Bayonetta 3 is at the center of a controversy that exploded over the weekend, with voice actor Hellena Taylor revealing why she won’t return to perform the iconic character.
So then, let’s talk about voice actors and compensation. A topic that is just as infuriating now as it was fourteen years ago!
#Bayonetta #Bayonetta3 #PlatinumGames #PerformanceMatters #Switch #Controversy #Money #JimSterling #JamesStephanieSterling #Games #Game #Gaming #Videogames
The industry continues to be bad
I heard about this yesterday.
Sad voice actors get fucked in the ass.
You look more and more like a grandma and I think that’s cool because it means the internet’s got its own grumpy grandma we all love
VA union scale is $1000 a day for four to five hours of work. She was probably offered scale and wanted more.
as a marxist-leninist i agree that 4k still a scam, like any other salary relation, still, boycott the game is a individual action, and individual actions never work
I was so looking forward to Bayonetta 3 too. Dang.
Voice actors do need to be paid fairly, certainly. I think I left a similar comment on another channel, but seemingly, other voice actors aren’t surprised about this kind of treatment, and agree on how bad this is. It’s horrible.
Though like I mentioned on this comment, I don’t fully condone the voice actress’ behavior. When she attacked the replacement by saying ‘she has no right to claim she was the voice of Bayonetta or sign merchandise for it’, as if the character belongs to only her, that seems extremely petty. She’s not Bayonetta. A part of it, surely important, but there’s artists, animators, writers and others involved in the process. The new voice actress is going to be the voice of Bayonetta, the same way there’s been multiple actors playing the part of James Bond. I’m worried the other voice actress may get attacked under this.
The real villains in the whole thing though is still those who tried to get to pay the part for such a low payment. I’d ask why they wouldn’t go for her actual worth, or what she was asking for, be it a sum far too large, that she’s difficult to work with, or if it’s the corporation’s greed and ease of replacement that did it, but I don’t have the full picture there either. Considering this isn’t surprising to other voice actors, corporate greed seems the most likely. Plus the guy’s twitter blocks really doesn’t help their case.
Wish there was a way to more directly affect the result of this.
$4000 is gobsmackingly low. Indie authors I know pay that much just for someone to voice their audiobook. They’re not billion dollar corporations paying for half a billion dollar franchises
That’s what really gets me. It’s not just that Helena was given bird seed as payment… It’s the fact that Kamiya is such a fucking child about all of it is alarming. And remember, he’s not just a game dev, he’s the second in command of the entire company.
so are ya’ all going to boycott Walmart? Amazon? and every other company that has does sh!tty and shady sh!t for YEARS now? How about boycott Nestle? Boycott Sony? There’s very few big companies that hasn’t done some shitty things
It also sucks because it’s not like we want to treat the replacement “Commander Shepard” Jennifer Hale like crap for taking the job, in a better world and situation I’d be interested in hearing her as some character in bayo 3… just not like this man… whether or not she “shouldn’t have taken the role” right now… I don’t know. Fuck this industry.
I will say that every studio has the right to replace actors if they feel it makes sense – I don’t see nearly as much pushback against FFVII R replacing the whole cast. In that case those being replaced seemed like they were respected, or at least not given this weird jerk around like Taylor.
Pay your actors a decent wage and respect them. Don’t treat them as disposable. Thank them for their service. etc etc.
Angriest Pat thinks Platinum used that offer of paltry money to get rid of Taylor and letting them say “Oh she didn’t want the money” rather than just saying “We wanted Jennifer Hale instead.”
If $4,000 is the norm, do they pay $400 for Ubisoft voice actors? Cause they always sound so cheap and terrible in their games…
It’s sickening that insultingly low pay is standard across the industry, but I’ll specifically not be buying Bayonetta 3 because of how they seemingly went LOWER on her pay to force her out
Im searching high and low but I just cant seem to find a single f* to give. Im sorry, I tried. Ill buy it for all the other VAs and developers who sunk time in it since Im not a farm animal who will let one twat who was humbled tell me what to do.
Voice actors, QnA testers etc. have always been really badly treated.
4k what a joke i though they got quite a bit you know 20k maybe a years wages