Bungie ashamed of one of voice actors performance in Destiny

They saved the guy from becoming a Jill sandwich just in the nick of time...But it doesn't bode well for the whole game in my opinion...Anyway, here's the story (taken from Eurogamer):

Bungie to update Peter Dinklage's lacklustre Destiny performance

A wizard from the moon did it.

The Destiny alpha was loved by many (including our own Wesley Yin-Poole who played an early pre-alpha build), but there was one aspect of it that left many cold: Peter "Tyrion Lannister" Dinklage's voice acting. 1 Through the Moon Door with this. Playing your robotic guide, Dinklage's lacklustre performance quickly became the subject of many internet memes: most notably for his dry reading of the wonderful line, "That wizard came from the moon." This masterpiece of prose was ridiculed so much that Bungie decided to cash in on the mockery by creating ironic T-shirts emblazoned with the line. Bungie even noted on Twitter that these were briefly the most popular item on the studio's online merch store (where it appears to be sold out). UPDATE: As some of you have pointed out, profits generated by sales of the "That wizard came from the moon" T-shirt were donated to charity. But as amusing as Dinklage's performance was, it generally skewed more towards "boring bad" than "funny bad". People were worried. Bungie has since addressed this concern on its Destiny FAQ, where the studio noted that the Ghost dialogue has been updated. "The Ghost dialog has already been updated for Beta. It will be updated again for launch on September 9th, as well," Bungie stated. "Funny thing about Alpha builds...they're not done. Please pardon our Moon dust!" As such, Dinklage will not rest until his performance is up to snuff. As they say, a Lannister always pays his debts.

@Salt_The_Fries:

"But it doesn't bode well for the whole game in my opinion"

How does that not bode well for the game? If one of the biggest complaints for such a massive game is just one of the voice actors then that is not bad. It is even being fixed.

Ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large, budget. I bet half of this game's budget was for this actor. If it wasn't good in the Alpha then they have to spend more time and money to get it up to snuff. Bungie should be ashamed, I think they made a "little" mistake.

As epic as the alpha was, I cringed each time Dinklage spoke.

What I meant is his character is a part of the narrative, right? So if his performance was so lacklustre, what could it tell about the game's overall direction?

It's called a work in process. The alpha was not the final product. This process happens with every work of entertainment.

it doesn't bode well for lems, you know. They want destiny to be titanfail 2.0

He is a great actor.....must have came up short with this one.

They wanted Destiny for themselves alone. Hence all the negativity about all things Destiny.

Epic? The sp portions were weak with outdated ai. Halo sp is miles better than Destiny sp. The competitive mp felt like a CoD-Halo hybrid, its better than a tacked on mp that many games have but nothing special.

You're comparing a dead-code alpha to the final product of Halo? Really?

I didn't have a problem with the voice acting it was better than 99% of games out there

I've seen plenty of alpha gameplay from other games where the ai is basically done.

He was just a narrator.. He sucked at reading lines. It's an easy fix... Pretty much everyone who heard him speak said "yeah this isn't final"

LOL Seriously TC? Bungie ashamed?

Go to the bungie website and you'll see this isn't the case. Not even close. It's nothing more than a pre-pre-build of the game that was scrapped long ago. Then there's the new gen advancements in ai to be taken advantage of, from the same developers of Halo no less. It would be stupid to assume the ai would be worse than a last gen game made from the same devs.

It's like people don't understand what a goddamn alpha or beta version of a game is. It's not like the lines can't be re-recorded.

The VO in the alpha was never meant to be final.

The game releases in 2 months. You would think the voiceovers would be done.

@Cranler: nah. you didn't play the alpha so you aren't entitled to an opinion. the majority who played it also agree with me. biggest issue was the voice over, which in the long run isn't really an issue

I thought voice overs were one of the first things to be finished as the script should have been completed years ago... dunno why they bother getting over rated actors to do this stuff, I thought the best way was to audition a load of people to find the the sound you are looking for not just pick the guy from Game of Thrones because the team wants to see him in person.

Maybe he only had a short amount of time to get voice work done right and the budget was still tiny at the time.

pretty much :( yet they hyped titanfail to no end, lul.

This is why casting famous celebrities in the role VO for videogames is generally a bad idea.

1) Huge chunk of the game's budget goes towards VO work, which is sad when you notice the rest of the game suffer for the VO work (like TES:O)

2) Most Hollywood actors don't take videogame VO seriously (which is why they often perform much worse than non-famous actors). There are some who are excellent at it, like Michael Ironside and Mark Hamil, but these people are generally the exception and not the rule.

3) No one buys a game because it has a certain voice actor.

@Salt_The_Fries: Where does it say Bungie is "ashamed" of Dinklage's voice acting?

Hopefully the actor will not get too much flak for this....ultimately he is 1 component of a huge production, and in the end Bungie has to sign off on his performance......they are the ones at fault, not the actor....how do we know that the director did not ask for this performance......anyways I don't see this as being a big deal

A game on PS4? BAD!!! A game not on PS4? GOOOOOOOD!!!

the voice processing effects weren't added to his voice yet. Where did it say that Bungie was ashamed? They never said that.

Yeah, it can, but it means the direction wasn't the sharpest one. Let me pull out one example, a Michael Mann's movie called The Keep from 1983, starring Jurgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, Scott Glenn and Ian McKellen among others. Ian McKellen performed so dismally that he had his lines redubbed by another actor! And let me tell you this - it sounded really unnatural.

Halo fan be mad.

The main problem is these actors/actresses are used to acting out their roles.

Acting in video games usually means they sit in a room with a mic and speak into it.

Worst voice acting/writing i've heard in a video game since 2012. 500mil dollars budget and this is the kind of shit we're getting? Come da fk on.

Let's be completely honest, this isn't one of his most amazing roles, and I really feel that it's moreso the script that's to blame. They probably should have stuck with something more mechanical in nature like guilty spark.

Hell most people already think Destiny is a continuations of halo anyway why not go the full 9 yards.

The voice acting felt childish, i'm glad they're fixing it.

Ive heard it and I don't see what's so bad about his performance. It's a video game and normal people don't take them serious.

This is why they shouldn't release alphas or betas.

I think Dinklage didn't know what he got himself into. He probably just saw the dollar signs and thought it was easy money. Actors are only as good as the script, material and direction they are given. Seems like Bungie didn't focus on that but rather focused more on other things like the ability to dance in game. Dinklage should contact the actress that plays Cortana and take notes.

Camera Actor /=/ Voice Actor

Just because someone can give a good performance in front of the camera doesn't mean that the performance will be solid in the sound booth. Some actors aren't as imaginative and need more to work with to deliver a good performance.

Then they need to stop putting out alpha products to console gamers who think it is the final product.

Bingo, plus Dinklage has always had awkward delivery even on Game of Thrones.

He's not someone who really pleases the crowd with how he speaks or the words he says (barring the script having a dope line or two). His game is more body language+midget. Still though, even for him the voice acting in Destiny was terrible.

I thought Peter Dinklage was playing a non emotional blue hologram for the gamer? Weren't they going to make him sound more robotic? Wasn't he directed like that?

I believe Bungie has plans that Dinklage will be a half naked, wearing a Mankini, hologram that guides players around.

This role was too big for him to take on.

Actors are well aware of the differences between VO and acting, as very many actors also do VO work. It's just that they aren't skilled at it (lack of experience) or they simply don't care enough to put the effort into it. The spotlight isn't on them like a movie is, thus they don't think it's as important.

Yeah, I listened to a few of his lines on youtube--some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. When they robotisize his voice a bit, it doesn't sound bad, but as it is in the alpha, it's fucking terrible. Heard the voice acting overall is pretty damn shitty too. Not like I really care--Bungie FPSs are horrible.

The apologists like using the "yeah but he is a robot" excuse, but it's like then the script doesn't match that descriptions.

If he is using the words "I have a bad feeling about this" and it's delivered in this half assed, jarring way, that's not justified by "well he is a robot". Naturally those words would indicate he's more typical scifi machine with a personality. Especially in a Bungie game since Guilty Spark wasn't exactly just a drone.

Regardless you are correct that voice acting issues is one thing, but that's on the director as well. You let that shit pass through your ears and were like, yep this is good, don't change anything.

That makes zero sense just so you know. First off you are the one bringing in console factions not lems so why are you saying it does not bode well for them because they want something they are not even talking about. You may just be insecure because the PS4 does not have Titanfall. Second why would lems be upset because of Titanfall? If the game is great then that just means it is another great game to go along side Titanfall. Cows are the only ones hoping to have something like a Titanfall.

If it was talking about bad AI, all the classes are the same, poor gameplay in general, or something along those lines then there is a reason to worry. One voice out of many being the main problem seems pretty good to me. It actually seems like the direction is going well when a massive online game like this having the main problem being just one voice actor.