Riknas

In the time of a recession (Which we fortunately seem to be finally digging our way out of), it is very rare you will find that few people are happy. Are you happy? I'm not happy. Albeit, I'm never happy. However it is in these times of economic depression that sometimes, certain companies will flourish as people try to cut costs, and will turn to some things in the forms of cheaper entertainment, or divert their funds to drown out their sorrows. Naturally, the latter can be frowned upon as people go towards drinking for the more literal sorrow drowning, there are movies, books, cinema to keep us occupied and out of the world that may be causing us problems. Now, that's not to say these aren't valid sources of entertainment at all times, but they tend to gain more eyes that usually wouldn't give these things a second glance, or let their gaze be held by such things for very long. In the way that many industries were failing in the great depression, movies and cinema saw a great revival as people went to escape their everyday lives. However now we'll be finding that people are now trying to offer more bang for their buck, instead of a movie, you might buy a book. Movies are typically ten dollars just for the ticket alone, which is usually about two hours. A book could last some people a full days worth of reading for the same price. Admittedly, while many people are cutting back, I'm noticing the interesting trend that people start to look towards MMOs, and not just F2P ones.

So, where am I going with this little rant you might be wondering? Some of you may already see where the proverbial movement is headed of course, if so, give yourself a pat on the back. A fair number of people are aware that MMOs are very much an investment on entertainment really. It's intention is to have you race to infinity, in the hopes that their game will never end, and for a mere 15 dollars a month? Even for a casual player, this is very frequently easily made a good deal by just playing a couple hours a day, and a great deal for those of us better gifted with more time. So that said, while the games industry is doing well, there are theories to suggest that some MMOs could thrive off hard times, or at very least exist comfortably.

But this is all old news isn't it? Discussed on podcasts, news articles, and even other blogs I presume. But it is with the announcement of SWTOR that it recently hit me how some games are going to be picking up other fields other than designers. Obviously anyone in computer sciences can make use of programming skills, art, etc, but there are still two creative fields that we can sometimes neglect mention of. Writers for one, someone has to design quests and explain why exactly this person is nailed to the floor, unable to do anything besides tell you where to go, and someone needs to consider why they need you to go somewhere and kill the hated enemy boars (Or rats, or insert hated enemy racial pairing) 
and just call it community service.

But now especially, there is an expansion for those in the acting community. In the earlier MMO's, this was hardly the case, and even in many of todays current ones where the only sounds made consist of "YARGH!", "Oof!" and the sound of jumping which vaguely reminds us of someone trying to get intimate for some reason... That aside, voice acting has always been a valid career, though it never quite rewards the same amount of fame as movie acting and theatre, since they never really recognize your face. But those with vocal range will find themselves getting jobs doing commercial narration, dubbing, general animation voices, and video game voices. The further games go into developmenet, the more we see of voice use as opposed to the now infuriating entirely text-based dialogue. The only real game fields that have lagged on with using voices now have been hand-helds, and MMOs, both of which are starting to make better strides, the latter primarily.