I understand that people may have mixed feelings about some of the stuff that is posted on Polygon but I thought that this article they did about what happened to John Marston's voice actor was pretty damn good and so I felt that I should share it for others to see. I thought he did a really great job in Red Dead Redemption and I always wondered what had happened to him. I definitely recommend watching the video, which I found to be quite touching and may have caused me to tear up just a little. I'm interested in hearing what you guys thought about it.

edit: Oh wow I didn't realize that this was almost a year old. Still glad that they reposted it since I missed it the first time. If you didn't read/watch it back then I would recommend you do so now.

Actually even as someone that thinks Polygon are (for the most part) a joke, their industry interviews I've found to be really interesting a lot of the time, and are always wonderfully presented. Lookin' forward to digging into this.

edit: Wait this is like a year old O.o Oh well, I never saw it the first time so it's great you brought it to my attention!

That article is from almost a year ago. I guess it didn't get much attention at the time (I thought for sure Patrick would "Worth Reading" it, but he never did), so I'm glad they've reposted it. It really is great.

My wife is from the same part of Indiana as him. Ever since I told her about this article she's been telling me we should track him down next time we're visiting her parents there.

Man, really sucks that he decided to cut his acting career so short -- guy clearly had some talent. But ah well, he's happy where he is now so good on for him that.

Feel like you could make similar articles about a lot of the voice casts from Rockstar's modern games. They're always finding all of this great talent that voice act in their game then just disappear, or go back to doing small bit roles. Though Michael Hollick at least makes sense what with him getting greedy about his pay. Of course it's just like the article itself point out. While you've got a lot of big names that are getting all the work, there's still a sea of voice actors that are unfortunately forced to limit themselves to such small roles.

Basically what I'm saying is Troy Baker is stealing everybody's damn job. :P

@roboculus92: For someone who doesn't want to read all of that, do you mind telling us what happened to the guy? You never actually mentioned it, what's this about?

Edit: Ok I watched the video. It sucks that he got out of acting and we won't hear the Marston voice any more, but in a way it's great because at least that character will always have a unique voice. The guys who did Booker and Desmond are everywhere!

But I don't understand what this whole thing is about? Is it about his sons almost dying? That's terrible and I'm glad they lived but.. what is this about? :P

@singingmenstrual said:

There's a 9 minute video posted at the halfway point of the article if you'd prefer.

This is from a series that Polygon did where they were just profiling different people in the industry. It's not necessarily about anything. It's just, hey, this is a story about dude's life.

I'm not a huge fan of Red Dead Redemption either, but the writing usually isn't what I complain about first.

It's not that long. Nor was it that tragic, unless I skipped over something. He spent a lot of time making contacts in LA to get an acting job and they all turned out to be dead ends, then he went to audition for Red Dead Redemption and thought it was a waste of time, but then they called him and he got the job, and then he did the job, and then he and his wife decided that they wanted the small, quiet, decently well-off blue-collar low-key life in a small town in Indiana instead of constantly searching for new acting gigs. Which is exactly what they got. Apparently he acknowledges his role as John Marston and goes to some conventions, occasionally, but that's about it.

You shut your lying liar hole!

Despite having a really interesting topic it's not a particularly great article.

I read that one last year, really great humanizing stuff.

Articles like this one are where Polygon is definitely at its' best.

Man, the world of video game voice acting only gets stranger when you learn more about it. What an amazing story this guy has. It's almost as if he was actually John Marston in a way.