Football commentator Guy Mowbray has given permission to Electronic Arts to “replicate his voice” via AI to generate player names.
In an interview with the BBC, Mowbray talked about how he records commentary for EA’s soccer series, revealing that he has to record each EA Sports FC player’s name “about five times”, changing the emphasis each time depending on what they’re doing and where they are on the pitch.
But he was already working on match commentary “almost every week from November until early July” and Mowbray allowed EA to duplicate his voice to cover the names of more than 20,000 real football players who could make up FC’s squad.
EA told the BBC: “AI has long been part of our development pipeline, from animation to gameplay systems, and continues to help teams create better, more responsive soccer experiences.”
“But when it comes to commentary and content, it’s always been a collaboration with our talent, not a replacement.”
“We have to constantly update things like new names for all new players, as well as new terminology and new features for the game,” Mowbray said. “This is a constantly evolving process and never stands still, so it’s a lot of fun to be a part of it.
“The reason it takes so long is because we have to cover every aspect of the game and every scenario we can think of. It’s very deep because it needs to feel and sound realistic. The key thing about a game is its authenticity.”
However, not all voice actors are willing to donate their voices. Last September. Françoise Cadre, who provides the French voice of Lara Croft in multiple Tomb Raider games, has filed a formal notice with publisher Aspir, saying that they have not released Tomb Raider 4-6 without her consent. Around this time last year, the voice acting team that brings Apex Legends characters to life in French refused to sign a contract that would allow their voices to be used to train the AI.
