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Author | Mao Lina

The dubbing circle has been in a "tumultuous summer" recently. Games and audio works are considered the two major pillar industries of this circle, and both have experienced "major earthquakes" recently.

Let’s talk about games first.Facing the voices in the contemporary second-hand game circle that "men don't play", "Dust and White Forbidden Zone" has the most resolute attitude.At the end of March this year, they issued an announcement stating that they would hide all male characters and character stories in the game and completely switch to an "all-female" lineup. This resolute attitude also helped "Dust and White Forbidden Zone" to some extent turn around its fate of reaching the peak right from the start, with revenue in April approaching 200 million.

Before we could even open the champagne, a new crisis loomed over "Dust White Forbidden Zone"On the evening of July 17, the official issued a long article statingBecause the direction of game development is contrary to the career plans of some dubbing teachers, we will gradually terminate our cooperation with them and gradually replace the Chinese dubbing of these characters.

Changing the voice acting in games is nothing new.Genshin ImpactIn the game, the voice actors for Oz, Li Yuantao, and Elliot Gindi, respectively, were replaced. However, in the game, as many as 13 characters were replaced. It should be noted that there are only 16 characters that can be drawn in the game. This is obviously a collective resignation.

The audio works are related to the novel "The Garden of Evening Mists" by the late female writer Lin Yi-han.Motian Books commissioned Tianjin Yuexiang Culture (729 Sound Factory) to produce the audio version of the novel. As a result, listeners discovered that in the part of the novel involving suspected sexual assault, there was some inappropriate background noise (suspected to be inserted noise). Motian and Yuexiang apologized many times, but netizens obviously did not buy it.

It’s no wonder that contemporary netizens are too strict. There are simply too many “stories” in the dubbing circle.

The male CV is on the edge and the female CV is rebellious. I've been a bit busy with the entertainment recently.

A novel that denounces sexual violence was added with unpleasant background sounds after being audio-recorded. To put it more seriously, it is a secondary harm to the deceased author. This is also the reason why the dubbing incident of "The Garden of Evening Wife" quickly fermented on the Internet.

Motian and Yuexiang reacted to public opinion relatively quickly. They first issued an apology statement, and then investigated the specific reasons and gave the cause and effect and handling decision. However, it is obvious that the statement that "the post-production of the project was completed by a third party and coordinated by the project manager, but the manager has resigned and the handover has not been made, resulting in inappropriate content in the finished file not being discovered" seems to be putting the blame on temporary workers, and also exposes problems in the dubbing company's procedures.

The statement acknowledged that "there is inappropriate content"

We will analyze the process later, but in short, because of this audiobook incident, the anger of netizens towards the dubbing circle that has been accumulated for a long time has been ignited. At the call of enthusiastic people, netizens have begun to expose the black materials of dubbing actors. Once the news was exposed, almost no male CV with a little fame in the circle survived.

Inappropriate words and deeds are considered light, and male CVs are often involved in emotional entanglements. Regardless of whether they are true or false, as soon as the essay is published, there will be players "petitioning" to replace them. Of course, there are also "legal people" in this circle. Jiang Guangtao and Baomu Zhongyang were suddenly taken away by the police in 2022. Although Jiang Guangtao announced his return by "starting work" in June 23, the specific reason for his being taken away at that time is still a mystery.

Photosynthetic Bricks Statement

The male CVs' reputations collapsed in various ways, while the female CVs resigned en masse, saying, "This class is over."

The statement from "Dust and White Forbidden Zone" is a disguised way of putting the CV on the spot. Players who don't know the full picture don't understand what problems have occurred internally. All they can see is that the female CVs have resigned collectively. In addition, the gender antagonism problem in the second-person game circle is already very serious, so the social media comment sections of the CVs suspected of replacing roles have been affected to varying degrees.

Originally, this was just a one-sided venting of emotions by the players, and it would soon pass. But Zhao Yang, the CV of ScrewGum in Collapse, couldn't stand it anymore, and boldly spoke up on social media,It was revealed that the female CVs resigned because of communication problems in work contentWhen the teachers signed the contract, "Dust White Forbidden Zone" was still a general game. As "Dust White" transformed into a male-oriented game, the dubbing direction was adjusted. "The content obtained in the early stage and the later 18+ content are too different, and the partners were not informed. Changing CV is normal behavior. It's bitchy and makes people laugh."

Zhao Yang's microphone gave players who had nowhere to vent their anger a target. Some dug up his past dubbing works, saying that he had also dubbed a lot of borderline radio dramas, and that "no one is nobler than anyone else."

In addition, Yan Ning, the CV of the dubbing company Qixiang Tianwai, was absent from the first anniversary celebration of "Chen Bai", but was found to be suspected of live broadcasting "Juequ Zero". Qixiang Tianwai itself has a close relationship with miHoYo, which holds about 13.34% of Qixiang Tianwai.Players of "Chen Bai" can't help but imagine a business war drama, believing that the collective resignation of CVs is due to the game between manufacturers.

So netizens followed the clues and found the suspected smurf account of Peng Bo, the legal representative and voice actor of Qixiang Tianwai. They found that he not only gave sharp comments on "Dust White" and other second-rate games, but also praised himself in a reasonable way while giving harsh comments on Japanese dubbing. It is actually a bit far-fetched to confirm the smurf account by IP location. Coincidentally, Qixiang Tianwai CV Lin Su posted a suggestive dynamic at this juncture and then deleted it. Netizens thought there must be something wrong.

Although the "729 Incident" and the "Dust and White Uprising" were completely different in nature, their results were the same. Almost no one survived in the entire dubbing industry, which collapsed into ruins.

The domestic collapse is not going away, and foreign countries are not idle either. Europeans and Americans, who love political correctness, are collectively demanding that Genshin Impact add more black-skinned characters in version 5.0, and many of the British voice actors have joined in the "condemnation" of miHoYo. In short, there is no peace anywhere.

From behind the scenes to the front stage, the entertainment industry has all the problems

Why is the dubbing industry becoming more and more chaotic? In a nutshell, it’s all about money.

The former behind-the-scenes workers have stepped into the spotlight, and top CVs have set up studios, become bosses, and gradually achieved financial freedom.Those young actors also began to follow suit and embarked on the path of becoming idols.

Birds of a feather flock together, and the dubbing industry is also divided into circles. The most famous ones are the Beijing circle and the Shanghai circle.

The former is represented by Photosynthetic Building Blocks, 729 Sound Factory, Beidou Penguin, and Guansheng Culture.Business focus on film and television worksThe Shanghai circle is represented by Yinxiong Lianmeng, Haitian Studio, Lingsheng, Qixiangtianwai, etc.There are many overall two-dimensional games, especially games. But the business scope is only relative, and Beijing Circle CV has also been involved in many two-dimensional projects.

In the process of dubbing industrialization, movies, TV series and games are "catalysts".

The Legend of Zhen Huan became popular all over China, and Ji Guanlin, who dubbed Zhen Huan, also reaped the benefits, stepping out from behind the scenes to the stage. At that time, the audience had long been annoyed by the actors' poor lines, and the move of dubbing to the stage was a two-way rush, and it was also a "knock on the mountain to scare the tiger". The market catered to the public's preferences and produced many variety shows related to "voice", including "Voice into the Scene" and "I am the Best Voice". Dubbing actors such as Bian Jiang and Ajie had the opportunity to be recognized by the public.

AI Drawing by Entertainment Capital

With the popularity of the public, who would want to continue to work from nine to five and get paid? Taking advantage of the trend of the times, many Chinese dubbing masters such as Ji Guanlin, Bian Jiang, and Ajie have started their own dubbing studios, creating their own IPs while also cultivating their own teams.

But it must be pointed out that at that time, only the top few CVs were popular.The rise of Eryou and the further development of audio works have brought benefits to the entire dubbing circle.

It is no exaggeration to say that many people know Qixiang Tianwai through "Genshin Impact". Because miHoYo has a controlling stake, Qixiang Tianwai has always had in-depth cooperation with Mijia Games. In the early versions of "Genshin Impact", almost all CVs were from Qixiang. MiHoYo took off successfully with "Genshin Impact", and CVs also tasted the cake. For example, Bloomberg mentioned above, the bonus of the role of Zhongli in "Genshin Impact" is really enough for him to enjoy for many years.

So is this circle profitable? It is indeed profitable, otherwise there wouldn't be so many CVs setting up their own studios. Some bloggers have shared their own experiences on social media, saying that top CVs have basically achieved financial freedom, and mid-level actors are also doing well.

In the video, the blogger revealed that the settlement method varies depending on the content of the dubbing. She used the example of dubbing for Chinese actors, saying that games are paid more, usually by sentence, while radio dramas are paid by episode, with a single episode fee ranging from 1,000 to 3,000. CVs are invited to comic conventions, and the organizers have to pay them. The quotation for Chinese actors is around 10,000 to 80,000 per show. Other business cooperation, or recording promotional voices, forwarding Weibo, etc., are also charged extra. Of course, this price is the total package, and the individual actors have to share the share with the company in proportion.

In terms of income, "it should be much more than ordinary white-collar workers", but newcomers and less famous CVs are still struggling to make ends meet.

However, under this settlement method, unless the CV has a lot of say, the bulk of the income still falls on the company. If you want to make more money and make money quickly, you still have to rely on idolization. For example, if you earn money honestly by taking on projects, you may only have more than 10,000 yuan in your hands; it is different if you go the idolization route. You can hold fan meetings and even if the company wants to share the profits, the income is considerable. For example, last year's CV Gu Jiangshan fan meeting, the face value of the ticket was 350-480, and the early bird price was less than 100 yuan, which made people envious.

Idolization is a "road of no return". Once the fan circle culture is formed, people can easily become complacent.Under the influence of filters, many people still think that CVs are unsung heroes who work silently behind the scenes, and their income is not proportional to their efforts. Therefore, with the mentality of "he only has us", they are willing to spend money and charge into the battle. But CVs are also ordinary people, and they will also have gains and losses, jealousy, and some have learned to hide behind the scenes and manipulate fans to force the company to fight for more voice for themselves.

Image source: Gu Jiangshan Weibo

To put it bluntly, just like any niche culture that becomes popular and then becomes chaotic, the CV circle cannot escape what happened in the ha-ha, rock, and hip-hop circles.Influenced by the gender composition of fans, male actors in this circle generally live a better life than female actors., whether in terms of income or idolization, this is why male CVs have a higher probability of collapse, because there is always a group of people who "feel sorry for their brother" and follow him around.

Of course, there are also some female CVs whose reputations have been "collapsed", for example, Du Mingya was accused of being too self-indulgent in using a secondary account to chase stars, and someone revealed her real-life side in a group chat, etc. Although Du Mingya used legal weapons to protect her rights and won the case, there are still many netizens who only eat half of the melon and take the malicious revelations as "real hammer"; Lin Su, another important figure in Qixiangtianwai, is always accused of stuffing resources for her own people, etc.

But generally speaking, the problems of female CVs generally do not involve public order and morality, at most they use a second account to secretly open the microphone. This is of course very similar to the fan circle. Male idols have all the "five vices" and people still feel sorry for them, but female idols are scolded as disqualified idols when their figures change.

Humans are uncontrollable, but what about AI?

Today is different from the past. Whether it is audio works or games, the dependence on "sound" has become stronger. If the CV fails, at the least, the person will be replaced, and at the worst, the entire project's revenue will be affected. For example, the situation of "Dust White Forbidden Zone" where 13 character voices have to be changed in a row is no less than the earthquake event of discovering that the resource pack was deleted before the version update.

Manufacturers, especially large ones, have indeed noticed the risks of CV and are working hard to reduce their presence.In the announcement, Dust and White Forbidden Zone stated that it would no longer disclose the names of CVs in the future. And Mihoyo's Zone Zero also did not use obvious words to mark the CVs in the game interface like in the past.

The effect of this is not obvious, especially for some CVs with very distinctive voices, which can be recognized even without the name. For example, Billy in "Zero" can be recognized at a glance as Chen Runqiu, who voiced in "Honkai Impact 3". Moreover, no longer making the CV public can stop the actors from claiming it secretly. This approach can only reduce uncertainty, but it cannot fundamentally solve the problem.

So can we ask AI for help? With the technical aspects, it is not difficult to train AI to learn someone's voice.There are already game companies in China that are using AI dubbing, such as miHoYo and NetEase.

As mentioned above, Jiang Guangtao's sudden arrest for investigation triggered a series of chain reactions. Just like every time the CV's reputation was ruined, angry players demanded a replacement, so Mihoyo and NetEase simply asked AI to voice Mo Yi in "Undetermined Case Files" and Ye Xuan in "The Painted Traveler in Time and Space" (now replaced by CV Ma Zhengyang) were both replaced by AI voice actors.

butTheir choice of AI is a special caseThe premise is that Jiang Guangtao was unable to perform his contract for personal reasons, or to put it bluntly, he was at fault. That’s why he was able to successfully extract and analyze the original dubbing voiceprint features and record new voices. To replace CV with AI, the first thing to solve is the authorization issue, and the dubbing industry has different attitudes towards this.

Actors represented by Xia Lei and Ajie are skeptical about AI dubbing. After the first-instance verdict of the first AI voice infringement case in China on April 23, the two reposted on Weibo to express their position clearly: "The voice of any natural person should be protected by law. Authorization of sound recordings does not mean authorization of the voice."

Shen Lei and Zhao Qianjing from the Shanghai circle expressed their support for AI dubbing, believing that this is an opportunity to force the entire industry to make progress, and "support further improvement of AI technology to replace all dubbing actors who are not as good as AI."

Whether you support or oppose it, it is actually too early. Even the AI ​​dubbing of NetEase and Mihoyo is still far behind the real person, and the technical strength of these two companies is top-notch in the entire market. If they are still like this, how can other small companies make AI dubbing comparable to real people by spending money?

On the contrary, the political correctness issues that European and American CVs often encounter can be solved by AI to achieve the best of both worlds.

Taking the pace of "Genshin Impact" in Europe and the United States as an example, Europeans and Americans believe that the prototype of Nata, the Fire Nation, is Latin American, and there should be a large number of dark-skinned characters, but in the preview PV released by miHoYo, many characters' skin is not dark enough, so Europeans and Americans are jointly "petitioning" to ask miHoYo to "blacken" the characters.

There are several ethnic minorities in the voice acting of the heroes in Genshin Impact, such as Albedo, General Raiden, Xiao Gong, and Sucrose. On this "skin color issue", their identities determine that they are more easily coerced by political correctness. "Because you are a minority, you must speak out on this issue and fight for the interests of people like you." Even if some people do not intend to do so, they can only be forced to speak out. However, game companies have the need to go overseas, and European and American CVs who are forced to do so may be more willing to do voice licensing, so that they can make money without being kidnapped by public opinion.

Thor played Aunt Anne, and her words were gentle but reluctant, but domestic players still thought she was "forcing" Mihoyo.

In addition to what was mentioned above,The review process problems exposed by the “729 Incident” are most likely to be optimized and solved through AI right now.Someone who has worked in a dubbing company as an auditor revealed that it is almost unrealistic to review each episode in full. Basically everyone reviews the first few episodes in detail and then just listen to the rest in a hurry. There is no other way because of limited manpower.

Isn’t this exactly where AI can perform at its best? Unlike humans, AI doesn’t get tired or distracted. Using AI for delivery review is not only efficient, but also more accurate.

No matter what industry you are in, there is no need to be afraid of AI. In daily life, it is more of a tool to provide convenience rather than a rival to steal your job. The advancement of technology is meant to make humans more relaxed and free, and the existence of AI is no exception.