spoke to both people running each respective jam to explain my use of it in this case, and the outcome was different for each. One thought it was okay to make an exception because it was used as a supportive/accessibility tool. The other understood that but decided not to make an exception because they said it’s basically a slippery slope, and when you make exceptions for one thing, it means making exceptions for others, so it’s easier to just say, if AI was involved, it’s not allowed no matter the circumstances. 

I mean, as long as VAs are okay with the pay I can offer, then I’d much rather keep working with actual humans, haha. Right now, the best I can generally do for jam projects is $50 per script (generally not exceeding 250 lines), with the possibility of a top-up dependent on donations received for that specific jam project. For longer-term projects like DD, it’d be more like a per hour sorta deal I guess.

I don’t really know how long it takes voice actors to record a 200-line script >.< I know it took me hours to do the stuff for Sapphire Snowe but I also know that I’m inexperienced and have terrible recording equipment/space, haha.

So when I look at it like that, $50 for a script isn’t great pay, especially not when I see online it says in the UK, around £250 per hour is the going rate currently. Although, that is for experienced, professional VAs apparently.

On the other hand, if it takes around 2 hours or something to record, that’s $25 an hour, and that’s more than the rate of pay for working in many places over here in the UK. So it might be awful by industry standards, but it’s still better than retail work if someone’s just starting out doing VA for the first time or as a sorta side hustle or hobby I guess >.<

Whatever I do though, I’ll always be upfront about what I can afford to pay, and then it’s entirely up to individuals as to whether or not they’re interested in the project :3

I tend to use CastingCallClub for putting up casting calls and it seems like there’s a real mixture of folks on there from those literally just starting out but hope to make a career of it, some dipping their toes in the water just for fun/something to do, to people who have been doing it for a while and only take on commercial work. 

When it comes to people just starting out, I’ve worked with a fair few like that who are absolutely phenomenal VAs. They didn’t mind what the rate of pay was cos their main objective at the time was to just get out there and build up a portfolio, which is fair enough. I kind of worry with the AI voice stuff that if too many people fall back on that, then those people who are just beginning their VA journey might get passed over >.< and that would be a huge loss cos there are so many insanely talented people out there who deserve to be heard.

But yeah, I dunno. Maybe a blend of both is the best way forward or something! I think as long as anyone is comfortable with what I can afford to pay though, I’ll stick with humans as much as possible because it’s so much more fun than working with AI x3 I found the AI stuff somewhat interesting, but then quickly became extremely bored with it, haha. 

I really appreciate your support though on a subject like this because I was genuinely a bit scared of saying that I’d used a form of AI voicing in this! I know a lot of people see AI as utterly unacceptable, so I was just really hoping anyone with that view might understand why I did for this particular project if I tried to explain it all in detail x3 I still don’t know exactly where I stand on the use of AI in games in general if I’m honest! All I know is that it’s far too complicated of an issue to classify it as purely good or evil like some people do >.<