It was with sadness that I saw an article recently stating “Embracer has closed Alone in the Dark studio Pieces Interactive“. The amount of layoffs within the video game industry currently is, quite frankly, disgusting and it’s sad to see the effort to revive an important franchise destroy an entire studio. However, I will admit that I had a problem with the way the game was marketed, that being with such an intense focus on the celebrities starring in it. Besides the fact that I didn’t immediately know who David Harbour or Jodie Comer were, I have problems with this strategy and the mindset in general. Therefore, I thought that I should take this opportunity to discuss my issue with celebrities in video games and why I think it’s a much bigger problem than most people realise.
The first time I ever thought about this issue was when I played Dishonored for the first time back in 2019. I knew that there were at least a few celebrities in the cast but I was quite surprised when I reached the credits and saw how many of them there were. However, a particular part of the credits ended up rubbing me the wrong way, that being the mention of a company called Blindlight and the specific term “Celebrity Acquisition, Casting And Voice Production”. When I saw this, it made me think about how these people had been sought out rather than being cast in a more typical manner. What did this mean? How much were they paid to star and, more importantly, how much did they ultimately contribute to the experience?
Unfortunately, I can’t find any specific information about how much these actors and actresses were paid to work on the game and that’s something that seems to be consistent in general. However, if we’re looking for some more broad answers then I have managed to find a few. A blog called “Ask a Game Dev” mentions that a celebrity, the example they chose was Ron Perlman in Fallout, can be paid tens of thousands for a single day, standing in sharp contrast to the pay of other voice actors who may only make hundreds per day. A Guardian article mentions, somewhat vaguely to be completely honest, that a Hollywood actor may be paid £100,000 for a four hour recording. Whatever the answer is, the point is that hiring celebrities costs a lot of money.
Due to those costs, the next question we must ask is whether they contribute to the experience. I should first clarify that I’m talking about whether their presence itself is contributing, not the actual work they do. With regards to my experience with Dishonored, the answer was a frank no. Their performances seemed respectable from what I remember but I never felt like the fact that Chloë Grace Moretz, John Slattery or Susan Sarandon were participating made the game any better. This is something that I feel applies to the majority of celebrity appearances that I’ve encountered throughout gaming.
However, I do have to admit that this is just my personal opinion. After all, we have seen a few examples where this strategy was successful. When Cyberpunk 2077 was shown at E3 in 2019, the crowd was already excited to see Keanu Reeves was participating but it turned into outright hysteria when he himself walked out onto the stage! There was already quite a bit of interest in Cyberpunk 2077 since it was being made by the studio behind The Witcher games but the amount of hype and enthusiasm grew exponentially from that point on. Whether that was a good or bad thing is up for debate due to the years of issues people had with Cyberpunk 2077 but there’s no doubt that many people considered his involvement to enhance the experience in the end.
However, it’s important to remember that games are, ultimately, games. They are meant to be played and will ultimately be judged for that more so than which celebrities are involved. In an industry where costs are continuing to skyrocket, I have to question the idea that celebrities will draw people to buy the game en masse. While there will be exceptions to this, Cyberpunk 2077 being the prime example, I think it’s easy for companies to forget that it’s ultimately the game itself that people will be excited about, not the celebrities. Let me know your thoughts on my issue with celebrities in video games, whether you agree or disagree, examples of games either using celebrities really well or very poorly, what you think about the relationship between the video game industry and celebrity actors and actresses and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.