i finished a really fantastically illustrated & written visual novel called South Scrimshaw Part One. it is oodles of art & text presented and narrated like a nature documentary, investigating the biology of an alien planet while focusing on the life of a single whale.
i was absolutely compelled for the ~2 hours it took me to read through. the quality of it is super high.
getting to the credits, i wanted to know who voiced the documentary--there are two primary voices, a british male voice for the primary narration, and a british female voice for parenthetical asides. voice acting in this game was a pretty wild surprise: the game is free, ostensibly a one-person production, with no publisher or external funding.
the unfortunate realization is that there are no voice actors. the credits extensively list every single sound used from freesound.org and its author. it cites every royalty free music track it uses & its additional composer. credits to all the resources are very open and responsibly cited.
for narration: "In-development voice narration and speech synthesized using tools by ElevenLabs"
does this mean that the voice narration is only using synthesis for development & the final release will hire voice actors? given the type of presentation it is, i would hope so, but it's something i can't put my finger on due to how obfuscated the credit is.
out of ~800 overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam, many refer to it being fully voice acted. only a few mention the generated narration feeling a bit stiff, even fewer mark it as a negative addition.
ElevenLabs is not a great company, ethically-speaking. they're specifically creating ai generated speech tools to replace many actual actors' work, which is openly being fought for (even if fraught with their own ethical issues) by unions right now. i hate that they list 'Don't Nod' and "Paradox Interactive' as clients. i hate what it means for the possibilities of companies ostensibly doing good work with creative teams.
this game could have been released without voice acting. it adds to its appeal & charm, but the conflicted feeling i have about it now far outweighs my positive impressions of its contents. i don't know what to do with those feelings, so i'm writing about them here.
who are the actors whose work was used to train the models that then voiced the narration in this game? how much were they paid? why are their roles in the process that made the biology of this game about alien biology not counted amidst an incredibly detailed list of sources for its material?
where does this cross the threshold from microsoft sam to vocaloid to unidentifiable human-like acting
no answers necessary, really, just staring into the void
But as a visual artist, if I reframe this scenario and think of how I’d feel if an otherwise great game by a small/solo dev used generative AI for its art, then my feelings aren’t very positive or forgiving.
The way I see it is, at THIS size, when it’s just an individual really, how is that not a betrayal of both the trust of fans and consumers of the art, but also their peers within the space?
I’m friends with many creatives, across fields. If I released a VN tomorrow, with full AI voice acting, on what planet would that not feel like selling out my peers, my FRIENDS who voice act, to get another selling point for my game? Does that not say to them that I don’t actually value their work? That I value my OWN work so far above theirs that I’m content to use tech DESIGNED to replace them (if not designed USING them?). Does that not say “sorry, but my work is TOO IMPORTANT to stand in solidarity with you”?
At a time where artists of all stripes need to support and advocate for one another, deciding to use generative AI of any sort to fill a creative role on a project is nothing but selfishness. It’s not even the idea that “a VA could have been paid here”, I understand they likely didn’t have the budget for a voice actor atm. But opting for THIS over the plethora of other options sends the message they don’t actually care or value their peers.
(Also if this is meant to possibly be a placeholder, is doing the VA work yourself, or even getting friends or family to provide temp audio not a valid placeholder option?)
I’m sorry if this comes across as harsh but I think this is fundamentally selfish on part of South Scrimshaw’s dev. We need to support our fellow creatives, not undercut them.
