If there is ever a specific actor, the agency we use would talk to that actor's agent and we go from there. For big names it usually comes down to our VO budget. Game dev is fluid, and we often have to adjust expectations based on reality of time and money.

Well Obviously the budget is increasing much higher due to there being quite a few sequels to the first game, but starting at a low budget in the first installment I could imagine it would have been a little difficult to get ahold of some people no?

THQ owned us at the time, and the first Saints Row was a flagship title for them. It did not have a low budget by any stretch of the imagination. It was an early 360 exclusive, and the first open world title on the console.

what exactly inspired the name 'saints row'? as the title for the franchise? what goes into thinking about specific gangs/groups in the games, i found STAG in SR3 to be a nice interesting part. though the deckers seemed like they were missing something that was a wow factor.

The title came from one of the neighborhoods in the game. We talk about that (and a lot more) here: volition.tumblr.com/post/999… Gang design is a team effort, from writing, to artists, to gameplay designers. There is always a lot of fine tuning and evolution during development

though im not sure if you are able to answer this for the future but. in the past with saints row being mostly co-op, one thing that i havent personally seen in many games is being able to progress through the story with a friend actually appearing in a cutscene or being noticed

We can't comment on anything about the new game yet, sorry.

thats fine, but to shift the focus to the question with it being in the older games, why was it that only the main character (which could be customized id say a million different ways was only shown?)

As opposed to both players in a cutscene? It wouldn't make any logical sense story-wise. The player is THE Boss in the story. There are not two, and trying to account for both SP and co-op play with different cutscenes would be insanely expensive.

i meant more of like a pre-existing character with just different features (in terms of customization), so like say the co-op player would take control of shaundi with some modifications of their own to the overall appearance to add the comedic effect of customization