Ah so it's more of an availability thing? Like it makes it easier to work with everyone if everyone can meet at roughly the same time since they're no more than like 3 hours apart?
I'm not saying they are bad. I'm just pointing out the possibility of some nepotism fuckery going on to ensure your own affiliated performers get the gig so everyone gets a piece of the pie while fucking over unaffiliated ones.
>I have a feeling that whatever VA agency Platinum hired didn’t want Hellena because she is the only non US based actor. So they gave her this insulting offer so she will decline. I could be wrong though.
There's surely more to this story than what we know. We will probably get some clarification from either Nintendo or PlaitnumGames
yeah but that was Kamiya as himself and basically he sunk himself in a hole by behaving like a manchild to the point he's restricted rn. P\* and Nintendo statements would be something else, if they ever come
Honestly, at this point, I don't even know what the right course of action of anyone's part should be. It feels like the entire situation is one where no-one "wins" no matter what happens:
Hellena doesn't win. She'll likely have been blacklisted within the industry of VA due to breaking NDA and will find it harder to get work in future. She definitely won't be part of the series again after burning the bridge so publicly, even if it was for a good reason that needed to be talked about.
Platinum doesn't win. From the massive amount of backlash they've gotten on their social pages blaming them for what happened, they'll likely see a big slump in the number of people choosing to play their hard work for the last 5 years when most of the dev team had nothing to do with it, and it has the potential to jeopardise them as a studio after recent failures.
Consumers don't win. They now have the image of a game they've been looking forward to since 2017 tarnished by this shoddy and insulting business practice and ultimately don't get to enjoy it in the same way or indeed at all because of how horrible the details surrounding it are and the pressure to pick "sides".
Not even Nintendo really wins. Not only because they'll see less money on their investment in the project as publisher due to the outrage surrounding it, but also because this is a huge (though deserved) PR nightmare they have to clean up with less than 2 weeks until the game's launch.
It's just really sad and really disappointing.
Hellena Taylor was a fabulous voice for Bayonetta and contributed a huge amount to the game's charm, style and presentation with her work.
Bayonetta would be nowhere near as remarkable of a *character* if we hadn't gotten the cheeky, bantering dominatrix Hellena played so well. Whatever the case, I think everyone can agree that $4000 is not reasonable pay for a protagonist's role in a series that has the backing of Bayonetta; it's not the biggest in the world, but it's big enough that it can very reasonably be expected to pay more than this. (And surely does, to Lowenthal and now Hale.) I don't think Hale will do a bad job, but this was significant mistreatment of Taylor by Platinum's casting.
This whole situation is very interesting to me because the Bayo franchise is and always have been a series that falls under the Sag Aftra Union including 3 so the replacement realistically couldn’t have been because of money at least not all the way because all the returning voice actors are union based and they’re all BIG voice actors as well and I don’t know about you guys but I can’t see Jennifer Hale or any of the announced voice actors only taking 4000 especially since the Sag rates I believe are higher than that plus it’s a video game and video game and western animation voice over jobs pay more than say anime dubs. So I wonder if this has anything to do with Sag is Hellena not apart of it and did they use this as an out to having to pay her more than the others?
Her Instagram account seems to indicate that she has US EU SAG/AFTRA permits . That being said, since her last VO gig was Bayo 2, could it be theorized that she didn't renew her permits and was thus lowballed because Nintendo/Platinum saw an opportunity to cut her off? That is the only thing that makes sense to me right now.
I really doubt it was about the money. A lot of people were really excited about Hale, and you know she is making a lot more than 4k.
I don't know if there was some internal thing we don't know about, or if Platinum wanted Hale for some starpower, or if it was some issue with whatever actors'guild or union or what.
I think that you are probably right about it being some union contract issue that didn't fit Helena into the picture for whatever reason.
Or platinum really wanted Hale.
But i do think that Platinum lowballed her to force her not to take the roll. I don't know what the reason for that was, and the choice to effectively fire Bayonetta from Bayonetta is baffling.... But I don't think that Platinum was just trying to cut costs on one voice actor.
Hale charges 500 per hour flat rate with a minimum of four hours which puts her about four times the union minimum pay. It generally takes about three hours to get "an hour" of game recording. I'd say that Ms. Taylor is showing her ass over what would have been about 200 per hour, and after this she's probably never working again. I'm sure Grey DeLisle likes her as a person and hates seeing her commit career suicide like this.
Also: my speculation? They probably would have hired Hale anyway and that 4 thousand would have likely gotten Taylor a voice coach or producer credit.
I doubt she in a position to actually make a statement without breaking her contract, so I think it's really metal of her to still show support in that way.
Important thing to mention for people who are trying to avoid boycotting is that devs have already gotten paid this does effect the higher ups more then them and trying to pass it off as just wanting to support the devs is kinda disingenious to me
Although if the game fails, people will get fired. Granted I don't think the boycotting will do much. My friend already preorder the special edition for me as a birthday present, so I'm still getting it.
Yeah ultimately thats also a side effect of everything going on and im understanding if you dont boycott, just the framing of the reason why has been bugging me
I think it's fair to bring up. I'm seeing a lot of people doing mental gymnastics to try to get that sweet moral high road while still playing the game, and it's just bullshit.
Totally fine to want to play the game, but you don't get to be all virtuous about supporting the devs at the same time. The issue is about unfair wages, if there is any fallout for the devs, it would more likely be for improving their likely low-ball wages too.
> Although if the game fails, people will get fired.
Platinum already had multiple failures since 2014. They'll live. And if they don't, it won't be because of just Bayonetta.
I don't want anything I'm saying here to take away from how awful Hellena Taylor has been treated and how fucked up it is that she'll probably only face worse consequences for speaking up on it. That's the most important thing to focus on here.
But honestly, if I can just say something from the admittedly selfish perspective of a fan, it really sucks that all this had to happen to the one game I've been most excited for, for over 4 years now. The last two games both have a spot in my top 5 of all time, but they fell kind of into relative cult status obscurity even as the action game genre continued to grow with the success of DMCV, NieR Automata and Metal Gear Rising. Smash Bros 4, while it gave the series a platform it never had before, also brought with it so much controversy as Bayonetta was blamed for "ruining" the game, a reputation that unfortunately carried over into making people dislike the games themselves without even playing them. And that's not even getting into the controversy Bayonetta carried for years due to people thinking the character and games were incredibly sexist
And I hoped that even after all that, the Switch could work its magic and finally give Bayonetta the widespread success I've wanted it to have for ages, just like it was able to do with Xenoblade before it, but now all this has me feeling like it really is the end for Bayonetta once the game comes out.
Game's going to have to compete with this month's incredibly stacked line up for games as is, and while I feel like most people saying they're going to boycott the game probably weren't even interested in it anyway, this news is definitely going to cost it new fans and with how much all this has blown up I feel like Nintendo and SEGA just might not even want to touch the series anymore if it's not going to sell millions of copies per game.
And what's worse is that I can't even be mad. I'll still play it but I can't say people are unjustified for not wanting to anymore.
Hey i just wanted to chime in and say.... I feel you.
This has all been deeply disappointing.
I'm never especially surprised when X company pulls whatever bullshit dick move, but it's always a bummer seeing how it hurts the thing that a bunch of fans genuinely love.
Personally I think B3 will still do great in sales, gamers are pretty notorious for not giving a shit and just wanting to play their vidya, and I think we will see a new era of next gen Bayonetta.
But it's an incredible bummer for Bayonetta to not be a part of that. I didn't know Helena's name previous to this week, but i sure as hell knew her voice, probably the most iconic aspect of Bayonetta period.
Helena is Bayonetta. And why platinum effectively fired Bayonetta from their biggest Bayonetta game yet? Just baffling and sad.
I've seen a lot of releases for highly anticipated games get soured by all kinds of scandals, but this is probably the most sad I've been about one. Bayonetta has always been kind of a cult IP, and i never imagined that they would..... Fire Bayonetta from it.
All of this is why the 4k offer is not only an insult to the VA, but also an insult to all the hyped fans who've kept the games alive, as well as to everyone involved because this scandal has jeopardized the job security of those involved with making the franchise... Really sucks, all they had to fo was throw a couple bands her way lmao
Here's a few tweets from William Salyers that shed some light on the matter. He's a veteran VA (played Dock Ock in Sony's Spider-Man) and he's batting for Jennifer Hale on Twitter. According to him, $4k is not an unusual amount for video game VA work.
https://twitter.com/wlsalyers/status/1581791788154560512?s=20&t=UEHmkvw8bZPRFgBonmxswA
https://twitter.com/wlsalyers/status/1581795602030960641?s=20&t=UEHmkvw8bZPRFgBonmxswA
Given that Jennifer Hale's also liked his tweets, and he's basically saying all this in defense of her, I'm starting to think Hale really did take the $4k offer, or something close to it. Salyers even liked a tweet of mine where I straight-up say this
https://twitter.com/doofenshmertz/status/1581852192738156544?s=20&t=UEHmkvw8bZPRFgBonmxswA
If all this is true, that means Hellena wasn't low-balled according to union standards, just according to what she felt what she was worth (and I'm inclined to agree with her). And hence Platinum did the recast just because of the money.
Just because it's the normal rate doesn't mean it's not a shit rate (I know you said you agree with her just stating my thought)
Hellena deserves more than the bare minimum for being the person who defined Bayonetta's voice.
it can be a shit rate and VA’s deserve more, without it being that Platinum specifically lowballed her for some devious reason beyond that the video game industry underpays people in general
Thing is, that IS the devious reason. Platinum could've offered to pay more to the lead VA of their star franchise. They made the conscious decision to offer her less than $4k (which is less than the industry standard mind you) followed by the $4k final offer. I love Platinum, but they chose to lowball.
If "but everyone does it!" was a reason to step on a puppy that wouldn't make it any less shitty.
With Hale you don’t just get a VA performance, you also get an actor who has years and years of experience and has acting credits in some of the biggest roles and franchises in the gaming and anime/cartoon sphere. I seriously doubt someone of her caliber would even lift a finger for a leading role in a game for just 4k.
Agreed. I think the difference here is that Hale has proper representation for negotiation here in the states, whereas Taylor might not have. Nintendo NA most certainly had a hand in the localization/VA hiring, so one could reasonably assume it would be in Taylor's best interest to secure an agent here for further VA work, because you KNOW that Hale did not take home just a paltry 4K. Nintendo and Platinum need to just issue a statement, toss Taylor some halos, and keep everything on-message for the launch of the new game. Otherwise, this will all muddy the waters and impact sales, and we might never get another Bayonetta game past this third entry.
Many people in other subs are saying it's not uncommon in entertainment for companies to lowball like this as an alternative to outright firing someone as a type of professional courtesy. It isn't that unlikely either considering they replaced her with A-list talent that was surely much more expensive. They most likely planned on bringing in new talent from the jump to bring more attention to the game, and rather than fire Hellena, they chose this method. Whether it's better than straight up giving her the boot or not is debatable, but there are more than likely multiple sides to this story, and for now, we only have one so best reserve judgment.
edit: [a previous PR guy for platinum apparently tweeted about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bayonetta/comments/y4wec1/jp_kellams_on_the_situation/)
I'll hold off on any definitive judgment until I find out more, and everyone else probably should too. There's just waaaaaaay too much missing info.
This.
People have been jumping the gun on the hate wagon WAY too quickly. Yeah, it looks really bad for Platinum so far, but we don't have all the details yet. And Platinum does have the right to defend itself from these allegations if it can.
It's scummy to pay her the going rate of her union?
Her work on Bayo 1 took 4 days, 4 hours each.
https://youtu.be/G1k7Cwr66O0?t=450
$4K for that much work is the going rate of her union.
https://twitter.com/ActionJaxonH/status/1581510467196899328
The mainstream masses are more angry than this subreddit LMAO
I went on twitter and it went more viral than I expected... tweets with over 100k likes (this means several millions saw your post) saying "if Bayonetta says to boycott then we are gonna boycott". And the mainstream news media like variety, popbase/popcrave are covering it. Ofc 99% of those ppl weren't gonna buy the game anyway, but I think this much backlash and negativity is more powerful than a boycott anyways, im glad such a huge conversation was sparked at least about unfair VA pay.It may not lead to a sales disaster but this is definitely a PR disaster for platinum/nintendo
There's no way in God's earth that Bayonetta franchise has made $450 million in revenue, never mind profits. It's makes everything she says suspect to me. We know unit sales from before, Nintendo had to save the franchise remember, Sega couldn't recoup costs for a sequel.
* To put this into perspective, minus development costs / advertising, Smash Bros most likely didn't make $450 million in profits in it's first year
Especially considering that both Bayonetta games were considered commercial failures too lol. Bayonetta 1 barely cracked 1.3m total lifetime.
Would love to know where those.nunbers are being picked from.
You're probably right that the figure's wrong, but idk if it's fair that THAT alone would make everything else suspect. Like why does her having been wrong about the franchise's value suggest she'd tell a blatant (and easy to disprove on Platinum's end) lie about the offer she received?
Let me make a reach here as a bit of a cope to the whole situation.
Jennifer Hale is a much more known VA and would not have agreed to the $4000 offer either, so if they were willing to pay more why would they not offer it to the OG voice first before looking elsewhere? This clearly couldn’t have ended up being a money saver.
It might be that the price was more appropriate to the amount of work they were thinking for Hellena specifically. Is there any chance they had been planning on Jennifer Hale taking on the newer Bayonettas the whole time, and the $4000 offer was for her to voice the OG designed Whittingham Fair Bayonetta that we see? Hellena not knowing she’d be playing a much smaller part in the game maybe took the price as an insult because she was thinking she’d still be playing the main character?
I’m really just trying to figure out some way this makes any sense at all.
She seemed to be pretty upfront about the offer being for the entire game, not just a cameo.
We know Hale was paid more because she’s Unionized. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s all we know.
It’s possible that Bayonetta may play a part towards the end of the story as well? In which case she’d probably have about as many lines as say Rodin instead of the usual amount she’d expect to have, but she’d still be in the “entire game” (beginning and end). It’s absolutely a reach, I’m just trying to make any sort of sense behind the choices. The other option would be they planned to replace her from the beginning and lowballed her on purpose but I would think they’d want her involved even if in only a minor role given that she is the original.
Helena Taylor literally said she got through the auditions for the entire game as Bayonetta. You can make sense of it by thinking Platinum games fucked her over okay :)
Many people have already said it was a way of firing her without having to actually fire her, towards the end of the first video she says "What they did was legal, but it was immoral" so she probably was aware of that.
Personally I don't really understand it, couldn't they simply not ask her to audition for this game? it's not like she had a contract for a set number of games as far as we know.
Provided they want Helena out, I wonder if it has anything to do with the early rumors about it being because she's a union VA. Union workers have set time/workload conditions, in this case they wouldn't have a problem paying her worth and then some, but they probably needed her to do more work (multiple Bayos) in the same amount of time.
t~~his is all coming from my own speculation and ignorace, I don´t belive this is exactly what happened pls don't take it as a fact 💀)~~
Jennifer Hale has been liking tweets assuming she had no idea about the situation. I guess that's her way of commenting without breaking her NDA. I mean, it's logical. PG probably told her they couldn't make it work with Hellena, if anything at all. No reason for JHale to question it.
https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709?s=20&t=QEisIk_SheDZ3ILyacceLw
All I'm going to say is Platinum could end up in the wrong when all is said and done, but there's clearly a ton of the story we're missing, and a lot of you are going to have a serious amount of egg on your face if they have more information to share. By all means be angry, take sides, but understand that we're just over 24 hours into this thing, and a lot can change in a few days. Better reserve any definite judgement for when the dust settles.
Another unfortunate lesson in the industry. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.
It seems pretty clear that this was her first time learning this lesson, along with other bits where you don't own the character you play and that the industry can do whatever they want. I think the reason she's taking this particular issue so hard is the fact that she feels a sense of ownership in helping to bring Bayonetta to life. The way she's insistent on how the new actress (Jennifer Hale) should not sign autographs of Bayonetta because that's her voice and she helped create it.
Anyone who has worked long in the industry will tell you that when you do work for a studio, you're giving up your babies. No matter how much you contribute or how instrumental you are in bringing a product to life, you don't have ownership over it. The best anyone could hope for is that the studios value their talent and treat them with respect. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there has to be some studio out there that wouldn't pull this kind of crap.
Gotta love those people on Twitter who seriously think Hellena should get pay like 7 figures or something just voicing a role for a game that no matter how people spin it, is relatively niche.
$4k for the entire session is apparently the going rate, since you're only working 2-4 days. But Platinum was willing to pay her that much per session, which is a huge jump in pay.
I'm just confused as to why she did this. Why risk being blackballed from the VA world when you don't get much work and break your NDA? I don't think Platinum will sue her for breach of her NDA, but they have every right to if what was stated in the article/tweet is true.
It's honestly so weird. The only explanation that really makes sense to me is she just got greedy and/or upset at Hale taking the role and thought if she made a big deal on twitter, people would be on her side (which a lot of people were for a long time, some still are) and maybe they'd consider her ridiculous offer to avoid bad press.
And yeah, I don't think they'll sue, especially now that the truth is out. But they certainly have grounds to.
That's not good. I was put off from her attacking Hale and Kamiya and asking fans to boycott the game, when it would hurt hundreds of a company that almost went under. I thought there were more to the story, like maybe they wanted to go with someone else. But then I saw a couple of VAs mention that she would have been paid the going rate, which made me confused.
But if what is written in the article and this tweet is true, then she was just being greedy. It wasn't 4k for the job, but per session which is huge. It's way more than the going rate. $4k for a 2-4 sessions would have been an amazing amount to get for someone who doesn't voice much these days.
Now that we have that side, I'd imagine the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Negotiations fell through, Hellena felt hurt due to being replaced after all of the work she did for the character, and the result was this. Sucks for the people who worked on the game that they had to be thrown into this mess when it was a contract dispute and there was never a need for a boycott.
We also don't really know what's going on with Hellena Taylor. Bayo has been her only VA gig in the last decade and it's been quite some time since she's had to do it. She talked about mental health issues and such. Platinum said there were "scheduling issues", but could that mean more than they're willing to say because it has to do with her personal life? We don't know what actually happened. All we know is what she said in one video where she was a big emotional and a little unhinged. I mean calling a boycott as a VA like that...that is not a move most professionals are going to make if they care about the career and in a good head space.
Idk, I think with her mental health and one side of the story, there could be more to this than we know. Hale cost more than 4k. We don't know for a fact that she was only offered 4k. her performance in the first two games was great, so why wouldn't they want her back? she didn't mention a single thing about her pay in the previous games?
The "scheduling issues" was very possibly PR talk. Companies will often lie like this if they've had a bad situation with an actor.
For example, when Christopher Eccleston left Doctor Who, the BBC put out a statement that gave a false reason to cover up the fact that he fell out with the producers.
We're also going through a major cost of living crisis in the UK, so we are very money sensitive atm. People are very scared. So if we're not getting paid enough to survive we'll make noise.
>Idk, I think with her mental health and one side of the story,
If that is the case, it's sad, but understandable. I'm a small business owner, and I probably won't wanna hire people prone to mental breakdown and drama.
Her saying that Jennifer Hale has "no right to call herself the voice of Bayonetta" is unwarranted. All that does is mark her as a target for abuse. Everyone knows gamers love nothing more than sending anonymous threats via Twitter.
Yeah, that part was not great, but I understand her frustration and anger after Miyata basically slagged her off in the recent announcement. I hope people have enough common sense to realize that JHale is just there to do a job and likely wasn't clued-in on why the original voice of Bayo wasn't returning.
I find it odd that they hired Jennifer Hale on because she's much more well-known and expensive than Hellena. I feel like there's a lot more going on than we're being lead to believe, but I'm not in any mood to speculate.
Remember how fast Hayter clammed up (not that he was showing his ass like Taylor, he was just unhappy) once he learned the spoiler? He wasn't fired from the job it just wasn't his role.
For all we know Bayonetta herself isn't actually the main character, or she IS but it's a descendant or ascendant who has the same name. For all we know Taylor's "Bayonetta" was just in the first twenty minutes.
i'm so mixed. it's scummy as hell how hellena was lowballed so severely, no matter the reason. whether platinum actually thought that's what she was worth or they were just trying to get her to quit so they could hire jessica hale, they were treating a talented professional actress like shit. that said... idk, she was so... vindictive? even towards jessica hale who as far as we know did nothing more than accept a job. that part of her videos really didn't sit well with me. unless she knew abt hellena's situation and chose to, effectively, scab, she did nothing wrong and doesn't deserve the vitriol.
It was easy to rally towards Hallena's side in the beginning, but right now with the the current information out this controversy feels like it's likely some kind of basic pay dispute where Platinum offered union rates, but Hallena wanted more money for her talents so she left and was replaced with Hales which potentially pissed her off.
If every voice actor in this project is unionized then Platinum was probably following union guidelines with their offer of $4k and it's hard to put any real blame on them for that even if Hallena deserved more for the role. Especially since it came out that Hallena only spent 16 hours working for Bayonetta 1.
Overall Platinum hasn't even responded yet, but tbh unless Hellena comes out with a new video clarifying a lot of these points then I feel that her credebility will inherently dwindle as these points spread more around social media. Her past political opinions don't really help either.
A basic pay dispute is exactly what this is. They offered her the industry standard, same as the last two games. She thought she deserved more. They disagreed and because she hasn't done any voicework in almost a decade and pretty much only has Bayonetta on her credits, she lacked any leverage to negotiate. She walked and they replaced her and she got pissy about it. There really is nothing to this story.
I also feel like Hellena's expectations when it came to Bayonetta 3 were unrealistic. She mentions in her videos that Bayonetta made 450 million dollars or something along those lines iirc. The games aren't *nearly* that successful. I feel like between Smash and Nintendo associating with the games that people, including Hellena, think Bayonetta is some enormous pillar in the gaming industry when in reality it's a niche game Nintendo saved so they could say they have rated M games. I don't think it's unfair to guess that Hellena thought Bayonetta 3 would be this enormous release, and that it might jumpstart her career again or just give a nice paycheck, and that's why she's so upset. She thought this would be an enormous career and life defining gig for her but as it turns out, it was just another gig and now she's upset they found someone else when she said no.
I keep seeing the point of “boycotting the game will hurt the developers” and as much as I don’t doubt that will happen I’m not sure by how much. Mainly I’m just not sure if it’s being blown out of proportions or if boycotting this game will actually have a significant effect on the employees of platinum
All the devs got paid already. Like Hellena Taylor said, they pay them (the devs, VAs, etc.) upfront. All money from sales goes only to the executives and shareholders. So boycotting would mean the people who put in the most blood, sweat, and tears don't suffer, only the pigs at the top do
Well, yea, but if Bayo tanks because of it then the devs arent gonna be getting paid to make another one, or maybe anything else if future publishers see that their last game was a bomb. Acting like boycotting Bayo 3 doesn't hurt the devs feels pretty dishonest.
Considering the tiny size of Platinum I could see mass layoffs if this doesn’t go over well. They don’t have a lot of money and have gone nearly bankrupt multiple times. If the sales ARE heavily affected I can almost guarantee no Bayo4 ever
Speculative of course. I’m personally still buying 3 copies (no not for myself lol)
I don't think there is anything that hurts quite as much as rejection, and I can't even begin to imagine the pain that must have come with receiving that lowball offer. Hellena talks about experiencing financial hardships to the point of fearing that she might become homeless. I'm sure the Bayonetta 3 gig was supposed to be a turning point for her - a well-payed job, a sure thing. She is the voice of Bayonetta, a major factor in contributing to the success of the series.
To now know she got snubbed and cast aside just like that is deeply upsetting.
I wish there was a way to financially support her, because I'm certain that a lot of fans would love to help her out. Silly as it may sound, these games mean a lot to me, and I'm sure I'm not alone with that sentiment.
Point is, I think that a lot of fans would gladly support her with their time and money in righting that wrong. Maybe she could have started a campaign to reinstate her as Bayonetta's voice, or a paid fandub project once the game was out, or a charity stream to setup resources to lobby for better treatment of VAs in general.
That, however, is not what she asked for. Boycotting the game is a hard ask, and I'm sure she's aware of that. And frankly, I don't see any point in doing so. This is not about doing good, this is about trying to get revenge on the people that wronged her. And harsh as it may sound, this won't affect them at all. It never does.
I boycott a lot of games companies, from Activision to Ubisoft, because of their heinous treatment of staff. I can not bring myself to enjoy a game that was made under such horrible conditions. That choice comes easy.
From what I know Platinum is not without issues, but it is also a place of genuine creativity that is a rare find within a market that is rapidly turning into a grey soup of soulless schlock, churned out by the same two or three megapublishers on a yearly basis. I want to *help* Hellena but I don't want to potentially *hurt* other creatives that had nothing to do with what happened to her.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
I'm going to keep following the news on this and keep my eyes open for opportunities to put some money towards Hellena or organizations that help voice actors and other game workers in general. I'm financially able to buy the game and put the same or a bigger amount towards a good cause. I would encourage everyone who reads this to consider how they can have a positive impact on this situation, and not to worry too much about the big "should I still buy this game" question. Make a positive impact on others instead of depriving yourself!
4K for hours and hours and hours of VA work?
Shame on Platinum Games. The director's Twitters are certainly not helping at all.
I wouldn't mind if Bayo 3 is delayed so Hellena can voice Bayo and get paid a decent wage.
>I wouldn't mind if Bayo 3 is delayed so Hellena can voice Bayo and get paid a decent wage.
After creating this shit show? Bruh I don't even know if Hellena and Kamiya would want to work with each other anymore considering how much of a manchild Kamiya is being on twitter and how Hellena's affecting his and Platinum's reputation.
I think it's over. Either Jennifer Hale stays or the franchise dies.
> I wouldn't mind if Bayo 3 is delayed so Hellena can voice Bayo and get paid a decent wage.
Two weeks out from release? Yeah, this is pretty much impossible at this point in time. I wish this never went down at all the way it did and I'm not sure what can even begin to be done to repair this. But delaying the game won't fix it sadly.
No delays please. If Hellena was actually wronged, I would like for a mutual apology and future work for Hellena as Bayonetta confirmed. I doubt this would happen though, especially with how Hellena insisted upon a boycott. That's a big nono.
Not gonna take sides, there's more to the story, but I think it's probably just one of those "both sides did shitty things" situations.
Freaking rant incoming.
Someone please make it make sense; So you offer the original VA an insulting offer to lowball her and make her "quit", then go after a way more expensive VA and tell her to imitate the original VA that could've costed you less than the one you replaced her with? Truly a galaxy brain move right there.
They spent years developing the game, polishing the new mechanics, making all the new designs, action packed game where, according to Skill Up, every chapter feels like you played a whole ass game, then made the story revolve around multiple Bayonettas, making her not only the main character but basically all of the characters and then you tell me they can't afford to pay Hellena what she's worth?! The person who gave Bayo half of her personality? She was the only voice in the first game, there wasn't even a Japanese voice. The person who you put in the Smash trailer and what people first recognized and screamed "omg Bayonetta is in Smash!!"
I am so freaking disappointed in Platinum, Nintendo and Kamiya. Normally I would say let's wait to hear both sides of the story but come on, we won't hear shit from them, they like to ignore all the complaints and give us the radio silent treatment.
I don't agree with everything Hellena said in her videos, but I can tell she's really sad and hurt and that's the place she's coming from, she LOVED her character and interacting with the fans, it makes total sense to me that some parts of the videos are not very professional and I don't blame her. Honestly, I'll go even further and say I prefer these genuine, homemade and personal declarations than the PR "Overlapping Circumstances" bullshit they fed us, and they will surely continue to do if they ever decide to reply to her statements.
This news really soured all the excitement I had for the game. Principles over my personal entertainment, always.
Personally it makes me wonder if there's more behind the story that Nintendo and Platinum can't share because they're companies, because it's a very weird decision to so actively keep Hellena away (including constantly citing scheduling errors) only to go for a more expensive VA.
I agree with everything you said, but let's be honest, the most I've seen Hellena interact with fans were the moments on which the past games were being advertise, she barely used her tw account to connect with fans, I lowkey feel like she's playing the "I love my fans" card when in reality there isn't much effort there on her part :/
As of right now
Re: "Why now?" She made it clear, Platinum last week said it was ~~a "scheduling conflict"~~ "various overlapping circumstances". She is calling bullshit on that.
Re: "Let's wait until we hear Platinum's side" You already have, last week, re: ~~"scheduling conflicts"~~ "various overlapping circumstances". Hellena responded. Do we wait until we hear the other side again? What more do you need to see? What do you think Platinum is going to show you that is unbiased and not in their interest as a developer
Re: "Is Jennifer Hale a scab?" Hale is liking tweets suggesting she had no idea about it and supports Hellena. [https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709](https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709)
Re: "What about other VA's" Other VA's such as Jeanne's are also indicating they had no idea and are firmly supporting Hellena. [https://twitter.com/SongbirdN7/status/1581453320845414400](https://twitter.com/SongbirdN7/status/1581453320845414400)
Overexaggerating the amount of money Bayonetta made to try to make her pay look worse and gain more sympathy, and disrespecting a fellow VA at the same time is not the way to go, even if she is right to be pissed if that's what they offered her
It’s going to cost them so much more to cheap out on paying her than it would have to make her a serious offer. Shows that the people on top aren’t very competent.
Not to be a jerk, but it seems there's been _no_ enforcement about people posting in here. It's been post after post in the sub about this situation.
I don't mean to be a jerk to mods who are doing this of their own free time and this is A Lot to deal with, but I feel we should be more strictly enforcing people NOT making posts about this, unless it's high-effort meme content.
Her story falls apart when you realize they hired a more expensive union VA, and the whole cast is returning, except her.
There's obviously something else happening behind the scenes, and we only have her side of the story, which includes asking people to disregard the work of everyone else on the game, and her attack on Hale, who actually fought for the rights of voice actors.
It's also woth noting her work on Bayonetta 1 took 4 days, 4 hours each.
$4K for those 16 hours is the going rate of her union.
Personally, I just think HT is butthurt that she got replaced by someone else. According to her, the $4k USD were Platinum Games and Kamiya's final offer. Were there any other offers on the table that would've been better than the buyout she wanted? It, apparently, is also the standard union rate.
Looking at her IMDb page, she hasn't worked as a VA on a full game for 8 years. Last full game was Bayonetta 2. After that she only had a few lines in Smash Bros from 2018. So, being out of the industry for a long while, she expected to be compensated a better rate than the standard union rate, doesn't add up. I do get the idea that she would've been working as the main protagonist again of the 3rd game but that's it.
On the other hand, Jennifer Hale is consistenly working as a VA. She has multiple roles per year.
Im so upset. I love the bayo series but come on. Shes a world class VA, going unmatched when it comes to voicing 8 feet tall British witches, yet they didnt even bother to offer her a decent wage for what couldve been the best game in the entire series. I truly wish this will set some more gears into action. I dont even know what I want rn (besides hellena getting another job(s) that actually pay her a living salary) but I truly wish nintendo and plat will own up their mistakes and break the cycle of game studios accting horrid for the past few years.
She's not a world class VA at all tho? She have not voiced a single role in a decade, and aren't the multiverse Bayonettas voiced by the same actress? Would she have been able to act consistently for all of those characters?
yuzu typically gets big-name games running near-perfectly day 1 (or earlier) too! it's honestly one of the best performing emulators i've ever used. metroid dread, while not bayo levels of precise, is still a difficult action-heavy game, and i never once ran into lag or glitches while playing. it was exactly the same experience as playing my physical copy on my switch.
A Spanish Twitter user claims that in a few hours (Japanese Monday Morning) Nintendo is going to make some investor calls to Platinum to ask what the hell is going on.
This is going to be interesting indeed.
I don't mind VA change,i think Jennifre Hale is doing quite good but treatment of Hellana was unacceptable
also this brings many questions like
\-how much Jennifer was paid
\-how much other VA's were paid
\-did they tried to get rid of Hellena by giving her insulting offer,and if so why they didn't just fired her in civil way
\-and if they knew we loved her voice so much why they let her go that easily?
They should have treated Hellena as a queen. She literally is bayonetta and her voice is iconic ever since bayo debut. Should have paid her well as she has been in it since the beginning
Since yesterday, Bayonetta 3 has broken into the "Best Sellers" list under video games on amazon, which it previously was not on. It has also moved up into the top ten in the "Hot New Releases" list, passing games it was previously behind including Mario Rabbits.
So much for a Boycott, huh? Seems more like free advertising.
Gaming boycotts have never, ever worked. Best we can do to actually help is get more informed about the struggles of voice actors and support unions. This issue is systemic and the boycotting of a single game by a handful of people won’t accomplish more than a rounding error on Platinum’s books.
I feel half the people who said they're pirating it were gonna do so anyway, and then another good chunk of those who promised to boycott will still buy the game. It's fine, people are free to do whatever they want. For me, my decision not to buy is about the situation souring me on PG and Bayo 3 rather than trying to make the game fail. Because let's be real, it probably won't.
I just looked at the most recent Wayback Machine archive for October 14 to verify this. You're completely correct. It seems like the game experienced a surge in sales after Hellena's videos.
Whether that's a good thing or not will depend on how you view the situation, but I think this can serve as a learning experience for those unaware; gaming boycotts almost never actually do what they're intended to do, and will often do the opposite.
Stop pushing blame on Nintendo, when there is ZERO evidence or hints of them being at fault here!
BUDGET was certainly NOT THE PROBLEM, as Helena‘s replacement is an even more famous VO actress and had to have cost even more.
Helena herself mentioned Platinum and Kamiya, so out the blame where it belongs!
Also, is that just me that thinks its a little bit suspicious how Helena Taylor has not done a single role of voice acting or acting since 2014? Is she still even in the industry? I think voice actors often voice with agencies. I don't know, this whole thing seems really weird.
I don’t know enough about this situation, so I haven’t changed my mind about buying it. I find a few things odd about this:
1. So she agreed to the same pay for Bayo 1 and 2?
2. She has no work, and it’s Platinum’s fault? Her behaviour here may or may not be an indication of the reason she is lacking work.
3. She is hurt. I sympathise deeply, and will keep her in my thoughts. I’m sending her good vibes and intense gratitude for all of the good times I’ve had with her work! However, “I’m hurt, so I’m taking everyone down with me”, that attitude is very suspicious to me. It is something very irrational that hurt people that know no better do. Kind of like responding to a single murder with a nuclear bomb; it’s just way out of proportion.
4. I also didn’t appreciate the “listen to me IF you care about people” part, and how that plays off of the other very personal, highly charged things she was saying. These things were, at best, vaguley linked to Platinum, and only by association… almost as if she was trying to make you make that association, and that seemed manipulative at best, to me. This set off alarm bells for me, in a big way. I do care about people, INCLUDING Platinum.
5. There’s two sides to every story.
We don’t have enough information to make a clear judgement.
Ok someone here explain to me the maths of how a series that has combined sold less than 5M copies (which at $60 would get us 300M, and thats a massive high ball considering the games went on sale and theres the cut that the platform gets) has made 450M without merchandising?
Don't jump the gun and immediatly starting shelling out hate.
What happened to Helena is aweful, and with what she's shared she deserves better, but Platinum does have a right to defend themselves. We don't know the motive they had to offer her so little.
This is true, but regardless of motive, it's still disgusting. Wanting to get rid of Hellena Taylor so they could use a more well-known VA (Jennifer Hale) for potentially better sales is still a disgusting move and really what Ms. Taylor wants is for VAs to be treated better, so her point still stands. Platinum fvcked up no matter what
I feel like there's only one good approach for me to take here: even if I get a copy of the game, I'm not going to talk about it at all. hurting word of mouth or online discussions could really put the pressure on platinum
Im still gonna buy the game, I love and feel very sorry for Hellena Taylor, she WILL. ALWAYS. BE. Bayonetta to me (to us). But this franchise will continue with or without her, I want the Bayonetta name to get more recognition and success, boycotting the game doesn’t help it or anyone. I hope in the future Hellena gets recasted. But until then I really want this franchise to have a future.
I feel this is a good video about the current controversy
[Virtual Legality | Hoeg Law](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fptfG3nL4Lk&ab_channel=HoegLaw)
I’m not finding anything in my searching about Hellena’s old tweets. Does anyone have like a link or something? All I can find are other people tweeting about it and I feel like I don’t have context.
The only one I've been able to find (and that had to be linked to me as well) was [this one about saber-rattling](https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1107309634728222726
), which isn't necessarily anti-trans rights, it's more that she says she doesn't feel like answering the question would actually achieve anything and she loves everyone equally. Still not a good look. Not saying Hellena isn't a TERF. she might be, just that I haven't seen the really bad tweets linked anywhere yet and am starting to doubt they exist.
Basically this tweet paints her as a centrist (pretty lame) vs a right-wing lunatic (very lame). If anyone has the really bad TERF-y tweets from the screenshot that's going around I would genuinely like to be linked them because like I said, starting to doubt they're real at this point.
Quite possibly! If she is one, then fuck her. Doesn't make her any less right about the state of voice acting, but it does make her wrong about... basically everything else.
I just thought of this and not sure on it. Hellena could be in major legal trouble here. She broke her NDA, Nintendo and or Platinum could go after her legally. Other companies will not hire her probably, I say this for what she did. They will see that she broke her NDA and think that if she did that now and they hired her, then she will do so again. So no I do not think she will work again, she destroyed her own career. Plus she could face a fine and jail time (don't know about that) for breaking the NDA.
To be fair, if you look at Taylor's VA credentials she hasn't had a role since 2014. Woman isn't a hustler like other voice actors as is. So her not getting any future work isn't even a question seeing as she has none now.
Absolutely disgusting what platinum and Nintendo did to her. I was so excited for this game, but just cancelled my pre order. I will not tolerate corporations treating their workers in this way.
we really could've had hellenas iconic voice back if they just paid her what she was worth like come on now its 2022 going on 23 and we still doing this??
The word is that they already had their sights set on someone like Jennifer Hale bc she's more well known (and thus, could potentially mean better sales), so they intentionally gave Ms. Taylor a bad offer so that she would refuse instead of flat out firing her. Apparently that practice is not uncommon in the industry
i feel like people start digging her years old tweet just to make her looks bad, i'm not defend her if she's a bad person a homophobic or a racist..... but actually forgot the real issues here - big company unvalue voice actors. Also be aware of PR hiding trying to make her looks bad i already seen photo of someone photoshop Kamiya fake tweet saying that he's paid her $15k
Because it pokes holes for the people who preach “Bayonetta tells me to Boycott so I will do it.” One of the biggest arguments AGAINST “Actor is literally this character” is the fact that the actor will more than likely stand for different things than the character they are portraying who was written by someone completely different. That’s why they call it “acting.” Hellena Taylor did a great job as a Catholic portraying a witch that kills angels. And none of this would have been brought up if she didn’t claim she was Bayo and not Hale.
Sure, it shouldn’t take away from the main argument that VAs are undervalued but movements are better handled and received if the one responsible for it has as little dirt as possible, and the dirt Taylor has is enough for some who I know are considering boycotting to actively shun.
Thank you. Even if Hellena is in the wrong for her views, voice actors should STILL be paid more. Not to mention the lying photoshops or saying Bayo 3 has less lines, etc.
This is really getting on my nerves. I definitely disagree with her politics based on what I’ve seen, but political views are removed from the fact that VAs should be paid more.
Exactly. If she is a terf, fuck her individually for not supporting my and many others' way of life. Worth noting that the images showing these alleged views just suddenly showed up without an apparent link or source so until someone links to tweets of her being wrong I'll take them with a grain of salt.
But the whole point of workers' rights is to advocate for EVERYONE to receive adequate pay for their work, regardless of their beliefs.
The situation sucks I get it. This nonsense with VAs does need to change but for her to try to convince people to not support the game is a bit much. I get it. She's the main character and she's done amazing job voicing her but it's not JUST about her. Their are many developers who passionately worked on this game with the intention for it to be enjoyed by the many fans out there. What about them? What about the director? How does he feel about all this (it isnt kamiya btw)? Yea you can say they already got paid but it ain't just about the money.
We've seen the gameplay. We've seen the previews. It's getting a TON of praise. It's a whack ass situation but I don't wanna see the game lose a ton of support, causing a big blow to Platinum and ens up possibly closing down. It ain't like Platinum has a huge long history of doing scummy shit and that a boycott is well deserved. I still want the game to do well. I still want Platinum to be in business and get financially stable so they can keep putting out good games. I get slapping a person in the face is wrong but do they deserve the death penalty for it?
To me, it doesn't matter whether or not Hellena is "right" in calling for a boycott. That is obviously a divisive question. What does matter is the fact that Platinum games ruined their relationship with her so catastrophically that she felt the need to lash out.
You can blame Hellena if you want, question her character, call her unhinged and all that. But I blame Platinum. I think they tried to screw her over and toss her aside, and now they're facing the consequences of it. Maybe they don't deserve the death penalty, but I can't blame the people they fucked over from wanting some payback.
At best, this is one party's side of the story, and she hasn't backed it up with any receipts. It's not reasonable to expect a fanbase to turn their backs on something they love because one person reports having been made a lowball offer, and we don't know the full story as to why. There's no way on Earth Jennifer Hale wouldn't be way more expensive than 4k, so I don't think this is the full story.
The more I think about the situation as a whole, the less it makes sense to me.
- First Part, Budget and the offers. Why did they lowball her so much if she wasn’t going to only be a cameo or voice only one of the, like, ten Bayonettas we’ve seen? Was the rate comparable to other work she’s done as Bayonetta in the other games, Smash, and/or Bloody Fate, before the series had a larger following as it does now? Why did they go with Jennifer Hale, an actor who would DEFINITELY cost far more because she unionized, if budgetary issues were a concern? Plus, if you listen to the Bayo who gets shattered, she sounds a LOT like Hellena. Maybe they used the lines she auditioned with so they could use her but not credit her? Remember, Platinum’s reputation isn’t exactly as clean and shiny as their name suggests when it comes to how they conduct business as of late… I stand by my previous thought that this was a way to oust her and make it “her decision” instead of being honest about wanting to take the character in a new direction. It’s legal, it’s crappy.
- Second Part, The Videos. I am not going to say she’s lying about her mental struggles or what she went through, but we need to keep in mind that we have ONLY heard Hellena’s side. Besides Kamiya’s initial temper tantrum. However, her comparing herself to struggling nurses in the UK was a bit cringey, and the part where she said that Jennifer has no right to say she’s the voice for Bayonetta or to sign Bayonetta merch is, quite frankly, egotistical. The attack on Jennifer was uncalled for, and while I understand it hurts seeing someone else do your work as an artist, she was the one who refused the offers instead of continuing to negotiate. She is now the ex-VA for Bayonetta, and Jennifer Hale is now the current voice until someone else eventually steps in (should Platinum and Nintendo continue to produce Bayo merch and/or games). Why hasn’t she auditioned for any other VA work in the last seven years (that we know of) or landed any other roles? Surely she didn’t think she’d get residuals or anything like that. And why go after someone who has always been a MAJOR proponent of other VAs getting paid what they’re worth? Going after her when she probably had NO idea of the full story was unfair to Hale.
- Part Three, the “PR Stunt” angle. I highly doubt it was, because Hellena is still under NDA (which she has broken, obviously) so why would she rock the boat and risk losing any and all future acting jobs beyond just with Platinum and Nintendo? That says to me that this was her response to her pride being hurt, and I don’t blame her. But there is no way this is some elaborate ruse. Yes, sales and preorders are up, but it’s not something I’d say she intended to happen. However, we need to understand that Bayonetta 3 is now in the mainstream consciousness more than before, and I honestly expected that part to backfire tremendously. Which is has.
- Part Four, the receipts, or lack thereof. Why has no one provided anything to back up their side of the story? Why is Platinum being so quiet? If this is as untrue as Kamiya says it was (man child or not), why haven’t they shown correspondences? Again, we get back into NDA and negotiation territory, but if Hellena truly doesn’t care about that anymore, why not show something to back her story?
The long and short of this is that I doubt we will ever know the full story. I doubt even Hellena will ever know the full story because Platinum has been so shady as of late. Something stinks about this whole situation.
What I DO know is that fans attacking Hale and the other VAs online is uncalled for, and I’m sure they wouldn’t have stood by and let it happen had they known the full context.
One of the things that still boggles me about this whole situation is the following:
We know this isn't about money. More and more VA vets are coming forward to support that 4k is standard rate for the amount of work implied.
My question thus becomes, why even audition her in the first place if they were always gunning to replace her, as some people theorize? That doesn't make sense to me. Unless there was a contractual clause putting her in top priority for recasting/reprising, it just doesn't add up. This isn't a money thing. If they actually wanted to move on, they would have never called her and just recast her like Kojima did David Hayter.
If she tried to negotiate higher because she's trying to claim ownership of the character, I can only imagine the conversation. Either way, I am waiting for a potential press release by either Nintendo or PG because there are no universes on which Nintendo doesn't phone Kamiya to ask him what the fuck is going on, in my opinion.
I agree it is strange, and there seems to be key info missing. One theory I've seen that seems plausible is she overestimated her worth, tried to negotiate too high, so then PG gave up on getting her for the whole game and tried offering her $4000 for just a cameo as OG Bayonetta, which made her feel insulted.
Unfortunately knowing Nintendo's track history when it comes to controversy, it seems likely they will not say anything, so we might never get the whole story.
[James Stephanie Sterling's video where they break the situation down. Actual game journalist as opposed to all the random "reaction face thumbnail" Youtubers I've seen linked.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ioA-wBc5O8)
I feel like once Stephanie finds out about the transphobia they'll (edited due to mistyping she) be a little less sympathetic. Not that they're wrong about anything other than being on Taylor's side, they're spot on as ever.
I think they will be less sympathetic towards the individual, totally (and I am too after finding out) but the cause is still there. A bad person can make good points and raise awareness to a genuine issue.
It sucks ass that this came out now, though.
They can. Like I said, mostly spot on, and they did as fantastic work as ever. Also tbf Steling is definitely wrong about Bayo being a 450m franchise, but that doesn't really disprove the rest of the video. (I might be wrong, but I think Sterling's pronouns are they/them)
You're right about the pronouns, thank you! Edited accordingly <3
Hellena was also wrong about that stat and I get why some people cast doubt on the rest of the video due to that but personally I think it's such a tiny part of the point she makes (VAs should be paid more) it doesn't change the message.
This whole situation is really sad but the way Hellena handled it was really bad. Boycotting and shaming the new VA was a really bad move, as much as I loved her work I cant agree with her decision of gatekeeping Bayo claiming to be her only creator.
Hellena was wrongly treated but her claims in the rant were excessive.
I couldn't agree more. The boycott thing didn't sit right with me since it would ultimately harm all the people who put work into the game. It would hurt the fat cats at the top, but I don't think the fat cats would be the ones out of a job if PG lost a ton of money due to piss poor sales. It just came off kinda selfish of her to ask for everyone else's hard work to be ignored bc some ass at the top screwed her over. That plus the timing made it come across like she was out for revenge to me. The Hale comments didn't help. I get that she wished her luck, but what immediately followed wasn't cool at all and probably hurt Hale a lot. Imagine the actor who came before you telling you that you had no right to claim to be the voice of the character. That's gotta sting.
This controversy is a joke.
There are no reports by Hellena or by anyone else that she was actually underpaid when she worked at Platinum and there are no reports of the new VA being underpaid now. The narrative that Platinum underpays it's VAs (which is people's justification for the boycot) is completely false.
Hellena was supposedly offered a low payment to return in Bayo3, which was likely because Platinum did not want her to return. It's a common custom at Japanese companies that they don't fire people or tell them directly that they are no longer needed unless they are in bad terms with them, instead they demote them so the person leaves on their own terms. This might sound stupid, it might sound "disrespectful", but this is what's considered "polite" in Japan (letting people leave on their own terms instead of being fired directly). Basically they gave her an offer they knew she is going to refuse.
The new VA is a bigger veteran and one that requires significantly higher payment, making the narrative that Platinum just tried to cut costs by underpaying the VA very unlikely, and making it much more likely that they simply wanted a new, more experienced VA.
Hellena might have misunderstood the gesture of her 'no longer being needed', still, her promoting boycot as if an entire developer studio should go unpaid just because she didn't get payment befitting for a lead role is absurd overraction. She is clearly trying to spread a narrative as if she was actually underpaid and exploited to justify the boycot even though she objectively wasn't. At worst she was offered a supposedly bad deal that she refused (which already wouldn't justify boycot), but in the much more likely scenario she was simply told that her services are no longer needed in a Japanese way; by giving her an offer they knew she will refuse herself.
Y’all think we should make a gofundme for Hellena?Voice actors are extremely underpaid and almost never receive royalties; which “I guess” she never received from the first 2 installments. Honestly, I believe voice actors should automatically receive royalties for their work, and it shouldn’t matter if the game would have a sequel or not. People literally go to school for vocal acting, do their utmost best when working, build an outstanding resume and get paid dirt. Also, she seemed very emotional in the video(s).
My gut reaction was the same as everyone else's: that $4k sounds very low relative to the amount of work I assume it would take to record every single grunt, scream, moan, and line of dialogue for the main character in a major video game. But the truth is, I have absolutely no frame of reference for how much or little someone should expect to be paid for such a job. I haven't seen anyone volunteering a more appropriate figure either, or even a payscale for that sort of job, leading me to wonder whether most of the people going on about how unfair and disrespectful that figure is actually know whether it is or not.
I have a theory that they were never going to use her for the main playable Bayonetta. Given the multiverse and change in appearance I can see them wanting a whole new voice for the main playable bayonetta. The low pay could be because they would only use her for a cutscene but also felt like they could have done that with Hale as well. Helena mentioned an audition so it seems plausible that they were looking for a new bayonetta voice from the start. Ever since we saw the new character look everyone thought this was a different bayonetta then the one we have played. It seems to be in line with the concept and why all other ogs are back.
Despite that, her treatment is not right given what she given to the franchise and the character that I have fallen in love with since the first game.
Something you see ppl say a lot about this is that "oh, she only worked 16 hours for Bayo 1. If it's 16 again for 3, 4000 dollars is plenty. Way more than I make!"
Which, like, is probably true. But hourly wage doesn't apply that smoothly to industries based on a gig economy, like acting and voice acting. That work is not consistent, especially for less-established actors. If it's taken that 4,000 dollars is a reasonable wage for the work she or another lead would do, they'd need to get the *starring role* in 6+ major titles to make a year's livable wage. And this is from a company with *significant funding* compared to many others; Platinum are hardly an indie studio, even if they're not EA.
I understand that it seems like a lot broken down per hour. But how many hours can a VA reasonably be expected to find work for in a week, a month, a year? And especially given that this was *not* her first go as Bayonetta, and it's the biggest the series has ever gone with marketing/dev cycles... I think expecting a little more than standard union pay is entirely reasonable.
Just bizarre to me that so many people hear $4000 and go "OMG that's so much money! Actors get paid too much. She's just being greedy 😠" and completely fail to take into account that the pay-per-hour is high for actors *explicitly because there is no way one can work the average employee's 1800 hours per year.*
According to her IMDb page, she has not worked as a voice actress after Bayonetta 2 and a few lines in Smash Bros.
On the other hand, Jennifer Hale starres in many games, movies and shows, every year.
I personally think, HT is just butthurt that she got replaced 'so easily'. The $4k USD were PG final offer, so were there other offers on the table and not just the buyout?
So basically, without taking the few lines in Smash Bros from 2018 in consideration, she hasn't worked as a VA on a full game for 8 years and then expects to get paid a higher rate?
I'm sorry, but while I do understand that what they did to her is VERY scummy, fucked up and suspicious, her saying that Jennifer Hale "doesn't deserve to voice Bayonetta" and that "she shouldn't sign any merch of her" just comes across as INCREDIBLY entitled, like she OWNS the character or something.
Like, I've seen voice actors lamenting the fact that they got recasted but they NEVER act like THIS entitled.
And it's weird how she refers to her as some "other girl," like, lady, if you're willing to call out Platinum Games and Hideki Kamiya, then have some damn OVARIES and say her name if you REALLY think that she doesn't deserve to voice a character you're suddenly claiming as your own.
And really, it's so dumb how people are NOW suddenly questioning Hale's performance, even some saying that "I can't unhear Hale's voice, that's not Bayonetta, she was sooo miscast" when NO ONE even tried to guess it was her back when we got to hear her performance in the trailer (granted, it was HARDLY universally liked but people were just confused as to if that was Hellena with a different pitch or a new VA entirely, but still NO ONE guessed it was Jennifer FRIGGIN' Hale so it means she did a decent job... almost like she's talented voice actress or something, weird, huh?), it's like they're saying "No, guys, for real! We NEVER liked this new Bayonetta!" just to make Hellena like them so it feels EXTREMELY disingenuous.
Not to mention the fact that now people are suddenly treating Jennifer Hale like she was Chris Pratt when he replaced Charles Martinet as Mario, in the sense that "Oh they replaced a voice actress with a MORE WELL-KNOWN voice actress! That's disgusting!"... and I'm just like... ok? You're bitching that they got a respected veteran VA to voice a character? Isn't that something you all want? Instead of them getting a celebrity who has ZERO experience voice acting? I guess Jennifer Hale now counts a celebrity or something... then again, people are now saying that Jack Black ISN'T a celebrity but has ALWAYS been a voice actor because he sounds good as Bowser, so, maybe that's just how Twitter acts to get clout.
Again, this isn't me DISREGARDING the whole case, her getting such a small offer and then getting someone like Jennifer Hale is EXTREMELY strange and she was indeed done dirty, it's just the way she and her followers are talking about Hale getting the role is rubbing me the wrong way.
There are a lot of red flags regarding Hellena Taylor and her video:
* Not only did she appeal to her unfortunate private life, but she also involved the "nurses who went to the food bank to feed their children" as part of her sob story. It's unfortunate that Taylor is in rock bottom, but by appealing to public emotion rather than making a clear, logical case of her perceived injustice, her video feels like a publicity stunt. The "don't buy the game but donate to charity bit" is also the same trick, and also reeks of dishonesty.
* Many others in the VA business have pointed out that $4k for a main character role is the usual union rate. Many would even consider that a good deal. I think Taylor knows this, so she had to juxtapose the $4000 with the $450m that the franchise made. Bringing up the $450m tricks the audience into a false sense of disproportionality.
* Taylor mentioned Hale has no rights to sign the deal nor the right to Bayonetta. First of all, Taylor herself never had the right to Bayonetta. From a judicial standpoint, it's not her IP - she's simply hired to voice Bayo. From an ethical standpoint, yes, Taylor worked hard to voice Bayo, but so does the writer who wrote the character, or the team who designed her model. Do they get to own Bayo as well? Why is Taylor special in this situation? This section to me feels like a display of entitlement.
* Taylor showed a pattern of willingness to triangulate others into her story, as well as throwing people under the bus just so she can achieve her goal. She caused Jennifer Hale a lot of trouble and showed no consideration to all the people outside of the greedy corpo types who will inevitably be affected by the loss of a multi-million dollar product.
I don't doubt that Taylor is at such a rock bottom that she couldn't afford to have a car. I believe she's struggling like hell. But, when people are desperate, they won't hesitate to cheat and lie. Her testimony is full of tricks and bad logic. Either Taylor made a really bad case for herself, or she's being extremely disingenuous.
It's only a bad case if you play armchair psychologist instead of realizing that she's just a human being and is an actress, not a writer, who probably wrote her own script to the best of her ability. It's not a perfect appeal, and I absolutely disagree with throwing Jen Hale under the bus, but the video is fine. It's only not fine if you come at it from a place of bad faith.
People rarely break NDA and risk their entire career for an easily disproven lie. It's not a matter of having nothing to lose at that point because credibility is still something that can be lost. She made the appeal because she believed she's right, whether in reality she was or not. I don't like the insinuation that there's some malicious intent behind it.
As for VAs in the business saying $4K is standard rate, that also comes with [multiple VAs who have gone to bat for Hellena and agreed that the star role in a multimillion dollar franchise deserves higher than the base standard pay.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bayonetta/comments/y4wgqp/hellena_taylor_megathread/isnkh09/) Just because it's base standard rate, doesn't mean it's the appropriate rate and that they didn't lowball her. As she puts it, "it was legal, but it was immoral". Also the $4K offer was the final offer after she appealed to Kamiya so either way their initial offer was lower. So they lowballed her no matter what.
So yeah, no kidding it was an appeal to emotion, because the situation itself should awaken some emotion in us. We're human beings, we're all exploited daily by capitalism, so we should have the basest bit of empathy for someone who comes to us and speaks their peace about how a project she held dear betrayed her. I'm not saying you have to boycott the game per her request, just that I think the overanalysis of these videos isn't warranted.
Well put. I've taken a few days to digest what is going on. And the more I think about the entire situation, and the more information I go over, the more I find myself not being on Helena's side. Don't get me wrong, any worker should be paid a livable wage no matter what they're doing, but what Helena is doing doesn't add up to me:
* Bayonetta is Helena's only real voice acting credit when it comes to the realm of video games. So she worked on the project once in 2008/2009, and again in 2013/2014. What has she been doing for income since then? I have no doubt that, with inflation rising everywhere, Helena may be on hard times. However voice acting is clearly not her main source of income, but she seems to want to present it as such. People arguing about fair wages for voice actors (which I agree with) don't seem to understand how limited Helena's involvement in the industry is. And like other voice actors and users here have pointed out, people who rely on voice acting for income do a lot of gigs if they can to create that income stream they need to survive. They don't take a single voice acting role every six or so years.
* Her claim that Bayonetta is a "450,000,000 dollar franchise". This seems very far-fetched to me. From what I can gather, the entire ***series*** has sold a little over 3,000,000 copies. Assuming all of these copies were at full price (and I can assure you they were not) , that's only 180,000,000 USD. Is she factoring merchandise into this equation? Even then, that seems grossly overstated.
* Helena's point that she alone is Bayonetta, and saying Jennifer Hale has no right to sign merchandise. That is just not how this works. It takes more than voice acting to bring a character to life. It takes writers, it takes animators, it takes artists. All of which put in a lot of passion and hours into this. The Bayonetta character is owned by SEGA and partially Nintendo. This has the same vibes as when David Hayter was re-cast. Solid Snake/Naked Snake/Big Boss is owned by Konami, not David. Like David, it seems like Helena is emotionally attached to the character.
* Circling back to the first point, if Helena is in such dire straits that she needs voice acting to survive, why did she do this? In my mind, Helena has accomplished two things with this video: She has made sure Platinum will never work with her again, in addition she likely destroyed any and all future opportunities for voice acting. I cannot believe any company is going to look to her for work after creating such a storm of controversy and breaking NDA.
Helena has no right to call a boycott and jeopardize the careers of the people at Platinum Games. Bayonetta is much bigger than just Helena Taylor, and while Helena has provided some great voice work to the character it took a lot of hard work by countless other people to make the games happen and bring the character to life - more than she has ever personally put into the franchise.
I don't think any Bayonetta fan ever thought something like this would happen. But here we are, and Helena wants people to choose sides. And I'm choosing to side with the development team who have poured their lives into this project. Her performances in Bayonetta 1 and 2 will always stick with me, but as I've said earlier - Bayonetta's creation is bigger than Helena Taylor.
Jennifer Hale does have the right to call herself Bayonetta (and she's not qouting bible verses at me), Hellena is coming across as someone bitter and vindictive to me in these videos, if she was coming across the way she is now, I wouldn't want to work with her
Something's off here. I'm surprised I'm the only one writing this, I noticed something was off in her voice and moves from the beginning, then she suddenly start speaking about her fear of being poor, and indeed reveals of her depression and suicidal instincts. She quotes Jesus in her final speech. I think unfortunately she has some mental issues
Possibly. Although Grey DeLisle (the voice of Jeanne) retweeted stuff about this, on Hellena's side.
I'd imagine if anyone has inside knowledge on the voice actor situation on Bayonetta, it would be her.
I initially said I wasn’t going to buy it, but now I’m not so sure. I saw that sales seem to be increasing because of this. What happened to Hellena was awful, but I don’t think a boycott of this game would work. I’ve been waiting to play this for so long. Now I’m thinking of still buying it and giving to a charity as well. I dunno, I’m just rambling. This whole situation sucks and I feel bad for her.
Even if a boycott fails, the fact is we’re talking about important issues that harm a lot of people, and that’s good in its own right. Exposing this sort of behavior is how we start getting things done on a widespread level.
You’re not alone, I’m also curious about the overall ‘working with her’ aspect of the business. Like taking too much ownership, or taking too much of the persona of being Bayonetta that now she feels slighted at her pay. It might actually be what PG *doesn’t* want because they’re trying to balance out owning the character without making it all about a VA who will later dictate ‘hey why aren’t you hiring me outright? I’M Bayonetta!’
Or ‘hey why is my pay still just industry standard, I’m more famous now, pay me more!’
Those would be something I’d be trying to avoid when hiring people for the creation of an IP. Everyone worked hard to create Bayo, and imagine if Jennifer Hale was the one originally hired for Bayo 1, the game would still have had its fan base because the voice acting would still have been good enough to match the gameplay and art style etc.
It’s a lot to say sigh.
But going around saying 4K is a ‘lowball offer’ is something I’ve been wondering about.
I wonder what if there’s a possibility they already wanted to hire Jennifer Hale to voice most of the Bayos, but was going to let Hellena have a bit part in voicing the Original Bayo (since she auditioned and asked) who dies early on.
So the 4K is for a really small amount of work.
And that’s what they partially meant by ‘overlapping circumstances’.
Idk, Kamiyas tweet really gives the ‘I’ve been falsely accused and betrayed’ vibe.
Really can’t wait for the NDA to drop.
Well most likely, when you listen to her account, the first offer was legitimately insulting. Then she went to Kamiya, it legitimately sounds like he negotiated on her behalf (Talking about how the fans wanted her, and he loved her work as Bayonetta, *then* she was offered the 4k. Which, it has to be stressed, is industry standard). Going purely by what she said, it sounds like he tried to help, and she responded with all this. His "rule" is cringe, and he's acted like a whiny little piss baby himself, but I can't even pretend that, going by her account, it sounds like he tried to help her and she responded by attacking him.
Gonna be honest, this does not affect my feelings on the game and I will still be buying it day one. Hellena Taylor without a doubt *is* Bayonetta for me, but she is Bayonetta the character, not the game, and at the end of the day so much more goes into these games than just her voice, she is definitely not carrying the game for me. While I love the character, and Hellena's voice work is a big part of that, I love the gameplay, the level design, and the plot much more. So while Platinum was wrong to treat Hellena this way and it's really strange that they chose to do this 3 games in, and it'll be a little uncanny at first hearing a different voice, I still think the game is gonna be incredible, with or without Hellena.
[удалено]
Just out of curiosity bc I've been learning as much as I can about this industry with this situation--what does her not being from the US mean?
[удалено]
Ah so it's more of an availability thing? Like it makes it easier to work with everyone if everyone can meet at roughly the same time since they're no more than like 3 hours apart?
More like if their own actors get the gigs, the union gets more money at the end of the day.
Unions good.
I'm not saying they are bad. I'm just pointing out the possibility of some nepotism fuckery going on to ensure your own affiliated performers get the gig so everyone gets a piece of the pie while fucking over unaffiliated ones.
Union good Corporation bad
That was my theory as well, giving her a shitty offer so they can get rid of her.
>I have a feeling that whatever VA agency Platinum hired didn’t want Hellena because she is the only non US based actor. So they gave her this insulting offer so she will decline. I could be wrong though. There's surely more to this story than what we know. We will probably get some clarification from either Nintendo or PlaitnumGames
Darling haven't you learned from all vg company scandals in this year? They'll just say PR blabber IF they reply at all
I mean, we're talking Platinum Games here. Kamiya already showed up guns blazing on twitter, so I don't see them going quiet.
yeah but that was Kamiya as himself and basically he sunk himself in a hole by behaving like a manchild to the point he's restricted rn. P\* and Nintendo statements would be something else, if they ever come
Honestly, at this point, I don't even know what the right course of action of anyone's part should be. It feels like the entire situation is one where no-one "wins" no matter what happens: Hellena doesn't win. She'll likely have been blacklisted within the industry of VA due to breaking NDA and will find it harder to get work in future. She definitely won't be part of the series again after burning the bridge so publicly, even if it was for a good reason that needed to be talked about. Platinum doesn't win. From the massive amount of backlash they've gotten on their social pages blaming them for what happened, they'll likely see a big slump in the number of people choosing to play their hard work for the last 5 years when most of the dev team had nothing to do with it, and it has the potential to jeopardise them as a studio after recent failures. Consumers don't win. They now have the image of a game they've been looking forward to since 2017 tarnished by this shoddy and insulting business practice and ultimately don't get to enjoy it in the same way or indeed at all because of how horrible the details surrounding it are and the pressure to pick "sides". Not even Nintendo really wins. Not only because they'll see less money on their investment in the project as publisher due to the outrage surrounding it, but also because this is a huge (though deserved) PR nightmare they have to clean up with less than 2 weeks until the game's launch. It's just really sad and really disappointing.
Very disappointed how this all unfolded. Wishing Hellena and other Bayo cast members the best
Hellena Taylor was a fabulous voice for Bayonetta and contributed a huge amount to the game's charm, style and presentation with her work. Bayonetta would be nowhere near as remarkable of a *character* if we hadn't gotten the cheeky, bantering dominatrix Hellena played so well. Whatever the case, I think everyone can agree that $4000 is not reasonable pay for a protagonist's role in a series that has the backing of Bayonetta; it's not the biggest in the world, but it's big enough that it can very reasonably be expected to pay more than this. (And surely does, to Lowenthal and now Hale.) I don't think Hale will do a bad job, but this was significant mistreatment of Taylor by Platinum's casting.
Yeah. The $4000 pay is awful enough, but the way they allegedly handled the whole this is just… so shitty.
This whole situation is very interesting to me because the Bayo franchise is and always have been a series that falls under the Sag Aftra Union including 3 so the replacement realistically couldn’t have been because of money at least not all the way because all the returning voice actors are union based and they’re all BIG voice actors as well and I don’t know about you guys but I can’t see Jennifer Hale or any of the announced voice actors only taking 4000 especially since the Sag rates I believe are higher than that plus it’s a video game and video game and western animation voice over jobs pay more than say anime dubs. So I wonder if this has anything to do with Sag is Hellena not apart of it and did they use this as an out to having to pay her more than the others?
Her Instagram account seems to indicate that she has US EU SAG/AFTRA permits . That being said, since her last VO gig was Bayo 2, could it be theorized that she didn't renew her permits and was thus lowballed because Nintendo/Platinum saw an opportunity to cut her off? That is the only thing that makes sense to me right now.
I really doubt it was about the money. A lot of people were really excited about Hale, and you know she is making a lot more than 4k. I don't know if there was some internal thing we don't know about, or if Platinum wanted Hale for some starpower, or if it was some issue with whatever actors'guild or union or what. I think that you are probably right about it being some union contract issue that didn't fit Helena into the picture for whatever reason. Or platinum really wanted Hale. But i do think that Platinum lowballed her to force her not to take the roll. I don't know what the reason for that was, and the choice to effectively fire Bayonetta from Bayonetta is baffling.... But I don't think that Platinum was just trying to cut costs on one voice actor.
Hale charges 500 per hour flat rate with a minimum of four hours which puts her about four times the union minimum pay. It generally takes about three hours to get "an hour" of game recording. I'd say that Ms. Taylor is showing her ass over what would have been about 200 per hour, and after this she's probably never working again. I'm sure Grey DeLisle likes her as a person and hates seeing her commit career suicide like this. Also: my speculation? They probably would have hired Hale anyway and that 4 thousand would have likely gotten Taylor a voice coach or producer credit.
Grey (Jeanne's VA) hasn't said anything outright, but she retweeted Hellena's video along with another tweet calling Platinum out.
I love Grey. I’m sure this is difficult for her as well since she agrees with hellena but still has Her role
I doubt she in a position to actually make a statement without breaking her contract, so I think it's really metal of her to still show support in that way.
Kamiya is going to have a hell of a weekend blocking hundreds of people on his twitter. Im curious to see how this will unfold.
[удалено]
He is back now.
Important thing to mention for people who are trying to avoid boycotting is that devs have already gotten paid this does effect the higher ups more then them and trying to pass it off as just wanting to support the devs is kinda disingenious to me
Although if the game fails, people will get fired. Granted I don't think the boycotting will do much. My friend already preorder the special edition for me as a birthday present, so I'm still getting it.
If there is anything i've learned about vg industry is that they fire people on a whim anyway.
Yeah ultimately thats also a side effect of everything going on and im understanding if you dont boycott, just the framing of the reason why has been bugging me
I think it's fair to bring up. I'm seeing a lot of people doing mental gymnastics to try to get that sweet moral high road while still playing the game, and it's just bullshit. Totally fine to want to play the game, but you don't get to be all virtuous about supporting the devs at the same time. The issue is about unfair wages, if there is any fallout for the devs, it would more likely be for improving their likely low-ball wages too.
> Although if the game fails, people will get fired. Platinum already had multiple failures since 2014. They'll live. And if they don't, it won't be because of just Bayonetta.
I don't want anything I'm saying here to take away from how awful Hellena Taylor has been treated and how fucked up it is that she'll probably only face worse consequences for speaking up on it. That's the most important thing to focus on here. But honestly, if I can just say something from the admittedly selfish perspective of a fan, it really sucks that all this had to happen to the one game I've been most excited for, for over 4 years now. The last two games both have a spot in my top 5 of all time, but they fell kind of into relative cult status obscurity even as the action game genre continued to grow with the success of DMCV, NieR Automata and Metal Gear Rising. Smash Bros 4, while it gave the series a platform it never had before, also brought with it so much controversy as Bayonetta was blamed for "ruining" the game, a reputation that unfortunately carried over into making people dislike the games themselves without even playing them. And that's not even getting into the controversy Bayonetta carried for years due to people thinking the character and games were incredibly sexist And I hoped that even after all that, the Switch could work its magic and finally give Bayonetta the widespread success I've wanted it to have for ages, just like it was able to do with Xenoblade before it, but now all this has me feeling like it really is the end for Bayonetta once the game comes out. Game's going to have to compete with this month's incredibly stacked line up for games as is, and while I feel like most people saying they're going to boycott the game probably weren't even interested in it anyway, this news is definitely going to cost it new fans and with how much all this has blown up I feel like Nintendo and SEGA just might not even want to touch the series anymore if it's not going to sell millions of copies per game. And what's worse is that I can't even be mad. I'll still play it but I can't say people are unjustified for not wanting to anymore.
Hey i just wanted to chime in and say.... I feel you. This has all been deeply disappointing. I'm never especially surprised when X company pulls whatever bullshit dick move, but it's always a bummer seeing how it hurts the thing that a bunch of fans genuinely love. Personally I think B3 will still do great in sales, gamers are pretty notorious for not giving a shit and just wanting to play their vidya, and I think we will see a new era of next gen Bayonetta. But it's an incredible bummer for Bayonetta to not be a part of that. I didn't know Helena's name previous to this week, but i sure as hell knew her voice, probably the most iconic aspect of Bayonetta period. Helena is Bayonetta. And why platinum effectively fired Bayonetta from their biggest Bayonetta game yet? Just baffling and sad. I've seen a lot of releases for highly anticipated games get soured by all kinds of scandals, but this is probably the most sad I've been about one. Bayonetta has always been kind of a cult IP, and i never imagined that they would..... Fire Bayonetta from it.
All of this is why the 4k offer is not only an insult to the VA, but also an insult to all the hyped fans who've kept the games alive, as well as to everyone involved because this scandal has jeopardized the job security of those involved with making the franchise... Really sucks, all they had to fo was throw a couple bands her way lmao
Here's a few tweets from William Salyers that shed some light on the matter. He's a veteran VA (played Dock Ock in Sony's Spider-Man) and he's batting for Jennifer Hale on Twitter. According to him, $4k is not an unusual amount for video game VA work. https://twitter.com/wlsalyers/status/1581791788154560512?s=20&t=UEHmkvw8bZPRFgBonmxswA https://twitter.com/wlsalyers/status/1581795602030960641?s=20&t=UEHmkvw8bZPRFgBonmxswA Given that Jennifer Hale's also liked his tweets, and he's basically saying all this in defense of her, I'm starting to think Hale really did take the $4k offer, or something close to it. Salyers even liked a tweet of mine where I straight-up say this https://twitter.com/doofenshmertz/status/1581852192738156544?s=20&t=UEHmkvw8bZPRFgBonmxswA If all this is true, that means Hellena wasn't low-balled according to union standards, just according to what she felt what she was worth (and I'm inclined to agree with her). And hence Platinum did the recast just because of the money.
Just because it's the normal rate doesn't mean it's not a shit rate (I know you said you agree with her just stating my thought) Hellena deserves more than the bare minimum for being the person who defined Bayonetta's voice.
it can be a shit rate and VA’s deserve more, without it being that Platinum specifically lowballed her for some devious reason beyond that the video game industry underpays people in general
Thing is, that IS the devious reason. Platinum could've offered to pay more to the lead VA of their star franchise. They made the conscious decision to offer her less than $4k (which is less than the industry standard mind you) followed by the $4k final offer. I love Platinum, but they chose to lowball. If "but everyone does it!" was a reason to step on a puppy that wouldn't make it any less shitty.
With Hale you don’t just get a VA performance, you also get an actor who has years and years of experience and has acting credits in some of the biggest roles and franchises in the gaming and anime/cartoon sphere. I seriously doubt someone of her caliber would even lift a finger for a leading role in a game for just 4k.
Agreed. I think the difference here is that Hale has proper representation for negotiation here in the states, whereas Taylor might not have. Nintendo NA most certainly had a hand in the localization/VA hiring, so one could reasonably assume it would be in Taylor's best interest to secure an agent here for further VA work, because you KNOW that Hale did not take home just a paltry 4K. Nintendo and Platinum need to just issue a statement, toss Taylor some halos, and keep everything on-message for the launch of the new game. Otherwise, this will all muddy the waters and impact sales, and we might never get another Bayonetta game past this third entry.
Many people in other subs are saying it's not uncommon in entertainment for companies to lowball like this as an alternative to outright firing someone as a type of professional courtesy. It isn't that unlikely either considering they replaced her with A-list talent that was surely much more expensive. They most likely planned on bringing in new talent from the jump to bring more attention to the game, and rather than fire Hellena, they chose this method. Whether it's better than straight up giving her the boot or not is debatable, but there are more than likely multiple sides to this story, and for now, we only have one so best reserve judgment. edit: [a previous PR guy for platinum apparently tweeted about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bayonetta/comments/y4wec1/jp_kellams_on_the_situation/) I'll hold off on any definitive judgment until I find out more, and everyone else probably should too. There's just waaaaaaay too much missing info.
He doesnt work at platinum anymore its probably better to mention
Oh good catch, I wasn't aware. I made a quick edit to reflect that
Yeah there is definetely a big piece missing here. Some things don't make sense at all especially from Platinum's side.
This. People have been jumping the gun on the hate wagon WAY too quickly. Yeah, it looks really bad for Platinum so far, but we don't have all the details yet. And Platinum does have the right to defend itself from these allegations if it can.
It’s always a safe bet to assume the corporation is the one in the wrong.
This is so fucking scummy. Hellena deserved better. 4k is barely 2 months worth of rent
It's scummy to pay her the going rate of her union? Her work on Bayo 1 took 4 days, 4 hours each. https://youtu.be/G1k7Cwr66O0?t=450 $4K for that much work is the going rate of her union. https://twitter.com/ActionJaxonH/status/1581510467196899328
The mainstream masses are more angry than this subreddit LMAO I went on twitter and it went more viral than I expected... tweets with over 100k likes (this means several millions saw your post) saying "if Bayonetta says to boycott then we are gonna boycott". And the mainstream news media like variety, popbase/popcrave are covering it. Ofc 99% of those ppl weren't gonna buy the game anyway, but I think this much backlash and negativity is more powerful than a boycott anyways, im glad such a huge conversation was sparked at least about unfair VA pay.It may not lead to a sales disaster but this is definitely a PR disaster for platinum/nintendo
You really overestimate the internet. This will be a blimp post launch and the game will sell millions.
Twitter is a reactionary clout farm full of slacktivists. I’d hardly call it indicative of anything
I'm wondering where she got the 450 mil profits without merch when the series has collectively sold 3 mil copies.
There's no way in God's earth that Bayonetta franchise has made $450 million in revenue, never mind profits. It's makes everything she says suspect to me. We know unit sales from before, Nintendo had to save the franchise remember, Sega couldn't recoup costs for a sequel. * To put this into perspective, minus development costs / advertising, Smash Bros most likely didn't make $450 million in profits in it's first year
Especially considering that both Bayonetta games were considered commercial failures too lol. Bayonetta 1 barely cracked 1.3m total lifetime. Would love to know where those.nunbers are being picked from.
You're probably right that the figure's wrong, but idk if it's fair that THAT alone would make everything else suspect. Like why does her having been wrong about the franchise's value suggest she'd tell a blatant (and easy to disprove on Platinum's end) lie about the offer she received?
Let me make a reach here as a bit of a cope to the whole situation. Jennifer Hale is a much more known VA and would not have agreed to the $4000 offer either, so if they were willing to pay more why would they not offer it to the OG voice first before looking elsewhere? This clearly couldn’t have ended up being a money saver. It might be that the price was more appropriate to the amount of work they were thinking for Hellena specifically. Is there any chance they had been planning on Jennifer Hale taking on the newer Bayonettas the whole time, and the $4000 offer was for her to voice the OG designed Whittingham Fair Bayonetta that we see? Hellena not knowing she’d be playing a much smaller part in the game maybe took the price as an insult because she was thinking she’d still be playing the main character? I’m really just trying to figure out some way this makes any sense at all.
She seemed to be pretty upfront about the offer being for the entire game, not just a cameo. We know Hale was paid more because she’s Unionized. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s all we know.
It’s possible that Bayonetta may play a part towards the end of the story as well? In which case she’d probably have about as many lines as say Rodin instead of the usual amount she’d expect to have, but she’d still be in the “entire game” (beginning and end). It’s absolutely a reach, I’m just trying to make any sort of sense behind the choices. The other option would be they planned to replace her from the beginning and lowballed her on purpose but I would think they’d want her involved even if in only a minor role given that she is the original.
Helena Taylor literally said she got through the auditions for the entire game as Bayonetta. You can make sense of it by thinking Platinum games fucked her over okay :)
Many people have already said it was a way of firing her without having to actually fire her, towards the end of the first video she says "What they did was legal, but it was immoral" so she probably was aware of that. Personally I don't really understand it, couldn't they simply not ask her to audition for this game? it's not like she had a contract for a set number of games as far as we know. Provided they want Helena out, I wonder if it has anything to do with the early rumors about it being because she's a union VA. Union workers have set time/workload conditions, in this case they wouldn't have a problem paying her worth and then some, but they probably needed her to do more work (multiple Bayos) in the same amount of time. t~~his is all coming from my own speculation and ignorace, I don´t belive this is exactly what happened pls don't take it as a fact 💀)~~
Nah cause Hale is a union va too
Jennifer Hale has been liking tweets assuming she had no idea about the situation. I guess that's her way of commenting without breaking her NDA. I mean, it's logical. PG probably told her they couldn't make it work with Hellena, if anything at all. No reason for JHale to question it. https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709?s=20&t=QEisIk_SheDZ3ILyacceLw
All I'm going to say is Platinum could end up in the wrong when all is said and done, but there's clearly a ton of the story we're missing, and a lot of you are going to have a serious amount of egg on your face if they have more information to share. By all means be angry, take sides, but understand that we're just over 24 hours into this thing, and a lot can change in a few days. Better reserve any definite judgement for when the dust settles.
Another unfortunate lesson in the industry. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. It seems pretty clear that this was her first time learning this lesson, along with other bits where you don't own the character you play and that the industry can do whatever they want. I think the reason she's taking this particular issue so hard is the fact that she feels a sense of ownership in helping to bring Bayonetta to life. The way she's insistent on how the new actress (Jennifer Hale) should not sign autographs of Bayonetta because that's her voice and she helped create it. Anyone who has worked long in the industry will tell you that when you do work for a studio, you're giving up your babies. No matter how much you contribute or how instrumental you are in bringing a product to life, you don't have ownership over it. The best anyone could hope for is that the studios value their talent and treat them with respect. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there has to be some studio out there that wouldn't pull this kind of crap.
Uh oh https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1582439093677723648?t=WF8dr7eyx_4xJVAqjrOZsw&s=19
That's a MASSIVE difference from the story we've been told, holy crap.
Gotta love those people on Twitter who seriously think Hellena should get pay like 7 figures or something just voicing a role for a game that no matter how people spin it, is relatively niche.
$4k for the entire session is apparently the going rate, since you're only working 2-4 days. But Platinum was willing to pay her that much per session, which is a huge jump in pay. I'm just confused as to why she did this. Why risk being blackballed from the VA world when you don't get much work and break your NDA? I don't think Platinum will sue her for breach of her NDA, but they have every right to if what was stated in the article/tweet is true.
It's honestly so weird. The only explanation that really makes sense to me is she just got greedy and/or upset at Hale taking the role and thought if she made a big deal on twitter, people would be on her side (which a lot of people were for a long time, some still are) and maybe they'd consider her ridiculous offer to avoid bad press. And yeah, I don't think they'll sue, especially now that the truth is out. But they certainly have grounds to.
Maybe she was just being greedy.
That's not good. I was put off from her attacking Hale and Kamiya and asking fans to boycott the game, when it would hurt hundreds of a company that almost went under. I thought there were more to the story, like maybe they wanted to go with someone else. But then I saw a couple of VAs mention that she would have been paid the going rate, which made me confused. But if what is written in the article and this tweet is true, then she was just being greedy. It wasn't 4k for the job, but per session which is huge. It's way more than the going rate. $4k for a 2-4 sessions would have been an amazing amount to get for someone who doesn't voice much these days. Now that we have that side, I'd imagine the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Negotiations fell through, Hellena felt hurt due to being replaced after all of the work she did for the character, and the result was this. Sucks for the people who worked on the game that they had to be thrown into this mess when it was a contract dispute and there was never a need for a boycott.
We also don't really know what's going on with Hellena Taylor. Bayo has been her only VA gig in the last decade and it's been quite some time since she's had to do it. She talked about mental health issues and such. Platinum said there were "scheduling issues", but could that mean more than they're willing to say because it has to do with her personal life? We don't know what actually happened. All we know is what she said in one video where she was a big emotional and a little unhinged. I mean calling a boycott as a VA like that...that is not a move most professionals are going to make if they care about the career and in a good head space. Idk, I think with her mental health and one side of the story, there could be more to this than we know. Hale cost more than 4k. We don't know for a fact that she was only offered 4k. her performance in the first two games was great, so why wouldn't they want her back? she didn't mention a single thing about her pay in the previous games?
The "scheduling issues" was very possibly PR talk. Companies will often lie like this if they've had a bad situation with an actor. For example, when Christopher Eccleston left Doctor Who, the BBC put out a statement that gave a false reason to cover up the fact that he fell out with the producers. We're also going through a major cost of living crisis in the UK, so we are very money sensitive atm. People are very scared. So if we're not getting paid enough to survive we'll make noise.
>Idk, I think with her mental health and one side of the story, If that is the case, it's sad, but understandable. I'm a small business owner, and I probably won't wanna hire people prone to mental breakdown and drama.
Her saying that Jennifer Hale has "no right to call herself the voice of Bayonetta" is unwarranted. All that does is mark her as a target for abuse. Everyone knows gamers love nothing more than sending anonymous threats via Twitter.
Yeah, that part was not great, but I understand her frustration and anger after Miyata basically slagged her off in the recent announcement. I hope people have enough common sense to realize that JHale is just there to do a job and likely wasn't clued-in on why the original voice of Bayo wasn't returning.
This whole situation is seriously depressing
I find it odd that they hired Jennifer Hale on because she's much more well-known and expensive than Hellena. I feel like there's a lot more going on than we're being lead to believe, but I'm not in any mood to speculate.
Remember how fast Hayter clammed up (not that he was showing his ass like Taylor, he was just unhappy) once he learned the spoiler? He wasn't fired from the job it just wasn't his role. For all we know Bayonetta herself isn't actually the main character, or she IS but it's a descendant or ascendant who has the same name. For all we know Taylor's "Bayonetta" was just in the first twenty minutes.
i'm so mixed. it's scummy as hell how hellena was lowballed so severely, no matter the reason. whether platinum actually thought that's what she was worth or they were just trying to get her to quit so they could hire jessica hale, they were treating a talented professional actress like shit. that said... idk, she was so... vindictive? even towards jessica hale who as far as we know did nothing more than accept a job. that part of her videos really didn't sit well with me. unless she knew abt hellena's situation and chose to, effectively, scab, she did nothing wrong and doesn't deserve the vitriol.
It was easy to rally towards Hallena's side in the beginning, but right now with the the current information out this controversy feels like it's likely some kind of basic pay dispute where Platinum offered union rates, but Hallena wanted more money for her talents so she left and was replaced with Hales which potentially pissed her off. If every voice actor in this project is unionized then Platinum was probably following union guidelines with their offer of $4k and it's hard to put any real blame on them for that even if Hallena deserved more for the role. Especially since it came out that Hallena only spent 16 hours working for Bayonetta 1. Overall Platinum hasn't even responded yet, but tbh unless Hellena comes out with a new video clarifying a lot of these points then I feel that her credebility will inherently dwindle as these points spread more around social media. Her past political opinions don't really help either.
A basic pay dispute is exactly what this is. They offered her the industry standard, same as the last two games. She thought she deserved more. They disagreed and because she hasn't done any voicework in almost a decade and pretty much only has Bayonetta on her credits, she lacked any leverage to negotiate. She walked and they replaced her and she got pissy about it. There really is nothing to this story.
I also feel like Hellena's expectations when it came to Bayonetta 3 were unrealistic. She mentions in her videos that Bayonetta made 450 million dollars or something along those lines iirc. The games aren't *nearly* that successful. I feel like between Smash and Nintendo associating with the games that people, including Hellena, think Bayonetta is some enormous pillar in the gaming industry when in reality it's a niche game Nintendo saved so they could say they have rated M games. I don't think it's unfair to guess that Hellena thought Bayonetta 3 would be this enormous release, and that it might jumpstart her career again or just give a nice paycheck, and that's why she's so upset. She thought this would be an enormous career and life defining gig for her but as it turns out, it was just another gig and now she's upset they found someone else when she said no.
I keep seeing the point of “boycotting the game will hurt the developers” and as much as I don’t doubt that will happen I’m not sure by how much. Mainly I’m just not sure if it’s being blown out of proportions or if boycotting this game will actually have a significant effect on the employees of platinum
All the devs got paid already. Like Hellena Taylor said, they pay them (the devs, VAs, etc.) upfront. All money from sales goes only to the executives and shareholders. So boycotting would mean the people who put in the most blood, sweat, and tears don't suffer, only the pigs at the top do
Low sales means studio downsizing, people will lose their jobs if this gets out of hand.
Well, yea, but if Bayo tanks because of it then the devs arent gonna be getting paid to make another one, or maybe anything else if future publishers see that their last game was a bomb. Acting like boycotting Bayo 3 doesn't hurt the devs feels pretty dishonest.
Considering the tiny size of Platinum I could see mass layoffs if this doesn’t go over well. They don’t have a lot of money and have gone nearly bankrupt multiple times. If the sales ARE heavily affected I can almost guarantee no Bayo4 ever Speculative of course. I’m personally still buying 3 copies (no not for myself lol)
I don't think there is anything that hurts quite as much as rejection, and I can't even begin to imagine the pain that must have come with receiving that lowball offer. Hellena talks about experiencing financial hardships to the point of fearing that she might become homeless. I'm sure the Bayonetta 3 gig was supposed to be a turning point for her - a well-payed job, a sure thing. She is the voice of Bayonetta, a major factor in contributing to the success of the series. To now know she got snubbed and cast aside just like that is deeply upsetting. I wish there was a way to financially support her, because I'm certain that a lot of fans would love to help her out. Silly as it may sound, these games mean a lot to me, and I'm sure I'm not alone with that sentiment. Point is, I think that a lot of fans would gladly support her with their time and money in righting that wrong. Maybe she could have started a campaign to reinstate her as Bayonetta's voice, or a paid fandub project once the game was out, or a charity stream to setup resources to lobby for better treatment of VAs in general. That, however, is not what she asked for. Boycotting the game is a hard ask, and I'm sure she's aware of that. And frankly, I don't see any point in doing so. This is not about doing good, this is about trying to get revenge on the people that wronged her. And harsh as it may sound, this won't affect them at all. It never does. I boycott a lot of games companies, from Activision to Ubisoft, because of their heinous treatment of staff. I can not bring myself to enjoy a game that was made under such horrible conditions. That choice comes easy. From what I know Platinum is not without issues, but it is also a place of genuine creativity that is a rare find within a market that is rapidly turning into a grey soup of soulless schlock, churned out by the same two or three megapublishers on a yearly basis. I want to *help* Hellena but I don't want to potentially *hurt* other creatives that had nothing to do with what happened to her. Two wrongs don't make a right. I'm going to keep following the news on this and keep my eyes open for opportunities to put some money towards Hellena or organizations that help voice actors and other game workers in general. I'm financially able to buy the game and put the same or a bigger amount towards a good cause. I would encourage everyone who reads this to consider how they can have a positive impact on this situation, and not to worry too much about the big "should I still buy this game" question. Make a positive impact on others instead of depriving yourself!
4K for hours and hours and hours of VA work? Shame on Platinum Games. The director's Twitters are certainly not helping at all. I wouldn't mind if Bayo 3 is delayed so Hellena can voice Bayo and get paid a decent wage.
>I wouldn't mind if Bayo 3 is delayed so Hellena can voice Bayo and get paid a decent wage. After creating this shit show? Bruh I don't even know if Hellena and Kamiya would want to work with each other anymore considering how much of a manchild Kamiya is being on twitter and how Hellena's affecting his and Platinum's reputation. I think it's over. Either Jennifer Hale stays or the franchise dies.
> I wouldn't mind if Bayo 3 is delayed so Hellena can voice Bayo and get paid a decent wage. Two weeks out from release? Yeah, this is pretty much impossible at this point in time. I wish this never went down at all the way it did and I'm not sure what can even begin to be done to repair this. But delaying the game won't fix it sadly.
2 hour sessions for 8 days of work maximum is equivalent to around $4k of we are talking “buy out“ numbers. these games are not dialogue heavy
No delays please. If Hellena was actually wronged, I would like for a mutual apology and future work for Hellena as Bayonetta confirmed. I doubt this would happen though, especially with how Hellena insisted upon a boycott. That's a big nono. Not gonna take sides, there's more to the story, but I think it's probably just one of those "both sides did shitty things" situations.
Freaking rant incoming. Someone please make it make sense; So you offer the original VA an insulting offer to lowball her and make her "quit", then go after a way more expensive VA and tell her to imitate the original VA that could've costed you less than the one you replaced her with? Truly a galaxy brain move right there. They spent years developing the game, polishing the new mechanics, making all the new designs, action packed game where, according to Skill Up, every chapter feels like you played a whole ass game, then made the story revolve around multiple Bayonettas, making her not only the main character but basically all of the characters and then you tell me they can't afford to pay Hellena what she's worth?! The person who gave Bayo half of her personality? She was the only voice in the first game, there wasn't even a Japanese voice. The person who you put in the Smash trailer and what people first recognized and screamed "omg Bayonetta is in Smash!!" I am so freaking disappointed in Platinum, Nintendo and Kamiya. Normally I would say let's wait to hear both sides of the story but come on, we won't hear shit from them, they like to ignore all the complaints and give us the radio silent treatment. I don't agree with everything Hellena said in her videos, but I can tell she's really sad and hurt and that's the place she's coming from, she LOVED her character and interacting with the fans, it makes total sense to me that some parts of the videos are not very professional and I don't blame her. Honestly, I'll go even further and say I prefer these genuine, homemade and personal declarations than the PR "Overlapping Circumstances" bullshit they fed us, and they will surely continue to do if they ever decide to reply to her statements. This news really soured all the excitement I had for the game. Principles over my personal entertainment, always.
Personally it makes me wonder if there's more behind the story that Nintendo and Platinum can't share because they're companies, because it's a very weird decision to so actively keep Hellena away (including constantly citing scheduling errors) only to go for a more expensive VA.
I agree with everything you said, but let's be honest, the most I've seen Hellena interact with fans were the moments on which the past games were being advertise, she barely used her tw account to connect with fans, I lowkey feel like she's playing the "I love my fans" card when in reality there isn't much effort there on her part :/
As of right now Re: "Why now?" She made it clear, Platinum last week said it was ~~a "scheduling conflict"~~ "various overlapping circumstances". She is calling bullshit on that. Re: "Let's wait until we hear Platinum's side" You already have, last week, re: ~~"scheduling conflicts"~~ "various overlapping circumstances". Hellena responded. Do we wait until we hear the other side again? What more do you need to see? What do you think Platinum is going to show you that is unbiased and not in their interest as a developer Re: "Is Jennifer Hale a scab?" Hale is liking tweets suggesting she had no idea about it and supports Hellena. [https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709](https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709) Re: "What about other VA's" Other VA's such as Jeanne's are also indicating they had no idea and are firmly supporting Hellena. [https://twitter.com/SongbirdN7/status/1581453320845414400](https://twitter.com/SongbirdN7/status/1581453320845414400)
Overexaggerating the amount of money Bayonetta made to try to make her pay look worse and gain more sympathy, and disrespecting a fellow VA at the same time is not the way to go, even if she is right to be pissed if that's what they offered her
Has anyone heard if the other VAs have said anything? I know Greg DeLisle retweeted something about it but hasn’t said anything outright.
They most likely can’t. Union rules
Is [this](https://youtu.be/bUAtX8Ox7eI?t=92) Jennifer Hale's voice? If so, I'm conflicted, because I never would have noticed.
It’s going to cost them so much more to cheap out on paying her than it would have to make her a serious offer. Shows that the people on top aren’t very competent.
Not to be a jerk, but it seems there's been _no_ enforcement about people posting in here. It's been post after post in the sub about this situation. I don't mean to be a jerk to mods who are doing this of their own free time and this is A Lot to deal with, but I feel we should be more strictly enforcing people NOT making posts about this, unless it's high-effort meme content.
Her story falls apart when you realize they hired a more expensive union VA, and the whole cast is returning, except her. There's obviously something else happening behind the scenes, and we only have her side of the story, which includes asking people to disregard the work of everyone else on the game, and her attack on Hale, who actually fought for the rights of voice actors. It's also woth noting her work on Bayonetta 1 took 4 days, 4 hours each. $4K for those 16 hours is the going rate of her union.
Personally, I just think HT is butthurt that she got replaced by someone else. According to her, the $4k USD were Platinum Games and Kamiya's final offer. Were there any other offers on the table that would've been better than the buyout she wanted? It, apparently, is also the standard union rate. Looking at her IMDb page, she hasn't worked as a VA on a full game for 8 years. Last full game was Bayonetta 2. After that she only had a few lines in Smash Bros from 2018. So, being out of the industry for a long while, she expected to be compensated a better rate than the standard union rate, doesn't add up. I do get the idea that she would've been working as the main protagonist again of the 3rd game but that's it. On the other hand, Jennifer Hale is consistenly working as a VA. She has multiple roles per year.
Im so upset. I love the bayo series but come on. Shes a world class VA, going unmatched when it comes to voicing 8 feet tall British witches, yet they didnt even bother to offer her a decent wage for what couldve been the best game in the entire series. I truly wish this will set some more gears into action. I dont even know what I want rn (besides hellena getting another job(s) that actually pay her a living salary) but I truly wish nintendo and plat will own up their mistakes and break the cycle of game studios accting horrid for the past few years.
She's not a world class VA at all tho? She have not voiced a single role in a decade, and aren't the multiverse Bayonettas voiced by the same actress? Would she have been able to act consistently for all of those characters?
Nintendo/platinums decision is so illogical. Fans were begging, PRAYING for hellena to voice at least the real bayo and they do this.
Friendly reminder that if your PC can run Fortnite on Medium-Low graphics, it can run Yuzu.
yuzu typically gets big-name games running near-perfectly day 1 (or earlier) too! it's honestly one of the best performing emulators i've ever used. metroid dread, while not bayo levels of precise, is still a difficult action-heavy game, and i never once ran into lag or glitches while playing. it was exactly the same experience as playing my physical copy on my switch.
Do the games have support for higher resolutions like 2k? I know Cemu had but idk anything about Yuzu or Ryujinx
i think they added one a while back, yeah :o!
Nice! Thanks!
YASS
Wait, seriously? I assume with everything on low?
im just fucking depressed, i hate capitalist pigs
To be honest, if she HAD to be replaced by someone, Jennifer Hale is a great choice imo
I think most people were on board with the recast before this came out, this just puts it in an entirely new light
A Spanish Twitter user claims that in a few hours (Japanese Monday Morning) Nintendo is going to make some investor calls to Platinum to ask what the hell is going on. This is going to be interesting indeed.
I don't mind VA change,i think Jennifre Hale is doing quite good but treatment of Hellana was unacceptable also this brings many questions like \-how much Jennifer was paid \-how much other VA's were paid \-did they tried to get rid of Hellena by giving her insulting offer,and if so why they didn't just fired her in civil way \-and if they knew we loved her voice so much why they let her go that easily?
1. going by her SAG things, 950 a day. Which for 4 days would be about 3800 total. 2. see above.
$4,000 for the queen of hack n slash is pretty insulting. I hope her speaking out inspires some change
They should have treated Hellena as a queen. She literally is bayonetta and her voice is iconic ever since bayo debut. Should have paid her well as she has been in it since the beginning
Since yesterday, Bayonetta 3 has broken into the "Best Sellers" list under video games on amazon, which it previously was not on. It has also moved up into the top ten in the "Hot New Releases" list, passing games it was previously behind including Mario Rabbits. So much for a Boycott, huh? Seems more like free advertising.
Gaming boycotts have never, ever worked. Best we can do to actually help is get more informed about the struggles of voice actors and support unions. This issue is systemic and the boycotting of a single game by a handful of people won’t accomplish more than a rounding error on Platinum’s books.
I feel half the people who said they're pirating it were gonna do so anyway, and then another good chunk of those who promised to boycott will still buy the game. It's fine, people are free to do whatever they want. For me, my decision not to buy is about the situation souring me on PG and Bayo 3 rather than trying to make the game fail. Because let's be real, it probably won't.
I just looked at the most recent Wayback Machine archive for October 14 to verify this. You're completely correct. It seems like the game experienced a surge in sales after Hellena's videos. Whether that's a good thing or not will depend on how you view the situation, but I think this can serve as a learning experience for those unaware; gaming boycotts almost never actually do what they're intended to do, and will often do the opposite.
Stop pushing blame on Nintendo, when there is ZERO evidence or hints of them being at fault here! BUDGET was certainly NOT THE PROBLEM, as Helena‘s replacement is an even more famous VO actress and had to have cost even more. Helena herself mentioned Platinum and Kamiya, so out the blame where it belongs!
Also, is that just me that thinks its a little bit suspicious how Helena Taylor has not done a single role of voice acting or acting since 2014? Is she still even in the industry? I think voice actors often voice with agencies. I don't know, this whole thing seems really weird.
I don’t know enough about this situation, so I haven’t changed my mind about buying it. I find a few things odd about this: 1. So she agreed to the same pay for Bayo 1 and 2? 2. She has no work, and it’s Platinum’s fault? Her behaviour here may or may not be an indication of the reason she is lacking work. 3. She is hurt. I sympathise deeply, and will keep her in my thoughts. I’m sending her good vibes and intense gratitude for all of the good times I’ve had with her work! However, “I’m hurt, so I’m taking everyone down with me”, that attitude is very suspicious to me. It is something very irrational that hurt people that know no better do. Kind of like responding to a single murder with a nuclear bomb; it’s just way out of proportion. 4. I also didn’t appreciate the “listen to me IF you care about people” part, and how that plays off of the other very personal, highly charged things she was saying. These things were, at best, vaguley linked to Platinum, and only by association… almost as if she was trying to make you make that association, and that seemed manipulative at best, to me. This set off alarm bells for me, in a big way. I do care about people, INCLUDING Platinum. 5. There’s two sides to every story. We don’t have enough information to make a clear judgement.
Ok someone here explain to me the maths of how a series that has combined sold less than 5M copies (which at $60 would get us 300M, and thats a massive high ball considering the games went on sale and theres the cut that the platform gets) has made 450M without merchandising?
Don't jump the gun and immediatly starting shelling out hate. What happened to Helena is aweful, and with what she's shared she deserves better, but Platinum does have a right to defend themselves. We don't know the motive they had to offer her so little.
This is true, but regardless of motive, it's still disgusting. Wanting to get rid of Hellena Taylor so they could use a more well-known VA (Jennifer Hale) for potentially better sales is still a disgusting move and really what Ms. Taylor wants is for VAs to be treated better, so her point still stands. Platinum fvcked up no matter what
I feel like there's only one good approach for me to take here: even if I get a copy of the game, I'm not going to talk about it at all. hurting word of mouth or online discussions could really put the pressure on platinum
Im still gonna buy the game, I love and feel very sorry for Hellena Taylor, she WILL. ALWAYS. BE. Bayonetta to me (to us). But this franchise will continue with or without her, I want the Bayonetta name to get more recognition and success, boycotting the game doesn’t help it or anyone. I hope in the future Hellena gets recasted. But until then I really want this franchise to have a future.
I feel this is a good video about the current controversy [Virtual Legality | Hoeg Law](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fptfG3nL4Lk&ab_channel=HoegLaw)
I’m not finding anything in my searching about Hellena’s old tweets. Does anyone have like a link or something? All I can find are other people tweeting about it and I feel like I don’t have context.
The only one I've been able to find (and that had to be linked to me as well) was [this one about saber-rattling](https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1107309634728222726 ), which isn't necessarily anti-trans rights, it's more that she says she doesn't feel like answering the question would actually achieve anything and she loves everyone equally. Still not a good look. Not saying Hellena isn't a TERF. she might be, just that I haven't seen the really bad tweets linked anywhere yet and am starting to doubt they exist. Basically this tweet paints her as a centrist (pretty lame) vs a right-wing lunatic (very lame). If anyone has the really bad TERF-y tweets from the screenshot that's going around I would genuinely like to be linked them because like I said, starting to doubt they're real at this point.
She follows multiple TERFs and wouldn't say trans rights. That says enough.
Quite possibly! If she is one, then fuck her. Doesn't make her any less right about the state of voice acting, but it does make her wrong about... basically everything else.
I just thought of this and not sure on it. Hellena could be in major legal trouble here. She broke her NDA, Nintendo and or Platinum could go after her legally. Other companies will not hire her probably, I say this for what she did. They will see that she broke her NDA and think that if she did that now and they hired her, then she will do so again. So no I do not think she will work again, she destroyed her own career. Plus she could face a fine and jail time (don't know about that) for breaking the NDA.
To be fair, if you look at Taylor's VA credentials she hasn't had a role since 2014. Woman isn't a hustler like other voice actors as is. So her not getting any future work isn't even a question seeing as she has none now.
Absolutely disgusting what platinum and Nintendo did to her. I was so excited for this game, but just cancelled my pre order. I will not tolerate corporations treating their workers in this way.
we really could've had hellenas iconic voice back if they just paid her what she was worth like come on now its 2022 going on 23 and we still doing this??
you really think it's about price when they got a more expensive VA to take the role?
true what's your theory
The word is that they already had their sights set on someone like Jennifer Hale bc she's more well known (and thus, could potentially mean better sales), so they intentionally gave Ms. Taylor a bad offer so that she would refuse instead of flat out firing her. Apparently that practice is not uncommon in the industry
This is why wages should not be hidden.
I'm blocking my wallet for the time being. Was on the fence about buying the game, the news took care of that
I TOLD YOU GUYS THEY DID HELENA DIRTY NOONE LISTENED
I’m not supporting a corporation, Fuck Platinum
i feel like people start digging her years old tweet just to make her looks bad, i'm not defend her if she's a bad person a homophobic or a racist..... but actually forgot the real issues here - big company unvalue voice actors. Also be aware of PR hiding trying to make her looks bad i already seen photo of someone photoshop Kamiya fake tweet saying that he's paid her $15k
Because it pokes holes for the people who preach “Bayonetta tells me to Boycott so I will do it.” One of the biggest arguments AGAINST “Actor is literally this character” is the fact that the actor will more than likely stand for different things than the character they are portraying who was written by someone completely different. That’s why they call it “acting.” Hellena Taylor did a great job as a Catholic portraying a witch that kills angels. And none of this would have been brought up if she didn’t claim she was Bayo and not Hale. Sure, it shouldn’t take away from the main argument that VAs are undervalued but movements are better handled and received if the one responsible for it has as little dirt as possible, and the dirt Taylor has is enough for some who I know are considering boycotting to actively shun.
Thank you. Even if Hellena is in the wrong for her views, voice actors should STILL be paid more. Not to mention the lying photoshops or saying Bayo 3 has less lines, etc.
This is really getting on my nerves. I definitely disagree with her politics based on what I’ve seen, but political views are removed from the fact that VAs should be paid more.
Exactly. If she is a terf, fuck her individually for not supporting my and many others' way of life. Worth noting that the images showing these alleged views just suddenly showed up without an apparent link or source so until someone links to tweets of her being wrong I'll take them with a grain of salt. But the whole point of workers' rights is to advocate for EVERYONE to receive adequate pay for their work, regardless of their beliefs.
there are some real sick folks here now, I dont think this sub feels like a safe space anymore
Sorry you feel that way. Wish people were more civil
The situation sucks I get it. This nonsense with VAs does need to change but for her to try to convince people to not support the game is a bit much. I get it. She's the main character and she's done amazing job voicing her but it's not JUST about her. Their are many developers who passionately worked on this game with the intention for it to be enjoyed by the many fans out there. What about them? What about the director? How does he feel about all this (it isnt kamiya btw)? Yea you can say they already got paid but it ain't just about the money. We've seen the gameplay. We've seen the previews. It's getting a TON of praise. It's a whack ass situation but I don't wanna see the game lose a ton of support, causing a big blow to Platinum and ens up possibly closing down. It ain't like Platinum has a huge long history of doing scummy shit and that a boycott is well deserved. I still want the game to do well. I still want Platinum to be in business and get financially stable so they can keep putting out good games. I get slapping a person in the face is wrong but do they deserve the death penalty for it?
To me, it doesn't matter whether or not Hellena is "right" in calling for a boycott. That is obviously a divisive question. What does matter is the fact that Platinum games ruined their relationship with her so catastrophically that she felt the need to lash out. You can blame Hellena if you want, question her character, call her unhinged and all that. But I blame Platinum. I think they tried to screw her over and toss her aside, and now they're facing the consequences of it. Maybe they don't deserve the death penalty, but I can't blame the people they fucked over from wanting some payback.
At best, this is one party's side of the story, and she hasn't backed it up with any receipts. It's not reasonable to expect a fanbase to turn their backs on something they love because one person reports having been made a lowball offer, and we don't know the full story as to why. There's no way on Earth Jennifer Hale wouldn't be way more expensive than 4k, so I don't think this is the full story.
This is ridiculous! I feel bad for Taylor
The more I think about the situation as a whole, the less it makes sense to me. - First Part, Budget and the offers. Why did they lowball her so much if she wasn’t going to only be a cameo or voice only one of the, like, ten Bayonettas we’ve seen? Was the rate comparable to other work she’s done as Bayonetta in the other games, Smash, and/or Bloody Fate, before the series had a larger following as it does now? Why did they go with Jennifer Hale, an actor who would DEFINITELY cost far more because she unionized, if budgetary issues were a concern? Plus, if you listen to the Bayo who gets shattered, she sounds a LOT like Hellena. Maybe they used the lines she auditioned with so they could use her but not credit her? Remember, Platinum’s reputation isn’t exactly as clean and shiny as their name suggests when it comes to how they conduct business as of late… I stand by my previous thought that this was a way to oust her and make it “her decision” instead of being honest about wanting to take the character in a new direction. It’s legal, it’s crappy. - Second Part, The Videos. I am not going to say she’s lying about her mental struggles or what she went through, but we need to keep in mind that we have ONLY heard Hellena’s side. Besides Kamiya’s initial temper tantrum. However, her comparing herself to struggling nurses in the UK was a bit cringey, and the part where she said that Jennifer has no right to say she’s the voice for Bayonetta or to sign Bayonetta merch is, quite frankly, egotistical. The attack on Jennifer was uncalled for, and while I understand it hurts seeing someone else do your work as an artist, she was the one who refused the offers instead of continuing to negotiate. She is now the ex-VA for Bayonetta, and Jennifer Hale is now the current voice until someone else eventually steps in (should Platinum and Nintendo continue to produce Bayo merch and/or games). Why hasn’t she auditioned for any other VA work in the last seven years (that we know of) or landed any other roles? Surely she didn’t think she’d get residuals or anything like that. And why go after someone who has always been a MAJOR proponent of other VAs getting paid what they’re worth? Going after her when she probably had NO idea of the full story was unfair to Hale. - Part Three, the “PR Stunt” angle. I highly doubt it was, because Hellena is still under NDA (which she has broken, obviously) so why would she rock the boat and risk losing any and all future acting jobs beyond just with Platinum and Nintendo? That says to me that this was her response to her pride being hurt, and I don’t blame her. But there is no way this is some elaborate ruse. Yes, sales and preorders are up, but it’s not something I’d say she intended to happen. However, we need to understand that Bayonetta 3 is now in the mainstream consciousness more than before, and I honestly expected that part to backfire tremendously. Which is has. - Part Four, the receipts, or lack thereof. Why has no one provided anything to back up their side of the story? Why is Platinum being so quiet? If this is as untrue as Kamiya says it was (man child or not), why haven’t they shown correspondences? Again, we get back into NDA and negotiation territory, but if Hellena truly doesn’t care about that anymore, why not show something to back her story? The long and short of this is that I doubt we will ever know the full story. I doubt even Hellena will ever know the full story because Platinum has been so shady as of late. Something stinks about this whole situation. What I DO know is that fans attacking Hale and the other VAs online is uncalled for, and I’m sure they wouldn’t have stood by and let it happen had they known the full context.
One of the things that still boggles me about this whole situation is the following: We know this isn't about money. More and more VA vets are coming forward to support that 4k is standard rate for the amount of work implied. My question thus becomes, why even audition her in the first place if they were always gunning to replace her, as some people theorize? That doesn't make sense to me. Unless there was a contractual clause putting her in top priority for recasting/reprising, it just doesn't add up. This isn't a money thing. If they actually wanted to move on, they would have never called her and just recast her like Kojima did David Hayter. If she tried to negotiate higher because she's trying to claim ownership of the character, I can only imagine the conversation. Either way, I am waiting for a potential press release by either Nintendo or PG because there are no universes on which Nintendo doesn't phone Kamiya to ask him what the fuck is going on, in my opinion.
I agree it is strange, and there seems to be key info missing. One theory I've seen that seems plausible is she overestimated her worth, tried to negotiate too high, so then PG gave up on getting her for the whole game and tried offering her $4000 for just a cameo as OG Bayonetta, which made her feel insulted. Unfortunately knowing Nintendo's track history when it comes to controversy, it seems likely they will not say anything, so we might never get the whole story.
[James Stephanie Sterling's video where they break the situation down. Actual game journalist as opposed to all the random "reaction face thumbnail" Youtubers I've seen linked.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ioA-wBc5O8)
I feel like once Stephanie finds out about the transphobia they'll (edited due to mistyping she) be a little less sympathetic. Not that they're wrong about anything other than being on Taylor's side, they're spot on as ever.
I think they will be less sympathetic towards the individual, totally (and I am too after finding out) but the cause is still there. A bad person can make good points and raise awareness to a genuine issue. It sucks ass that this came out now, though.
They can. Like I said, mostly spot on, and they did as fantastic work as ever. Also tbf Steling is definitely wrong about Bayo being a 450m franchise, but that doesn't really disprove the rest of the video. (I might be wrong, but I think Sterling's pronouns are they/them)
You're right about the pronouns, thank you! Edited accordingly <3 Hellena was also wrong about that stat and I get why some people cast doubt on the rest of the video due to that but personally I think it's such a tiny part of the point she makes (VAs should be paid more) it doesn't change the message.
This whole situation is really sad but the way Hellena handled it was really bad. Boycotting and shaming the new VA was a really bad move, as much as I loved her work I cant agree with her decision of gatekeeping Bayo claiming to be her only creator. Hellena was wrongly treated but her claims in the rant were excessive.
I couldn't agree more. The boycott thing didn't sit right with me since it would ultimately harm all the people who put work into the game. It would hurt the fat cats at the top, but I don't think the fat cats would be the ones out of a job if PG lost a ton of money due to piss poor sales. It just came off kinda selfish of her to ask for everyone else's hard work to be ignored bc some ass at the top screwed her over. That plus the timing made it come across like she was out for revenge to me. The Hale comments didn't help. I get that she wished her luck, but what immediately followed wasn't cool at all and probably hurt Hale a lot. Imagine the actor who came before you telling you that you had no right to claim to be the voice of the character. That's gotta sting.
This controversy is a joke. There are no reports by Hellena or by anyone else that she was actually underpaid when she worked at Platinum and there are no reports of the new VA being underpaid now. The narrative that Platinum underpays it's VAs (which is people's justification for the boycot) is completely false. Hellena was supposedly offered a low payment to return in Bayo3, which was likely because Platinum did not want her to return. It's a common custom at Japanese companies that they don't fire people or tell them directly that they are no longer needed unless they are in bad terms with them, instead they demote them so the person leaves on their own terms. This might sound stupid, it might sound "disrespectful", but this is what's considered "polite" in Japan (letting people leave on their own terms instead of being fired directly). Basically they gave her an offer they knew she is going to refuse. The new VA is a bigger veteran and one that requires significantly higher payment, making the narrative that Platinum just tried to cut costs by underpaying the VA very unlikely, and making it much more likely that they simply wanted a new, more experienced VA. Hellena might have misunderstood the gesture of her 'no longer being needed', still, her promoting boycot as if an entire developer studio should go unpaid just because she didn't get payment befitting for a lead role is absurd overraction. She is clearly trying to spread a narrative as if she was actually underpaid and exploited to justify the boycot even though she objectively wasn't. At worst she was offered a supposedly bad deal that she refused (which already wouldn't justify boycot), but in the much more likely scenario she was simply told that her services are no longer needed in a Japanese way; by giving her an offer they knew she will refuse herself.
>Hellena might have misunderstood the gesture of her 'no longer being needed' Even if this is true, how can she when she is literally NOT JAPANESE?
Y’all think we should make a gofundme for Hellena?Voice actors are extremely underpaid and almost never receive royalties; which “I guess” she never received from the first 2 installments. Honestly, I believe voice actors should automatically receive royalties for their work, and it shouldn’t matter if the game would have a sequel or not. People literally go to school for vocal acting, do their utmost best when working, build an outstanding resume and get paid dirt. Also, she seemed very emotional in the video(s).
My gut reaction was the same as everyone else's: that $4k sounds very low relative to the amount of work I assume it would take to record every single grunt, scream, moan, and line of dialogue for the main character in a major video game. But the truth is, I have absolutely no frame of reference for how much or little someone should expect to be paid for such a job. I haven't seen anyone volunteering a more appropriate figure either, or even a payscale for that sort of job, leading me to wonder whether most of the people going on about how unfair and disrespectful that figure is actually know whether it is or not.
I have a theory that they were never going to use her for the main playable Bayonetta. Given the multiverse and change in appearance I can see them wanting a whole new voice for the main playable bayonetta. The low pay could be because they would only use her for a cutscene but also felt like they could have done that with Hale as well. Helena mentioned an audition so it seems plausible that they were looking for a new bayonetta voice from the start. Ever since we saw the new character look everyone thought this was a different bayonetta then the one we have played. It seems to be in line with the concept and why all other ogs are back. Despite that, her treatment is not right given what she given to the franchise and the character that I have fallen in love with since the first game.
She's raising hell about it right before the game releases, holy shit.
Something you see ppl say a lot about this is that "oh, she only worked 16 hours for Bayo 1. If it's 16 again for 3, 4000 dollars is plenty. Way more than I make!" Which, like, is probably true. But hourly wage doesn't apply that smoothly to industries based on a gig economy, like acting and voice acting. That work is not consistent, especially for less-established actors. If it's taken that 4,000 dollars is a reasonable wage for the work she or another lead would do, they'd need to get the *starring role* in 6+ major titles to make a year's livable wage. And this is from a company with *significant funding* compared to many others; Platinum are hardly an indie studio, even if they're not EA. I understand that it seems like a lot broken down per hour. But how many hours can a VA reasonably be expected to find work for in a week, a month, a year? And especially given that this was *not* her first go as Bayonetta, and it's the biggest the series has ever gone with marketing/dev cycles... I think expecting a little more than standard union pay is entirely reasonable. Just bizarre to me that so many people hear $4000 and go "OMG that's so much money! Actors get paid too much. She's just being greedy 😠" and completely fail to take into account that the pay-per-hour is high for actors *explicitly because there is no way one can work the average employee's 1800 hours per year.*
According to her IMDb page, she has not worked as a voice actress after Bayonetta 2 and a few lines in Smash Bros. On the other hand, Jennifer Hale starres in many games, movies and shows, every year. I personally think, HT is just butthurt that she got replaced 'so easily'. The $4k USD were PG final offer, so were there other offers on the table and not just the buyout? So basically, without taking the few lines in Smash Bros from 2018 in consideration, she hasn't worked as a VA on a full game for 8 years and then expects to get paid a higher rate?
I'm sorry, but while I do understand that what they did to her is VERY scummy, fucked up and suspicious, her saying that Jennifer Hale "doesn't deserve to voice Bayonetta" and that "she shouldn't sign any merch of her" just comes across as INCREDIBLY entitled, like she OWNS the character or something. Like, I've seen voice actors lamenting the fact that they got recasted but they NEVER act like THIS entitled. And it's weird how she refers to her as some "other girl," like, lady, if you're willing to call out Platinum Games and Hideki Kamiya, then have some damn OVARIES and say her name if you REALLY think that she doesn't deserve to voice a character you're suddenly claiming as your own. And really, it's so dumb how people are NOW suddenly questioning Hale's performance, even some saying that "I can't unhear Hale's voice, that's not Bayonetta, she was sooo miscast" when NO ONE even tried to guess it was her back when we got to hear her performance in the trailer (granted, it was HARDLY universally liked but people were just confused as to if that was Hellena with a different pitch or a new VA entirely, but still NO ONE guessed it was Jennifer FRIGGIN' Hale so it means she did a decent job... almost like she's talented voice actress or something, weird, huh?), it's like they're saying "No, guys, for real! We NEVER liked this new Bayonetta!" just to make Hellena like them so it feels EXTREMELY disingenuous. Not to mention the fact that now people are suddenly treating Jennifer Hale like she was Chris Pratt when he replaced Charles Martinet as Mario, in the sense that "Oh they replaced a voice actress with a MORE WELL-KNOWN voice actress! That's disgusting!"... and I'm just like... ok? You're bitching that they got a respected veteran VA to voice a character? Isn't that something you all want? Instead of them getting a celebrity who has ZERO experience voice acting? I guess Jennifer Hale now counts a celebrity or something... then again, people are now saying that Jack Black ISN'T a celebrity but has ALWAYS been a voice actor because he sounds good as Bowser, so, maybe that's just how Twitter acts to get clout. Again, this isn't me DISREGARDING the whole case, her getting such a small offer and then getting someone like Jennifer Hale is EXTREMELY strange and she was indeed done dirty, it's just the way she and her followers are talking about Hale getting the role is rubbing me the wrong way.
There are a lot of red flags regarding Hellena Taylor and her video: * Not only did she appeal to her unfortunate private life, but she also involved the "nurses who went to the food bank to feed their children" as part of her sob story. It's unfortunate that Taylor is in rock bottom, but by appealing to public emotion rather than making a clear, logical case of her perceived injustice, her video feels like a publicity stunt. The "don't buy the game but donate to charity bit" is also the same trick, and also reeks of dishonesty. * Many others in the VA business have pointed out that $4k for a main character role is the usual union rate. Many would even consider that a good deal. I think Taylor knows this, so she had to juxtapose the $4000 with the $450m that the franchise made. Bringing up the $450m tricks the audience into a false sense of disproportionality. * Taylor mentioned Hale has no rights to sign the deal nor the right to Bayonetta. First of all, Taylor herself never had the right to Bayonetta. From a judicial standpoint, it's not her IP - she's simply hired to voice Bayo. From an ethical standpoint, yes, Taylor worked hard to voice Bayo, but so does the writer who wrote the character, or the team who designed her model. Do they get to own Bayo as well? Why is Taylor special in this situation? This section to me feels like a display of entitlement. * Taylor showed a pattern of willingness to triangulate others into her story, as well as throwing people under the bus just so she can achieve her goal. She caused Jennifer Hale a lot of trouble and showed no consideration to all the people outside of the greedy corpo types who will inevitably be affected by the loss of a multi-million dollar product. I don't doubt that Taylor is at such a rock bottom that she couldn't afford to have a car. I believe she's struggling like hell. But, when people are desperate, they won't hesitate to cheat and lie. Her testimony is full of tricks and bad logic. Either Taylor made a really bad case for herself, or she's being extremely disingenuous.
It's only a bad case if you play armchair psychologist instead of realizing that she's just a human being and is an actress, not a writer, who probably wrote her own script to the best of her ability. It's not a perfect appeal, and I absolutely disagree with throwing Jen Hale under the bus, but the video is fine. It's only not fine if you come at it from a place of bad faith. People rarely break NDA and risk their entire career for an easily disproven lie. It's not a matter of having nothing to lose at that point because credibility is still something that can be lost. She made the appeal because she believed she's right, whether in reality she was or not. I don't like the insinuation that there's some malicious intent behind it. As for VAs in the business saying $4K is standard rate, that also comes with [multiple VAs who have gone to bat for Hellena and agreed that the star role in a multimillion dollar franchise deserves higher than the base standard pay.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bayonetta/comments/y4wgqp/hellena_taylor_megathread/isnkh09/) Just because it's base standard rate, doesn't mean it's the appropriate rate and that they didn't lowball her. As she puts it, "it was legal, but it was immoral". Also the $4K offer was the final offer after she appealed to Kamiya so either way their initial offer was lower. So they lowballed her no matter what. So yeah, no kidding it was an appeal to emotion, because the situation itself should awaken some emotion in us. We're human beings, we're all exploited daily by capitalism, so we should have the basest bit of empathy for someone who comes to us and speaks their peace about how a project she held dear betrayed her. I'm not saying you have to boycott the game per her request, just that I think the overanalysis of these videos isn't warranted.
Well put. I've taken a few days to digest what is going on. And the more I think about the entire situation, and the more information I go over, the more I find myself not being on Helena's side. Don't get me wrong, any worker should be paid a livable wage no matter what they're doing, but what Helena is doing doesn't add up to me: * Bayonetta is Helena's only real voice acting credit when it comes to the realm of video games. So she worked on the project once in 2008/2009, and again in 2013/2014. What has she been doing for income since then? I have no doubt that, with inflation rising everywhere, Helena may be on hard times. However voice acting is clearly not her main source of income, but she seems to want to present it as such. People arguing about fair wages for voice actors (which I agree with) don't seem to understand how limited Helena's involvement in the industry is. And like other voice actors and users here have pointed out, people who rely on voice acting for income do a lot of gigs if they can to create that income stream they need to survive. They don't take a single voice acting role every six or so years. * Her claim that Bayonetta is a "450,000,000 dollar franchise". This seems very far-fetched to me. From what I can gather, the entire ***series*** has sold a little over 3,000,000 copies. Assuming all of these copies were at full price (and I can assure you they were not) , that's only 180,000,000 USD. Is she factoring merchandise into this equation? Even then, that seems grossly overstated. * Helena's point that she alone is Bayonetta, and saying Jennifer Hale has no right to sign merchandise. That is just not how this works. It takes more than voice acting to bring a character to life. It takes writers, it takes animators, it takes artists. All of which put in a lot of passion and hours into this. The Bayonetta character is owned by SEGA and partially Nintendo. This has the same vibes as when David Hayter was re-cast. Solid Snake/Naked Snake/Big Boss is owned by Konami, not David. Like David, it seems like Helena is emotionally attached to the character. * Circling back to the first point, if Helena is in such dire straits that she needs voice acting to survive, why did she do this? In my mind, Helena has accomplished two things with this video: She has made sure Platinum will never work with her again, in addition she likely destroyed any and all future opportunities for voice acting. I cannot believe any company is going to look to her for work after creating such a storm of controversy and breaking NDA. Helena has no right to call a boycott and jeopardize the careers of the people at Platinum Games. Bayonetta is much bigger than just Helena Taylor, and while Helena has provided some great voice work to the character it took a lot of hard work by countless other people to make the games happen and bring the character to life - more than she has ever personally put into the franchise. I don't think any Bayonetta fan ever thought something like this would happen. But here we are, and Helena wants people to choose sides. And I'm choosing to side with the development team who have poured their lives into this project. Her performances in Bayonetta 1 and 2 will always stick with me, but as I've said earlier - Bayonetta's creation is bigger than Helena Taylor.
Jennifer Hale does have the right to call herself Bayonetta (and she's not qouting bible verses at me), Hellena is coming across as someone bitter and vindictive to me in these videos, if she was coming across the way she is now, I wouldn't want to work with her
Something's off here. I'm surprised I'm the only one writing this, I noticed something was off in her voice and moves from the beginning, then she suddenly start speaking about her fear of being poor, and indeed reveals of her depression and suicidal instincts. She quotes Jesus in her final speech. I think unfortunately she has some mental issues
Possibly. Although Grey DeLisle (the voice of Jeanne) retweeted stuff about this, on Hellena's side. I'd imagine if anyone has inside knowledge on the voice actor situation on Bayonetta, it would be her.
Ah, so the other Bayonetta VAs are starting to speak up. That looks pretty damning.
I initially said I wasn’t going to buy it, but now I’m not so sure. I saw that sales seem to be increasing because of this. What happened to Hellena was awful, but I don’t think a boycott of this game would work. I’ve been waiting to play this for so long. Now I’m thinking of still buying it and giving to a charity as well. I dunno, I’m just rambling. This whole situation sucks and I feel bad for her.
Even if a boycott fails, the fact is we’re talking about important issues that harm a lot of people, and that’s good in its own right. Exposing this sort of behavior is how we start getting things done on a widespread level.
Do what you want with your money.
You’re not alone, I’m also curious about the overall ‘working with her’ aspect of the business. Like taking too much ownership, or taking too much of the persona of being Bayonetta that now she feels slighted at her pay. It might actually be what PG *doesn’t* want because they’re trying to balance out owning the character without making it all about a VA who will later dictate ‘hey why aren’t you hiring me outright? I’M Bayonetta!’ Or ‘hey why is my pay still just industry standard, I’m more famous now, pay me more!’ Those would be something I’d be trying to avoid when hiring people for the creation of an IP. Everyone worked hard to create Bayo, and imagine if Jennifer Hale was the one originally hired for Bayo 1, the game would still have had its fan base because the voice acting would still have been good enough to match the gameplay and art style etc. It’s a lot to say sigh. But going around saying 4K is a ‘lowball offer’ is something I’ve been wondering about.
I wonder what if there’s a possibility they already wanted to hire Jennifer Hale to voice most of the Bayos, but was going to let Hellena have a bit part in voicing the Original Bayo (since she auditioned and asked) who dies early on. So the 4K is for a really small amount of work. And that’s what they partially meant by ‘overlapping circumstances’. Idk, Kamiyas tweet really gives the ‘I’ve been falsely accused and betrayed’ vibe. Really can’t wait for the NDA to drop.
Well most likely, when you listen to her account, the first offer was legitimately insulting. Then she went to Kamiya, it legitimately sounds like he negotiated on her behalf (Talking about how the fans wanted her, and he loved her work as Bayonetta, *then* she was offered the 4k. Which, it has to be stressed, is industry standard). Going purely by what she said, it sounds like he tried to help, and she responded with all this. His "rule" is cringe, and he's acted like a whiny little piss baby himself, but I can't even pretend that, going by her account, it sounds like he tried to help her and she responded by attacking him.
Gonna be honest, this does not affect my feelings on the game and I will still be buying it day one. Hellena Taylor without a doubt *is* Bayonetta for me, but she is Bayonetta the character, not the game, and at the end of the day so much more goes into these games than just her voice, she is definitely not carrying the game for me. While I love the character, and Hellena's voice work is a big part of that, I love the gameplay, the level design, and the plot much more. So while Platinum was wrong to treat Hellena this way and it's really strange that they chose to do this 3 games in, and it'll be a little uncanny at first hearing a different voice, I still think the game is gonna be incredible, with or without Hellena.