Use of famous actor's faces in games

[maximaz]

What's your take on this?

One of the very few games I'm looking forward to is Calisto Protocol but for the life of me I can't understand why they would use the movie star's face for the main character.

There are two problems:

1) I can't not see the actor. The point of acting (in my opinion) is to disappear into a character so we don't "see" the actor. Adding an actor's face into a game seems to go against this idea since there isn't a real benefit to it as explained in point 2.

2) The graphical deficiencies are highlighted more because I am used to seeing how the actor's face is supposed to look and move. It's not like we are at a point where all the little nuances of facial acting are transferred so perfectly to the digital environments yet.

I get the marketing reasons but it kind of cheapens the game somewhat in my mind. Like I'm supposed to be impressed with a celebrity guest or something.

 

[Verevoof]

Using actual actors' faces seems like a complete waste of time, resources, and money. Unless it's a video game based on an existing movie, there is no need to actually insert an actor as they appear in real life into video games. You're making a video game, not a movie.

 

[PlanHex]

Using actual actors' faces seems like a complete waste of time, resources, and money. Unless it's a video game based on an existing movie, there is no need to actually insert an actor as they appear in real life into video games. You're making a video game, not a movie.

Someone has to do the mocap, for face and body both. Might as well be someone who actually has acting skills.

 

[ropetight]

Using actual actors' faces seems like a complete waste of time, resources, and money. Unless it's a video game based on an existing movie, there is no need to actually insert an actor as they appear in real life into video games. You're making a video game, not a movie.

It was very common to make lookalike of famous actors in comics in the 60s-80s (Blueberry is Belmondo, Alan Ford Peter O'Toole, ...).
It was done in time when photo references were not available in two clicks, artist interpretation was part of process so it was not 1:1 copy of actor face.
I even can understand that you give model or portrait of famous actor to some NPC.
Why would someone make main character in game look like some actor is beyond me.

 

[Verevoof]

Someone has to do the mocap, for face and body both. Might as well be someone who actually has acting skills.

Sure, you have a point there. But we’re talking famous actors faces. The actual rendered model of the character doesn’t have to look like a famous actor. It just seems gimmicky and a waste of budget to me. Like how much money is spent just to have a single movie star say a few lines in a game? Now add having to pay for using the actor’s image? Ok, if that’s where a studio wants to put a big chunk of their money… I’d prefer it go into the game other than in a purely aesthetic way.

 

[maximaz]

Someone has to do the mocap, for face and body both. Might as well be someone who actually has acting skills.

I give this game a pass because the whole thing was about reading subtle facial cues to solve crimes. They did not achieve the 'subtle facial cues' part but it was the shtick behind the game so highlighting involvement of known actors made some sense there as part of the overpromise.

It does put me off when its just randomly a famous face in a video game, like a sci fi game where you're some guy on a planet full of dinosaurs but you're also vin diesel.